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Single Idea 11903

[from 'On the Plurality of Worlds' by David Lewis, in 10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / d. Haecceitism ]

Full Idea

Lewis's strategy for defending extreme haecceitism is that supposed impossibilities (that I might have been a poached egg) could be reconstrued as genuine possibilities that are so remote from reality that they are ignored.

Gist of Idea

Extreme haecceitists could say I might have been a poached egg, but it is too remote to consider

Source

report of David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 239-) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 9.3

Book Reference

Mackie,Penelope: 'How Things Might Have Been' [OUP 2006], p.155


A Reaction

Not a promising route. Wiggins asks: if you think I could have been a poached egg, start by defining more precisely this 'I' to which we are referring. The definition will blatantly exclude any possibility of my poachedegghood.