more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 16992

[filed under theme 10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds ]

Full Idea

A possible world isn't a distant country that we are coming across, or viewing through a telescope. …A possible world is given by the descriptive conditions we associate with it. …Possible worlds are stipulated, not discovered by powerful telescopes.

Gist of Idea

Possible worlds aren't puzzling places to learn about, but places we ourselves describe

Source

Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 1)

Book Ref

Kripke,Saul: 'Naming and Necessity' [Blackwell 1980], p.44

A Reaction

His point is that it is absurd to be puzzling over the identity of what exists in some possible world, because the world is specified by us. If I say 'Nixon might have been a frog', I must be referring to Nixon. The problem is whether it is true.

The 32 ideas with the same theme [overview of what we take possible worlds to be]:

23507 Unlike the modern view of a set of worlds, Wittgenstein thinks of a structured manifold of them [Wittgenstein, by White,RM]
23469 An imagined world must have something in common with the real world [Wittgenstein]
15786 Commitment to possible worlds is part of our ideology, not part of our ontology [Hintikka]
16992 Possible worlds aren't puzzling places to learn about, but places we ourselves describe [Kripke]
16983 Probability with dice uses possible worlds, abstractions which fictionally simplify things [Kripke]
11980 A possible world is a maximal possible state of affairs [Plantinga]
6975 Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties [Jackson]
4898 Possible worlds are indices for a language, or concrete realities, or abstract possibilities [Perry]
14507 Are possible worlds just qualities, or do they include primitive identities as well? [Adams,RM]
16437 Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker]
16444 Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker]
16445 I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker]
15793 We can take 'ways things might have been' as irreducible elements in our ontology [Stalnaker, by Lycan]
16396 Kripke's possible worlds are methodological, not metaphysical [Stalnaker]
14285 A possible world is the ontological analogue of hypothetical beliefs [Stalnaker]
16284 Ersatz worlds represent either through language, or by models, or magically [Lewis]
13968 Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames]
14675 Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N]
14672 Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N]
15795 Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan]
15796 Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan]
12007 Possible worlds are points of logical space, rather like other times than our own [Forbes,G]
7688 The actual world is a maximally consistent combination of actual states of affairs [Jacquette]
15068 The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K]
15069 Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K]
9213 The actual world is a possible world, so we can't define possible worlds as 'what might have been' [Fine,K]
8963 Four theories of possible worlds: conceptualist, combinatorial, abstract, or concrete [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz]
10466 Maybe possible worlds are just sets of possible tropes [Bacon,John]
14189 'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA]
14002 Possible worlds must be abstract, because two qualitatively identical worlds are just one world [Markosian]
18872 We should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds [Cameron]
15432 Structural universals might serve as possible worlds [Forrest, by Lewis]