Actuality, Possibility, and Worlds (Hardcover)

Preface

Part I. Introduction
Section 1 Generic definitions and basic modal realism
Section 2 Metaphysical versus logical possibility?
Section 3 S5
Section 4 Eight views of possibility

Part II. Applications and pseudo-applications
Section 1 Modality
Section 2 Counterfactuals and causality
Section 3 Propositions
Section 4 Properties
Section 5 Overall assessment

Part III. The Lewisian ontology of extreme modal realism
Section 1 The Lewisian account of possible worlds
Section 2 Identity vs. counterpart theory
Section 3 Indiscernible worlds?
Section 4 Lewis's arguments for his ontology
Section 5 Objections to Lewis's account of actuality
Section 6 The possibility of spatio-temporally unrelated co-actual entities
Section 7 Cardinality and the "set" of all possible worlds
Section 8 Ethical issues
Section 9 Induction and actuality
Section 10 The epistemological objection
Section 11 Explaining the actual in terms of the necessary
Section 12 A final assessment of extreme modal realism

Part IV. Platonic ersatz ontologies
Section 1 The general strategy
Section 2 Linguistic approaches
Section 3 Platonism
Section 4 Conclusions

Part V. Sketches towards a Spinozistic-Tractarian account of modality
Section 1 Asserting, naming and infallibility
Section 2 Spinoza
Section 3 A radical theory of modality
Section 4 Costs
Section 5 The less radical theory

Part VI. Aristotelian-Leibnizian ontology
Section 1 Leibniz's approach
Section 2 Aristotelian possibility and causality
Section 3 Combining with the Spinozistic-Tractarian view
Section 4 Ordinary alethic modal talk
Section 5 The Principle of Sufficient Reason
Section 6 Ontology and implications
Section 7 The main challenges to Lewisian and Platonic ontologies can be resolved
Section 9 Objections to the A-L view

Part VII. Final conclusions
Section 1 Cost-benefit arguments for the Aristotelian-Leibnizian ontology of possible worlds
Section 2 Choosing between accounts of possibility

Bibliography