Practice question · Select all that apply
Which are genuine objections to using possible worlds to explain modality?
Hints
- Three are standard philosophical objections; one is a technical claim that is simply false.
- The semantics is technically very successful, that is why the objections are all metaphysical.
Show the answer
- A. If a world just is a way things could have been, the analysis is circular
- B. Worlds are causally isolated, so we cannot investigate them
- D. Concrete realism postulates an extravagant infinity of universes
Why
The objections are metaphysical and epistemological, not technical: the semantics works beautifully. Circularity is the deepest, if worlds are explained as possibilities, they cannot explain possibility.
Practise Modal Systems and Possible Worlds
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