Possible Worlds without Possibilia

Abstract

By “the World”, I mean the totality of all there is. There cannot, of course, be anything outside the World. Apart from the World itself, all that exists, subsists, or in any sense “is” must be part of the “furniture” of the World. It is common usage, philosophical and otherwise, that something referred to as “the world” could have been other than it is. While this usage may be different from my usage of “the World”, it is clear that if “the world” had been other than it is, then so would “the World” have been other than it is. So common usage at least implies that the World could have been many ways other than the way it is. By a “possible world”, I mean one of these ways the World might be or might have been. This notion of a possible world, or more accurately a family of more or less well understood notions resembling it, have been employed in the analysis of such philosophically troublesome concepts as necessity and possibility, obligation and permission, entailment, perception, and causation. But the notion of a possible world has itself been a rich source of philosophical puzzles.