Plurality Of Worlds Research Articles

High Altitude Observatory: Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds

High Altitude Observatory: Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds

Sternenpolitik

Abstract Fontenelle’s dual role as a representative of the Modernes as well as the perpetual secretary of the French Academy of Sciences explains his hesitation in making any public statements about politics. Nevertheless, this article identifies within his best-known Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds a liberal interpretation of the heavens that is supported by the metaphorical transfer between political semantics and the field of cosmology. The idea of this liberality flourishes in the gallant dialogue between two protagonists (the marquise and the philosopher), unfolds within the context of an opening, expert scientific discourse, and is reflected through the physical description of a commerce among celestial vortices. Thus, different aspects of the political within the Conversations are examined - starting from the self-understanding of the individual all the way up to the idea of an egalitarian universe that is characterised by collective interaction.

The Infinity of the World and the Infinite Plurality of Phantasy-Worlds

In my paper, I will investigate the Husserlian concept of the world understood as a horizon of all horizons. Firstly, I will focus on the unifying horizontality in perception in order to lay out the fundamental features which determine a phenomenological account of the world. In a second step, I will investigate whether the same features can be found, when one takes up the task of describing the world of phantasy. I will show that for Husserl the all-unifying unique horizon can only be given, if we accept the primacy of perception. Finally, I will sketch out how these considerations can be fruitfully interpreted in the context of contemporary phenomenology, and namely in Marc Richir’s refoundation of phenomenology. If for Richir the primacy of perception has to be abandoned and phenomenology should be a phenomenology of phantasy-appearances, and if there is no intrinsic unifying tendency in phantasy that would account for a unique horizon of all horizons. As a consequence Richir has to deal with an infinite multiplicity of phantasy-worlds at the basic architectonical levels of his phenomenology. I suggest that this infinite multiplicity of phantasy-worlds has to be understood as a phenomenological description of what he has called the plurality of worlds in the Meditations phenomenologiques, his major work from the 90s.

Al-Bīrūnī and Avicenna on the Existence of Void and the Plurality of Worlds

Abstract The present paper is devoted to the famous letter exchange between al-Bīrūnī and Avicenna. Its main concern is to elaborate the philosophical content of two of the 18 questions, namely on the existence of void and the plurality of worlds. Since this has previously only been done in a superficial way, this paper aims to draw attention to al-Bīrūnī’s hitherto unknown philosophical doctrines. In the course of this investigation, it will be necessary to consider his arguments from the letters in view of the background of the ancient, Neoplatonic, and Arabic philosophical and theological discourse. Since this letter exchange is dated to the beginning of Avicenna’s career, his answers illuminate the development of his thought.

Nancy, Descartes, and Continuous Creation

AbstractThe present article investigates the role of Descartes’ doctrine of continuous creation in Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy. While it is not customary to take Descartes as a thinker of plurality, his doctrine of continuous creation affords Nancy the philosophical resources for thinking the plurality of worlds. In the first section of the article, we present Descartes’ argument for continuous creation, in accordance with which creation occurs not just once but is repeated at each instant. Yet, in Descartes, this doctrine remains wedded to a concept of an immutable creator. In the second section of the article, we present the stakes of Nancy’s deconstruction of creation ex nihilo, which results in the suspension of God as an immutable ground. For Nancy, creation of the world happens at each moment of the world but without a pre-determined end or plan.

Metaphysical and absolute possibility

It is widely alleged that metaphysical possibility is “absolute” possibility (Kripke in Naming and necessity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1980; Lewis in On the plurality of worlds, Blackwell, Oxford, 1986; van Inwagen in Philos Stud 92:68–84, 1997; Rosen, in: Gendler and Hawthorne (eds) Conceivability and possibility, Clarendon, Oxford, 2002, p 16; Stalnaker, in: Stalnaker (ed) Ways a world might be: metaphysical and anti-metaphysical essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003, pp 201–215; Williamson in Can J Philos 46:453–492, 2016). Kripke calls metaphysical necessity “necessity in the highest degree” (1980, p. 99). Van Inwagen claims that if P is metaphysically possible, then it is possible “tout court. Possible simpliciter. Possible period…. possib(le) without qualification (1997, p. 72).” And Stalnaker writes, “we can agree with Frank Jackson, David Chalmers, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and most others who allow themselves to talk about possible worlds at all, that metaphysical necessity is necessity in the widest sense (2003, p. 203).” What exactly does the thesis that metaphysical possibility is absolute amount to? Is it true? In this article, I argue that, assuming that the thesis is not merely terminological, and lacking in any metaphysical interest, it is an article of faith. I conclude with the suggestion that metaphysical possibility may lack the metaphysical significance that is widely attributed to it.

Language as Scientific Instrument: a Preliminary Digital Analysis of Christiaan Huygens' Last Writings and Correspondence

This essay focuses on a digital text analysis with AntConc computational linguistics tool in order to find, list and compare the most important key word occurrences and their collocations in some of Christiaan Huygens last writings, from 1686 to 1695 and posthumous. The greatest attention is payed to three key words – Animus , Potentia and Lex – related to the themes of God’s power, divine and human intelligence, probabilistic epistemology, natural theology and plurality of worlds. In addition, these key words are used to select the letters written by Huygens to the most important of his contemporaries on the same topics. This challenge firstly involves demonstrating that his last writings on philosophical and theological reflections on mechanistic philosophy are not an anomaly within Huygens’ wider work, and secondly showing that these are indications of Huygens’ involvement in a number of theoretical debates in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Genuine Modal Realism, the Humean thesis and advanced modalizing

The paper argues that Lewis’ Genuine Modal Realism, in taking the plurality of worlds to be necessarily the way it is, implies the existence of necessary connections of the sort that contradicts the Humean thesis that Lewis endorses. By endorsing, pace Divers, a non-redundancy interpretation of advanced modalizing, we gain the means to exactly state what these connections amount to.

Intentionality, Privilege and World Pluralism: Reply to Beillard

Abstract I respond to Julian Beillard’s (2016) critique of my arguments (2009, 2015) for a plurality of worlds. My initial arguments deployed the notions of relevant similarity and primitive triangulation found in the later writings of Donald Davidson. More specifically, I address Beillard’s claims that my use of intentionality to develop further Davidson’s concept of primitive triangulation is incoherent and leads to empirically absurd results. I argue that Beillard’s two main arguments—the causal objection and the coherence objection – fail due to a limited and erroneous understanding of the forms of intentionality relevant to primitive triangulation. I argue Beillard unjustifiably privileges one form of intentionality as the standard for what counts as real in a given world. Some of Beillard’s claims might in fact commit him to the world pluralism I advocate.

Rethinking IR from the Amazon

This article proposes Amazonia as a site to think world politics. The Amazon is invisible in the study International Relations (IR), yet its experiences are deeply global. I present the international dynamics at play in Amazonia at different historical moments to posit that this periphery has contributed to forging the political-economy of what is refer to as the core. The Amazon's absence from the study of IR speaks about the larger inequality in processes of knowledge production. Serious engagements with Amazonia are one way to invite a plurality of worlds in the production of theories, disrupting global divisions of labor in knowledge production ally.

HARLEQUIN SCIENCE: APHRA BEHN'SEMPEROR OF THE MOONAND THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS

In recent years, Aphra Behn's Emperor of the Moon (1687) has begun to attract considerable critical attention. Behn's play has been explored in the context of contemporary concerns about farce and spectacle, as a satire on the Royal Society or pedantic male scholarship, as a critique on identity issues, and even as an example of class mobility. This essay argues that Behn's play is largely a response to her reading of Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686) and that through commedia dell'arte, she ridicules that still contentious ‘scientific’ notion – the plurality of worlds.

On Lewis against magic: a study of method in metaphysics

David Lewis objected to theories that posit necessary connections between distinct entities and to theories that involve a magical grasping of their primitives. In On the Plurality of Worlds, Lewis objected to nondescript ersatzism on these grounds (and thus branded it as ‘magical’). The literature contains several reconstructions of Lewis’ critique of nondescript ersatzism but none of these interpretations adequately address his main argument because they fail to see that Lewis’ critique is based on broader methodological considerations. I argue that a closer look at his methodology reveals the broader objection he presented against nondescript ersatzism. This objection, I further argue, remains a challenge for the ersatzer who posits structure-less entities as possible worlds.

Essence in abundance

Fine (1994 “Essence and Modality”;, Philosophical Perspectives, 8: 1–16) is widely thought to have refuted the simple modal account of essence, which takes the essential properties of a thing to be those it cannot exist without exemplifying. Yet, a number of philosophers have suggested resuscitating the simple modal account by appealing to distinctions akin to the distinction Lewis (1983. “New Work For a Theory of Universals”;, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61: 343–377; 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell) draws between sparse and abundant properties, treating only those in the former class as candidates for essentiality. I argue that ‘sparse modalism’ succumbs to counterexamples similar to those originally posed by Fine, and fails to capture paradigmatic instances of essence involving abundant properties and relations.

The Role of Naturalness in Lewis's Theory of Meaning

Many writers have held that in his later work, David Lewis adopted a theory of predicate meaning such that the meaning of a predicate is the most natural property that is (mostly) consistent with the way the predicate is used. That orthodox interpretation is shared by both supporters and critics of Lewis's theory of meaning, but it has recently been strongly criticised by Wolfgang Schwarz. In this paper, I accept many of Schwarze's criticisms of the orthodox interpretation, and add some more. But I also argue that the orthodox interpretation has a grain of truth in it, and seeing that helps us appreciate the strength of Lewis's late theory of meaning. References T. Bays. The Problem with Charlie: Some Remarks on Putnam, Lewis and Williams. Philosophical Review 116:401–425, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2007-003 J. Hawthorne. Craziness and Metasemantics. Philosophical Review 116:427–440, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2007-004 R. Holton. David Lewis's Philosophy of Language. Mind and Language 18:286-295, 2003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0017.00228 D. Lewis. Convention: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1969. D. Lewis. Radical Interpretation. Synthese 27:331–344, 1974. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00484599 D. Lewis. Languages and Language. In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 7:3–35. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975. D. Lewis. Attitudes De Dicto and De Se. Philosophical Review 88: 513–543, 1979. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2184843 D. Lewis. Mad Pain and Martian Pain. In Ned Block, editor, Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, pages 216-232. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. D. Lewis. New Work for a Theory of Universals. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61: 343–377, 1983. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048408312341131 D. Lewis. Putnam's Paradox. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62: 221-236, 1984. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048408412340013 D. Lewis. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1986. D. Lewis. Meaning without Use: Reply to Hawthorne. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70: 106-110, 1992. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048408112340093 D. Lewis.. Reduction of Mind. In Samuel Guttenplan, editor, A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, pages 412–431. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Reprinted in Lewis 1999. References to reprint. D. Lewis. Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625343 W. Schwarz. Lewisian Meaning without Naturalness. Unpublished manuscript, 2006. W. Schwarz. David Lewis: Metaphysik und Analyse. Paderborn: Mentis-Verlag, 2009. T. Sider. Criteria of Personal Identity and the Limits of Conceptual Analysis. Philosophical Perspectives 15: 189–209, 2001a. T. Sider. Four-Dimensionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001b. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/019924443X.001.0001 T. Sider. Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. PMCid:3539916 R. Stalnaker. Lewis on Intentionality. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82: 199–212, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713659796 B. Weatherson. What Good Are Counterexamples?. Philosophical Studies 115: 1-31, 2003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1024961917413 B. Weatherson. Vagueness as Indeterminacy. In Richard Dietz and Sebastiano Moruzzi, editors, Cuts and Clouds: Vaguenesss, its Nature and its Logic, pages 77–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570386.003.0005 J. R. G. Williams. Eligibility and Inscrutability. Philosophical Review 116: 361-399, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2007-002

The Fates of Flesh

This article is an attempt to rethink the terms on which we understand cinematic realism. Cinema's very success in recording reality problematises the notion of reality by which “realism” has otherwise been oriented. This is because the world of the age of cinema is a plurality of worlds, with the times and places captured on film competing for credibility. It is not a question, epistemologically, of discovering the real world so much as, ethically, relearning the art of being embodied. Bazin and Mizoguchi are two figures from the middle of the twentieth century who confronted the open-ended challenge of cinematic realism and whose works provide the impetus for reflecting anew on what it means to exist bodily in an advanced technological society.

"Europe" as Utopia: Causes of Its Decline

The inhabitants of the European continent thought and acted as Europeans long before they spoke of themselves as Europeans. Talk of European unity is relatively recent in historical terms, even though it has been practiced since the Renaissance, indeed since the early Middle Ages. Whether we think of the communion of Christian churches and universities, the rediscovery of Greek art and literature in the Renaissance, or, finally, the taken-for-granted social intercourse among the European elites, national differences only played a subordinate role in this commonality. Montaigne's Journals (ca. 1580), Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686), Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1789), Herder's Another Philosophy of History for the Education of Mankind (1774), Goethe's Italian Journey (1786-88)—to mention only these extremely diverse but highly emblematic texts documenting European experience—provide the most eloquent testimony of an early awareness of European civilization, not to mention of a dialogue among the leading philosophers in the eighteenth century or the grand tours of the scions of the upper classes.

Badiou and the Politics of Form

In this essay, I explore Alain Badiou’s longstanding project of theorizing political situations and political transformation through the analysis of forms and formalisms. This amounts, I argue, to a politics of form that draws on the thought of Sartre, Althusser, and Lacan, but offers new alternatives for political thought and action today. In particular, Badiou’s rigorous consideration of forms, which draws on mathematics, model theory, set theory, and category theory, allows him to theorize political change in a way that avoids the errors of existing critical approaches. Central to this consideration are Badiou’s theory (Being and Event) of what he calls the event, which summons itself into existence by its own naming of itself or auto-nomination, and his recent theory of the plurality of worlds and their possible transformation in Logics of Worlds. I also discuss Badiou’s recent treatment of the 20th century project of formalization in The Century, arguing that Badiou’s analysis here offers useful terms for the political thought of the present situation.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Problems with Temporary Existence in Tense Logic

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Problems with Temporary Existence in Tense Logic

Everettian quantum mechanics without branching time

In this paper I assess the prospects for combining contemporary Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM) with branching-time semantics in the tradition of Kripke, Prior, Thomason and Belnap. I begin by outlining the salient features of ‘decoherence-based’ EQM, and of the ‘consistent histories’ formalism that is particularly apt for conceptual discussions in EQM. This formalism permits of both ‘branching worlds’ and ‘parallel worlds’ interpretations; the metaphysics of EQM is in this sense underdetermined by the physics. A prominent argument due to Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds, 1986) supports the non-branching interpretation. Belnap et al. (Facing the Future: Agents and Choices in Our Indeterministic World, 2001) refer to Lewis’ argument as the ‘Assertion problem’, and propose a pragmatic response to it. I argue that their response is unattractively ad hoc and complex, and that it prevents an Everettian who adopts branching-time semantics from making clear sense of objective probability. The upshot is that Everettians are better off without branching-time semantics. I conclude by discussing and rejecting an alternative possible motivation for branching time.

Social Constructionism as a Semiotical Paradigm: An Analytical Approach of Social Creativity

Today's global society, from the year 2000, is a paradigmatic shift period, dominated by a theoretical cleavage from theory of the postmodern paradigm, methodological individualism and programmatic deconstruction by a transmodern paradigm, centered on integration and border spiritualization both political and cultural, scientific, etc., with the dominant model based on constucţionist overall interpretation. Complementary to postmodern deconstruction, construcţionism kept its antirealist nature, centering on the multiplicity of experiences and interpretations in a plural world or even a plurality of worlds, and also the correlation with the meaning of words and interpretive will. It emerges through social or cultural mediation of interpretation. There is no single sense that corresponds to a single truth but a multiplicity of senses, reflection of the entire in various levels of fractal existence. Constructionist epistemology takes into account the development of scientific, social and cultural paradigms, as a negotiation of interpretations offered by data provided from empirical reality or in other areas such as theoretical knowledge, models, etc.