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Full Idea
Possible worlds are just abstract objects that play a certain role in philosophers' talk about modality. They are ways things could be. That's why there are no two abstract possible worlds which are qualitatively identical. They count as one world.
Gist of Idea
Possible worlds must be abstract, because two qualitatively identical worlds are just one world
Source
Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.10)
Book Ref
'Persistence: contemporary readings', ed/tr. Haslanger,S/|Kurtz,RM [MIT 2006], p.329
A Reaction
Brilliant! This looks like the best distinction between concrete and abstract. If two concreta are identical they remain two; if two abstracta are identical they are one (like numbers, or logical connectives with the same truth table).
Related Ideas
Idea 10516 A realistic view of reference is possible for concrete objects, but not for abstract objects [Dummett, by Hale]
Idea 10519 The abstract/concrete distinction is in the relations in the identity-criteria of object-names [Hale]
| 13990 | Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian] |
| 13991 | Presentism has the problem that if Socrates ceases to exist, so do propositions about him [Markosian] |
| 13992 | Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian] |
| 13994 | Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian] |
| 13995 | Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian] |
| 14002 | Possible worlds must be abstract, because two qualitatively identical worlds are just one world [Markosian] |
| 13996 | Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian] |
| 13997 | Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian] |
| 13998 | Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects [Markosian] |
| 13999 | People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something [Markosian] |
| 14000 | 'Grabby' truth conditions first select their object, unlike 'searchy' truth conditions [Markosian] |
| 13993 | Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian] |
| 14001 | People who use science to make philosophical points don't realise how philosophical science is [Markosian] |