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Full Idea
The familiar complaint against Lewis is that if his worlds existed, they'd be part of actuality.
Gist of Idea
If possible worlds really exist, then they are part of actuality
Source
comment on David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 11.5
Book Ref
Sider,Theodore: 'Writing the Book of the World' [OUP 2011], p.248
A Reaction
Sider presents that as rather superficial, but it sounds a pretty good objection to me. Lewis would note that only our world has the indexical features which he says pick out actuality. Real possible worlds might lack indexical features?
| 15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 16959 | If possible worlds have no structure (S5) they are equal, and it is hard to deny them reality [Dummett] |
| 12255 | For Lewis there is no real possibility, since all possibilities are actual [Oderberg on Lewis] |
| 9219 | Lewis posits possible worlds just as Quine says that physics needs numbers and sets [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15022 | If possible worlds really exist, then they are part of actuality [Sider on Lewis] |
| 10469 | A world is a maximal mereological sum of spatiotemporally interrelated things [Lewis] |
| 16283 | For me, all worlds are equal, with each being actual relative to itself [Lewis] |
| 12008 | Unlike places and times, we cannot separate possible worlds from what is true at them [Forbes,G] |
| 12009 | The problem with possible worlds realism is epistemological; we can't know properties of possible objects [Forbes,G] |
| 4586 | You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil] |
| 10982 | How can modal Platonists know the truth of a modal proposition? [Read] |
| 12465 | Concrete worlds, unlike fictions, at least offer evidence of how the actual world could be [Jacobs] |