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10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts

[there are only closely resembling possible entities]

31 ideas
Leibniz has a counterpart view of de re counterfactuals [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: When Leibniz has the grounds of de re counterfactuals in mind, a counterpart picture, we have argued, is at work.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.2.2
     A reaction: If Leibniz were a 'superessentialist', then individuals would be totally worldbound (because their relations would be essential). Cover/Hawthorne argue that he is just a 'strong' essentialist, allowing possible counterparts. Quite persuasive.
Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke]
     Full Idea: Statements about the modal properties of this table never refer to counterparts. However, if someone confuses the epistemological problems and the metaphysical problems he will be well on the way to the counterpart theory of Lewis.
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.184 n16)
     A reaction: I can't make out what we should say about a possible object which is very nearly this table. Kripke needs the table to have a clear and unwavering essence, but tables are not that sort of thing. How would Kripke define 'physical object'?
The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider]
     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.
     From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 12) by Theodore Sider - Reductive Theories of Modality 3.10
     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 counterparts of Socrates have self-identity, but only the actual Socrates has identity-with-Socrates [Plantinga]
     Full Idea: While Socrates has no counterparts that lack self-identity, he does have counterparts that lack identity-with-Socrates. He alone has that - the property, that is, of being identical with the object that in fact instantiates Socrateity.
     From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], II)
     A reaction: I am never persuaded by arguments which rest on such dubious pseudo-properties. Whether or not a counterpart of Socrates has any sort of identity with Socrates cannot be prejudged, as it would beg the question.
Counterpart Theory absurdly says I would be someone else if things went differently [Plantinga]
     Full Idea: It makes no sense to say I could have been someone else, yet Counterpart Theory implies not merely that I could have been distinct from myself, but that I would have been distinct from myself had things gone differently in even the most miniscule detail.
     From: Alvin Plantinga (Transworld Identity or worldbound Individuals? [1973], II)
     A reaction: A counterpart doesn't appear to be 'me being distinct from myself'. We have to combine counterparts over possible worlds with perdurance over time. I am a 'worm' of time-slices. Anything not in that worm is not strictly me.
Unusual people may have no counterparts, or several [Kaplan]
     Full Idea: An extremely vivid person might have no counterparts, and Da Vinci seems to me to have more than one essence. Bertrand Russell is clearly the counterpart of at least three distinct persons in some more plausible world.
     From: David Kaplan (Transworld Heir Lines [1967], p.100)
     A reaction: Lewis prefers the notion that there is at most one counterpart, the 'closest' entity is some world. I think he also claims there is at least one counterpart. I like Kaplan's relaxed attitude to these things, which has more explanatory power.
Essence is a transworld heir line, rather than a collection of properties [Kaplan]
     Full Idea: I prefer to think of essence as a transworld heir line, rather than as the more familiar collection of properties, because the latter too much suggests the idea of a fixed and final essential description.
     From: David Kaplan (Transworld Heir Lines [1967], p.100)
     A reaction: He is sympathetic to the counterpart idea, and close to Lewis's view of essences, as the intersection of counterparts. I like his rebellion against fixed and final descriptions, but am a bit doubtful about his basic idea. Causation should be involved.
Unlike Lewis, I defend an actualist version of counterpart theory [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: I defend a version of counterpart theory that is quite different from Lewis's version, as it is tied to actualism (all that exists is part of the actual world) rather than possibilism (possible things may exist without actually existing).
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987], 1)
     A reaction: This could be the theory I am after. I am sympathetic to both actualism and to counterpart theory. Off to the woodshed….
If possible worlds really differ, I can't be in more than one at a time [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: Nothing can be in two places at once. If other possible worlds are really other universes, then clearly, you and I cannot be in them if we are here in this one.
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987], 2)
     A reaction: This can be sensibly expressed without possible worlds. I can't embody my other possibilities while I am embodying this one (I'm too busy). Insofar as possible worlds are a good framework, they are just a precise map of common sense.
If counterparts exist strictly in one world only, this seems to be extreme invariant essentialism [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: Counterparts involve the thesis that domains of different possible worlds are disjoint: possible individuals exist in at most one possible world. This seems to suggest extreme essentialism, where nothing could differ from how it is.
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987], 2)
     A reaction: He quotes Salmon (1981:236) as saying counterpart theory is particularly inflexible essentialism. This is a long way from my use of 'essentialism'. The problem is just the extent to which my counterpart is 'the same' as me.
Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: Things have modal properties only relative to the choice of a counterpart relation, and the choice between alternative counterpart relations is not constrained by the metaphysics.
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.6)
     A reaction: Stalnaker is sympathetic to counterparts, but this strikes me as a powerful objection to the theory. I take the modal properties of something to be fixed by its actuality.
Counterpart theory is bizarre, as no one cares what happens to a mere counterpart [Kripke on Lewis]
     Full Idea: Probably Humphrey could not care less whether someone else, no matter how much resembling him, would have been victorious in another possible world. Thus Lewis's view seems even more bizarre that the usual transworld identification it replaces.
     From: comment on David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968]) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity notes and addenda note 13
     A reaction: I begin to see this as a devastating reply to a theory I previously found quite congenial.
Counterparts are not the original thing, but resemble it more than other things do [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Your counterparts resemble you closely in content and context in important respects. They resemble you more closely than do the other things in their worlds. But they are not really you.
     From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], I)
     A reaction: It is a dilemma. If my counterpart were exactly me, I couldn't contemplate possibly losing a leg, or my sanity. But if my counterpart isn't exactly me, then I don't have much interest in its fate. Only essences can save us here. Cf. me tomorrow.
If the closest resembler to you is in fact quite unlike you, then you have no counterpart [Lewis]
     Full Idea: If whatever thing in world w6 it is that resembles you more closely than anything else in w6 is nevertheless quite unlike you; nothing in w6 resembles you at all closely. If so, you have no counterpart in w6.
     From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], I)
     A reaction: This is the nub, because the whole theory rests on deciding whether two things resemble sufficiently 'closely'. But then we need a criterion of closeness, so we must start talking about which properties matter. Essences loom.
Essential attributes are those shared with all the counterparts [Lewis]
     Full Idea: An essential attribute of something is an attribute it shares with all its counterparts.
     From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], III)
     A reaction: I don't like this. It ties essence entirely to identity, but I think essence precedes identity. Essence is a nexus of causal and explanatory powers which bestows an identity on each thing. But essence might be unstable, and identity with it.
The counterpart relation is sortal-relative, so objects need not be a certain way [Lewis, by Merricks]
     Full Idea: Lewis takes the counterpart relation to be sortal-relative, so he (no less than Quine) denies that objects, qua existing, are necessarily a certain way.
     From: report of David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986]) by Trenton Merricks - Truth and Ontology 5.III n10
     A reaction: Does this mean that there could be two different versions of the same possible world (certainly not!), or that worlds are entirely created by our concepts rather than by what is actually possible.
Why should statements about what my 'counterpart' could have done interest me? [Mautner on Lewis]
     Full Idea: If I only have counterparts in possible worlds who are not identical to me, statements about what I could have done will seem irrelevant to me, because they will be about someone else.
     From: comment on David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.115
     A reaction: We might rephrase the statement as "I could have been the person who did x". Presumably my counterpart is not just any stranger, but someone I could have been. "I could have been a brick" - now that seems irrelevant to me!
A counterpart in a possible world is sufficiently similar, and more similar than anything else [Lewis, by Mautner]
     Full Idea: 'Jack could have been taller' implies a different Jack in a different world, so Lewis defines a counterpart in a possible world as an individual sufficiently similar to Jack, and more similar to Jack than anything else in that world.
     From: report of David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.115
     A reaction: If we say something like "I could have been twins" or "I could have been a genius" in another world, it would need an odd concept of my personal identity for it to remain identical in those counterfactual situations. Lewis has a point.
In counterpart theory 'Humphrey' doesn't name one being, but a mereological sum of many beings [Lewis]
     Full Idea: For the counterpart theorist, the trick is to say that 'Humphrey' names not the Humphrey of our world, and not the Humphrey of another, but rather the trans-world individual who is the mereological sum of all those local Humphreys.
     From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 4.1)
     A reaction: On Lewis's perdurantism Humphrey is a 'spacetime worm' across his lifetime. Now we are adding all the possible Humphreys to the sum. I'm losing track of Humphrey's shape.
Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Counterpart Theory essentially reduces all problems about counterfactual identity to problems about choosing appropriate similarity relations. That is, Counterpart Theory essentially eliminates problems of counterfactual identity as such.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14)
We mustn't confuse a similar person with the same person [Jubien]
     Full Idea: If someone similar to Humphrey won the election, that nicely establishes the possibility of someone's winning who is similar to Humphrey. But we mustn't confuse this possibility with the intuitively different possibility of Humphrey himself winning.
     From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1)
Counterpart theory is not good at handling the logic of identity [Forbes,G]
     Full Idea: The outstanding technical objection to counterpart-theoretic semantics concerns its handling of the logic of identity. In quantified S5 (the orthodox semantics) a = b → □(a = b) is valid, but 'a' must not attach to two objects.
     From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 3.5)
Counterpart relations are neither symmetric nor transitive, so there is no logic of equality for them [Fitting/Mendelsohn]
     Full Idea: The main technical problem with counterpart theory is that the being-a-counterpart relation is, in general, neither symmetric nor transitive, so no natural logic of equality is forthcoming.
     From: M Fitting/R Mendelsohn (First-Order Modal Logic [1998], 4.5)
     A reaction: That is, nothing is equal to a counterpart, either directly or indirectly.
Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider]
     Full Idea: A counterpart relation is a similarity relation. Since there are different dimensions of similarity, there are different counterpart relations.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.4)
To decide whether something is a counterpart, we need to specify a relevant sortal concept [Hawley]
     Full Idea: When asked whether a possible object is a counterpart of something, we need to specify which sortal we are interested in.
     From: Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 6.2)
     A reaction: The compares this to the 'respect' in which two things are similar. For example, what would count as a counterpart of the current British Prime Minister? De re or de dicto reference?
If worlds are concrete, objects can't be present in more than one, and can only have counterparts [Read]
     Full Idea: If each possible world constitutes a concrete reality, then no object can be present in more than one world - objects may have 'counterparts', but cannot be identical with them.
     From: Stephen Read (Thinking About Logic [1995], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This explains clearly why in Lewis's modal realist scheme he needs counterparts instead of rigid designation. Sounds like a slippery slope. If you say 'Humphrey might have won the election', who are you talking about?
If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks]
     Full Idea: The existence of someone in another world who is a lot like me, but happier, is irrelevant to whether I - this very person - could have been happier, even if we call that other-worldly someone 'my counterpart'.
     From: Trenton Merricks (Objects and Persons [2003], §1.IV)
     A reaction: He says this is a familiar objection. I retain a lingering deterministic doubt about whether it ever makes to sense to say that I 'could' have been happy, given that I am not. It does seem to make sense to say that I was close to happiness, but missed it.
If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks]
     Full Idea: If Fido's being possibly black reduces (in Lewis's account) to the existence of black counterparts of Fido, then 'Fido is possibly black' is actually true, but it has no actually existing truthmaker.
     From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.I)
     A reaction: This problem is increasingly the target of my views about dispositions and powers. Fido is not possibly a prize-winning novelist, but is possibly dead or in good health, because of the actual nature and dispositions of Fido.
De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Anyone who wishes to avoid both bare identities and individual essences, without abandoning de re modality entirely, must adopt counterpart theory.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 4.1)
     A reaction: This at least means that Lewis's proposal has an important place in the discussion, forcing us to think more clearly about the identities involved when we talk of possibilities. Mackie herself votes for bare indentities.
Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: A may be a counterpart of B according to one counterpart relation (similarity of origin, say), but not according to another (similarity of later history).
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 5.3)
     A reaction: Hm. Would two very diverse things have to be counterparts because they were kept in the same cupboard in different worlds? Can the counterpart relationship diverge or converge over time? Yes, I presume.
Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: I take the 'overlap requirement' for Julius Caesar to be that, when considering how he might have been different, you have to take him as he actually was at some time in his existence, and consider possibilities consistent with that.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.5)
     A reaction: This is quite a large claim (larger than Mackie thinks?), as it seems equally applicable to properties, states of affairs and propositions, as well as to individuals. Possibility that has no contact at all with actuality is beyond our comprehension.