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Single Idea 9221

[filed under theme 10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts ]

Full Idea

The most famous objection to counterparts is Kripke's objection that Hubert Humphrey wouldn't care if he thought that his counterpart might have won the 1972 election. He wishes that he had won it.

Gist of Idea

The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins

Source

report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 12) by Theodore Sider - Reductive Theories of Modality 3.10

Book Ref

'The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics', ed/tr. Loux,M /Zimmerman,D [OUP 2005], p.198

A Reaction

Like Sider, I find this unconvincing. If there is a world in which I don't exist, but my very close counterpart does (say exactly me, but with a finger missing), I am likely to care more about such a person than about complete strangers.

The 31 ideas with the same theme [there are only closely resembling possible entities]:

13080 Leibniz has a counterpart view of de re counterfactuals [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
9176 Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke]
9221 The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider]
11986 The counterparts of Socrates have self-identity, but only the actual Socrates has identity-with-Socrates [Plantinga]
11987 Counterpart Theory absurdly says I would be someone else if things went differently [Plantinga]
11973 Unusual people may have no counterparts, or several [Kaplan]
11972 Essence is a transworld heir line, rather than a collection of properties [Kaplan]
16409 Unlike Lewis, I defend an actualist version of counterpart theory [Stalnaker]
16411 If possible worlds really differ, I can't be in more than one at a time [Stalnaker]
16412 If counterparts exist strictly in one world only, this seems to be extreme invariant essentialism [Stalnaker]
16454 Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker]
16994 Counterpart theory is bizarre, as no one cares what happens to a mere counterpart [Kripke on Lewis]
11974 Counterparts are not the original thing, but resemble it more than other things do [Lewis]
11975 If the closest resembler to you is in fact quite unlike you, then you have no counterpart [Lewis]
11977 Essential attributes are those shared with all the counterparts [Lewis]
14404 The counterpart relation is sortal-relative, so objects need not be a certain way [Lewis, by Merricks]
5440 A counterpart in a possible world is sufficiently similar, and more similar than anything else [Lewis, by Mautner]
5441 Why should statements about what my 'counterpart' could have done interest me? [Mautner on Lewis]
16291 In counterpart theory 'Humphrey' doesn't name one being, but a mereological sum of many beings [Lewis]
17579 Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen]
11110 We mustn't confuse a similar person with the same person [Jubien]
12004 Counterpart theory is not good at handling the logic of identity [Forbes,G]
13726 Counterpart relations are neither symmetric nor transitive, so there is no logic of equality for them [Fitting/Mendelsohn]
14763 Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider]
16239 To decide whether something is a counterpart, we need to specify a relevant sortal concept [Hawley]
11000 If worlds are concrete, objects can't be present in more than one, and can only have counterparts [Read]
6133 If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks]
14402 If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks]
11890 De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P]
11892 Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P]
11893 Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P]