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Full Idea
Total ways things cannot be are also 'worlds', or maximal ways for things to be. They are impossible worlds.
Gist of Idea
Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be
Source
Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], I)
Book Ref
Salmon,Nathan: 'Metaphysics, Mathematics and Meaning' [OUP 2005], p.132
A Reaction
This unorthodox view doesn't sound too plausible to me. To think of a circular square as a 'way things could be' sounds pretty empty, and mere playing with words. The number 7 could be the Emperor of China?
| 16132 | On mountains or in worlds, reporting contradictions is contradictory, so no such truths can be reported [Lewis] |
| 16133 | Possible worlds can contain contradictions if such worlds are seen as fictions [Lewis] |
| 6079 | If 'possible' is explained as quantification across worlds, there must be possible worlds [McGinn] |
| 14674 | Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| 14682 | Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N] |
| 14687 | Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| 13749 | Belief in impossible worlds may require dialetheism [Schaffer,J] |
| 18748 | Epistemic logic introduced impossible worlds [Horsten/Pettigrew] |