Metaphysics

Abstract

Abstract The metaphysics of possible and impossible worlds revolves around a number of questions. Should we treat worlds as genuine entities, which represent something as being F by having an F as a part? This is a hard position to maintain in the case of impossible worlds. Should we treat (non-actual) worlds as non-existent beings? Or should we think of them as abstract entities? Should we give the same answer to these questions for possible and impossible worlds? Yet a further option is to distinguish two senses of ‘is’—encoding vs exemplifying some property—and claim that impossible worlds encode without exemplifying impossibilities. All of these approaches face difficulties. If one thinks these difficulties are insuperable, one can always adopt the approach that worlds are primitive entities. Another fallback position is fictionalism about world, on which truths about worlds are always given ‘in the fiction’.