Williamson on Counterpossibles

Berto, Francesco; French, Rohan; Priest, Graham; Ripley, David

doi:10.1007/s10992-017-9446-x

Cited by 71 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We are not much impressed by this objection. For one thing, the claim that metaphysical counterpossibles are all vacuously true is controversial (see Williamson 2017 andBerto et al 2017 for contrasting views on this matter). More importantly, we are using (5) just for illustrative purposes.…”

Section: Ms 2ms and The Whoosh Of Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

The moving spotlight(s)

Spolaore

Torrengo

2019

Inquiry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The moving spotlight account (MS) is a view that combines an eternalist ontology and an A-theoretic metaphysics. The intuition underlying MS is that the present time is somehow privileged and experientially vivid, as if it were illuminated by a moving spotlight. According to MS-theorists, a key reason to prefer MS to B-theoretic eternalism is that our experience of time supports it. We argue that this is false. To this end, we formulate a new family of positions in the philosophy of time, which differ from MS in that, intuitively, they admit a plurality of moving spotlights. We argue that these 'deviant' variants of MS cannot be dismissed as conceptually incoherent, and that they are as wellsupported by our experience as is MS. One of these variants, however, is consistent with the B-theory. Thus, if our experience of time supports MS, then it supports the B-theory as well.

show abstract

Section: Ms 2ms and The Whoosh Of Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

The moving spotlight(s)

Spolaore

Torrengo

2019

Inquiry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…And we know that in such worlds, the PEM fails. Similarly, in evaluating [2], we consider a world in which intuitionist logic holds, and we know that Explosion is still valid there.…”

Section: Vacuismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Elsewhere, I have advanced an answer to the question, and argued for it. 2 Theory-choice in logic is just a special case of theory-choice in general. The precise details of the implementation may differ, depending on the area of theory-choice in question (science, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic); but there is a uniform and general framework for theory-choice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Logical Theory Choice

Priest¹

2019

AJL

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is at present a certain dispute about counterfactuals taking place. What is at issue is whether counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents are all true. Some hold that such counterfactuals are vacuously true, appearances notwithstanding. Let us call such people vacuists. Others hold that some counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents are true; some are false: it just depends on their contents. Let us call such people non-vacuists. As a notable representative of the vacuists, I will take Tim Williamson. On the other side, I will take the position defended by Berto, French, Priest, and Ripley. I will argue (unsurprisingly) that the better choice is Non-Vacuism. That, however, is a subsidiary aim of this paper. The main point is to illustrate the method of theory-choice.

show abstract

“…In these semantics, involving impossible worlds, some counterpossibles are false, thereby vindicating nonvacuism. Semantics of this kind for counterfactual conditionals have been developed and defended by a variety of philosophers including Routley (1989), Read (1995), Nolan (1997), Mares and Fuhrmann (1995), Mares (1997), Vander Laan (2004, Kment (2006a,b), Brogaard and Salerno (2013), and, more recently, Berto et al (2017). Wierenga's case for vacuism is therefore unconvincing since the choice between vacuism and nonvacuism would hinge, ultimately, on which semantics for counterfactuals we adopt in order to properly evaluate the cogency of Zagzebski's argument.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wierenga on theism and counterpossibles

Lampert

2018

Philos Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles. Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected vacuism, she has offered an argument in favour of it, which Edward Wierenga has defended as providing strong support for vacuism that is independent of the orthodox semantics for counterfactuals, mainly developed by David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker. In this paper I show that argument to be sound only relative to the orthodox semantics, which entails vacuism, and give an example of a semantics for counterfactuals countenancing impossible worlds for which it fails.

show abstract

Williamson on Counterpossibles

Cited by 71 publications

References 45 publications

The moving spotlight(s)

The moving spotlight(s)

Logical Theory Choice

Wierenga on theism and counterpossibles

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About