On Jul 19, 2011, at 2:05 PM, Christopher Menzel wrote:
> On Jul 19, 2011, at 3:17 AM, sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> ...The possible worlds are useless baggage. They might give you some
>pleasure in your imagination. They might even be useful as illustrations.
>
> Your reasoning is much too facile. Lewis has provided very powerful
>theoretical arguments for realism about possible worlds (as he understands
>them). In a nutshell, he shows (very cleverly) how a variety of philosophical
>and semantical problems can be solved in terms of possible worlds. He then
>argues that belief in worlds is justified so long as there is a theory that
>has similar explanatory value without the ontological cost. (01)
Sorry, I garbled that. Lewis argues that belief in worlds is justified so long
as there is NO theory that has similar explanatory value but less of an
ontological cost. (02)
-chris (03)
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