In this paper, I will discuss “possible worlds” and two opposing metaphysical theories concerning them. A possible world, simply put (if that is possible), is a tool employed in theorizing about ways the world might have been. If Historian David Reynolds wants to speculate about counterfactual history and imagines a world in which Lee Harvey Oswald had not shot John F. Kennedy, he is utilizing a possible world. I will attempt to show that Lewis’s modal realism encounters the same problems as his seemingly lethal objection to Ersatzism.
“Modal Realism”
David Lewis’s theory about possible worlds (also known as “modal realism”) is twofold. (1) There exists many possible worlds and (2) these possible worlds are real; every possible world has a cosmos. Lewis agrees that there are many possible ways the world could have been. However, he goes further, in saying, if there exists the possibility that Barry Goldwater was elected in 1964, there is an actualized independent world in which he was elected, rather than it being merely an abstract entity. Other, seemingly implausible, claims, such as “there are flying horses,” are true as well in a bona fide world.…show more content… Possible worlds have opinionation: For any world (w), and any sentence (φ), either φ is true at w, or NOT φ is true at w. Ersatzism holds possible worlds are simply a collections of opinion about a particular