By: William Melendez

William Melendez — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:36:02 +0000

After reading this paper several times, I have to confess that I am unable to understand the argument that is supposed to support the thesis that, despite Lewis’ statements to the contrary, Lewisian modal realism entails ‘metaphysical vagueness’. I am not sure that I even understand exactly what the author means by ‘metaphysical vagueness’; its definition is not so obvious.
However, I do recognize that a valid intuition about counterpart theory is made in the paper, which I believe to be that the answer to the question ‘when are Davis Lewis’ counterparts exhausted?’ would be arbitrary, and so, contra Lewis, counterpart theory is not “precise” enough to allow us to do any real “de re” metaphysic work. Moreover, I get the point that Kripke does not have this problem because all Kripkes across all possible worlds are identical and necessarily so. Kripkean identity is a strict and necessary relation.
What I found to be the more interesting critique of Lewis was the short remarks against Lewis’ ontological commitment that there is a finite answer to the question of how many objects are in the world. I think the criticism that Lewis’ commitment could lead to question begging is insightful. If Lewis had claimed that there being a finite answer was a brute metaphysical fact, then everyone would have to simply agree or disagree, but he didn’t cover himself that way. Case in point, when Quine asks the question ‘what exists’ and answers it with ‘Everything!’ it seems intuitive to ask if Quine has said anything substantive or is he close to question begging- what exists is what exists.
I would have liked to have read more analysis on this assumption of Lewis’ instead of having it mentioned just as another argument thrown in like cannon fodder against Lewis, since I think it could have payed off with dividends. The point was well taken.

Comments on: The Case For Vague Objects

By: William Melendez