Abstract
The paper pinpoints certain unrecognized difficulties that surface for recombination and duplication in modal realism when we ask whether the following inter-world fixity claims hold true: 1) A property is perfectly natural in a world iff it is perfectly natural in every world where it is instantiated; 2) Something is mereologically atomic in a world iff all of its duplicates in every world are atomic. In connection to 1), the hypothesis of idlers prompts four variants of Lewis’s doctrine of perfectly natural properties, all deemed unsatisfactory for the purposes of duplication and recombination. By means of 2), instead, we show that the principle of recombination does not countenance the atomicity or non-atomicity of duplicates; but it should, because it is genuinely possible that: a) something, which is atomic, is non-atomic; and b) something, which is non-atomic, is atomic. In discussing 1) and 2), the paper substantiates a tension in Lewis’s metaphysics between modal intuitions and the reliance on the natural sciences.
References
Chisholm, R. 1973. “Parts as Essential to Their Wholes.” Review of Metaphysics25:581–603.Search in Google Scholar
Chisholm, R. 1976. Person and Object: A Metaphysical Study. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Search in Google Scholar
Darby, G., and D.Watson. 2010. “Lewis’s Principle of Recombination.” dialectica64:435–45.10.1111/j.1746-8361.2010.01242.xSearch in Google Scholar
Divers, J. 2013. “The Analysis of Possibility and the Extent of Possibility.” dialectica67:183–200.10.1111/1746-8361.12017Search in Google Scholar
Divers, J., and J.Melia. 2002. “The Analytic Limit of Genuine Modal Realism.” Mind111:15–36.10.1093/mind/111.441.15Search in Google Scholar
Efird, D., and T.Stoneham. 2008. “What Is the Principle of Recombination?.” dialectica62:483–94.10.1111/j.1746-8361.2008.01159.xSearch in Google Scholar
Kelly, A. 2013. “Ramseyan Humility, Scepticism, and Grasp.” Philosophical Studies164:705–26.10.1007/s11098-012-9871-1Search in Google Scholar
Langton, R. 1998. Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Langton, R., and D. K.Lewis. 1998. “Defining “Intrinsic.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research58:333–45.10.2307/2653512Search in Google Scholar
Leuenberger, S. 2010. “Humility and Constraints on O-Language.” Philosophical Studies149:327–54.10.1007/s11098-009-9352-3Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1968. “Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic.” Journal of Philosophy65:113–26.10.2307/2024555Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1983a. “New Work for a Theory of Universals.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy61:343–77.10.1080/00048408312341131Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1983b. “Extrinsic Properties.” Philosophical Studies44:197–200.10.1007/BF00354100Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1986a. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1986b. Philosophical Papers Vol. II. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0195036468.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1991. Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1994. “Humean Supervenience Debugged.” Mind103:473–90.10.1093/mind/103.412.473Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 2001. “Redefining “Intrinsic.” ” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research63:381–98.Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 2009. “Ramseyan Humility.” In Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, edited by D. Braddon-Mitchell, R. Nola, 203–22. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262012560.003.0009Search in Google Scholar
McDaniel, K. 2006. “Modal Realisms.” Philosophical Perspectives20:303–31.10.1111/j.1520-8583.2006.00109.xSearch in Google Scholar
Nolan, D. 1996. “Recombination Unbound.” Philosophical Studies84:239–62.10.1007/BF00354489Search in Google Scholar
Taylor, B. 1993. “On Natural Properties in Metaphysics.” Mind102:81–100.10.1093/mind/102.405.81Search in Google Scholar
©2015 by De Gruyter
