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Title: On the Plurality of Worlds by David K. Lewis, David Lewis ISBN: 0-631-22426-2 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $33.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: More Reviewers Need to Read the Book
Comment: It should be noted, contrary to a previous reviewer, that David Lewis' account of modal realism is completely incompatible with the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics. If you are looking for a philosophical foundation for that project look elsewhere. Lewis defends the view that there are infinitely many concrete possibly worlds that are **non-actual (from the perspective of our world), and both spaciotemporally and causally isolated from all other worlds**. This latter condition clearly does away with any likeness between the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and genuine realism interpretation of possible worlds; if the other worlds aren't causally related to ours then what is their theoretical utility in explaining causal processes of this world--i.e. in doing this-wordly physics? In summary, Lewis' possible worlds don't interact empirically with ours and therefore they are of no interest or theoretical utility to this-worldy physicists.
Having gotten that topic out of the way, I would also like to give my opinion of the book. Extremely intelligent people can brow beat you into believing just about anything. Reading Lewis is tiring even for the most brilliant--at least tiring if you resist, if you go along with him it is more like unmitigated intellectual paradise.
I believe that modal realism is false. The argument for this belief, however, can only start where On the Plurality of Worlds leaves off; the book will serve as a prolegomena for all future modal reductionism and metaphysics until a more ontologically tenable account that overcomes Lewis' objections is advanced. At this point I do not think it is clear that such an account has been advanced, and accordingly this book is still a great place to start. The literature is immense and growing rapidly though. Keep your eyes peeled. Some attractive ideas have been presented by Theodore Sider (see particularly: "The Ersatz Pluriverse", Journal of Philosophy, June 2002). Still, you will probably need to read this book to understand the context of much of the discussion; it all tends to revolve around Lewis' arguments.
Rating: 5
Summary: Most significant contribution to metaphysics in many years
Comment: It's obvious to me that some of these reviewers don't understand either what Lewis was doing in this book or the standard philosophical response to it. He wasn't arguing that there are multiple universes connected to ours in some way explorable through science. Those would be parts of this world, in Lewis' sense. The worlds he's talking about are possible worlds. They aren't actual. That is, they don't exist in any way spatiotemporally or causally connected with the actual world. And yet he says they're as concrete as we are.
Philosophers' responses to this view are incredibly interesting. They think the idea is nuts, and yet they have no way to resist the conclusion that he gives compelling arguments that his view solves numerous philosophical problems that no one has been able to deal with in a perfectly satisfactory way. This doesn't convince many people that his view is correct, but the response has been pretty strong among those who want to use his system without thinking that it's true. They call it a modal fiction, and the view is called fictionalism. This is becoming incredibly influential among metaphysicians.
Aside from all that, most metaphysicians today recognize this book as just incredibly fruitful and creative in bringing together so many different strains in metaphysics. He deals with so many problems in such a lucid way that the book serves to introduce many problems in metaphysics, making advances in the discussion even apart from the contribution of his main thesis.
Rating: 4
Summary: Modal Realism -What's it all about (Alfie)?
Comment: Crudely this book has been written to coordinate Cantor's transfinite number and set theory with philosophy.
In English, this means that if space is infinite, then there are infinite worlds. This is rather like thinking of matter, and the creation of worlds, as outcomes of an infinite Las Vegas slot machine (my analogy-not his!) Some worlds will have someone called Hubert Humphrey who wins a US election, for example. But he will not be the same as the Hubert Humphrey who occupies this planet with us. (see chapter on Transworld Individuals, ie there
arent any people who exist in more than one world at a time, however similiar they are to other ones.
This is a lot of fun, iof you enjoy strange ideas and understand words bigger than marmelade. I used the dictionary more times than I have since reading Spot the Dog and Janet and John Book 1. The book is studied as part of the foundation course in Philosophy at Harvard, according to some pages I read on the Internet.
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Title: Counterfactuals by David Lewis ISBN: 0631224254 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $30.95 |
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Title: Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology by David Lewis, David K. Lewis ISBN: 0521587875 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time by Theodore Sider ISBN: 0199263523 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Conceivability and Possibility by Tamar Szabo Gendler, John Hawthorne, John O'Leary-Hawthorne ISBN: 0198250908 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Philosophical Papers (Philosophical Papers) by David Lewis ISBN: 0195036468 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1987 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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