Shanobi
04/09/2012
PHIL 389
Do We Need Impossibility?
Ever since David Lewis introduced his method of dealing with counterfactuals by taking
advantage of possible worlds there has been the question of what to do with the resulting
impossible worlds. Some philosophers reject them outright saying that they do not even exist,
others say that they may exist but hold no logical purpose, and a small number of others say
that they in fact may be able to help us solve some problems. Though many address impossible
worlds in brief there are few that actually delve into this confusing topic. I have chosen three
philosophers each discussing the topic of impossible worlds and entities for very different
reasons to look at the various uses that some have for these interesting and peculiar things and
to answer the question: are there such things as impossible worlds?
Two of the philosophical papers I review have topics that are based around reviewing
yet another author to respond to their views, effectively giving me two viewpoints in one
reading. The first of these philosophers is Jeffery C King with his paper, What in the World Are
the Ways Things Might Have Been? He is commenting on Robert Stalnaker’s Ways a World
Might Be as well as stating his own view. Both King and Stalnaker are actualists about
possibility, saying that if there are such things as other possible worlds then we must be able to
locate them the same way we do everything else, through the actual world. That being said it is
obvious that that is an un-provable contention, leading them to not view possible worlds as
concrete objects that we are spatiotemporally separated from (as Lewis upholds) but rather as
possible states of our actual world, properties that it may have had. However, only one of these
properties is instantiated, the way the world actually is.
That being said they differ on one major and very important point: Stalnaker believes
that only the metaphysically possible worlds (or, rather, states of affairs) exist; whereas King
believes in metaphysically impossible states of affairs as well. How could it be that two
philosophers who both are actualists hold such different views? King explains that it is mainly
because he has no way of explicitly disproving their existence. This seems somewhat backwards
to me, normally you see people arguing the opposite case, that because you can’t prove that
something does exist means you have reason to doubt. This should hold especially true for
philosophers who, for the most part, are focused on making the simplest possible case.
However, with this view King is able to do some pretty cool things.
Now, as was said, King and Stalnaker are actualists, so they view possible worlds as
uninstantiated properties. King says that these are large and very complex, made up of many
parts with properties and relations. He says that these can become so complex that it would be
foolhardy to assume that every single one would prevent properties that would not be
instantiated. This leads him to think that there must be metaphysically impossible worlds, or, in
his words, “…big properties the world could not have had, because they contain as parts
properties that are necessarily uninstantiated” (King 448). Stalnaker would have none of this,
King maintains, but calls him out on why not. After all, if other worlds are simply different
properties the world might have had, why would they be limited to the possible properties?
King returns to his original point of saying that, “if Stalnaker cannot provide a principled reason
for thinking impossible worlds don’t exist, he should accept that they do” (King 449).
King then tries to figure out Stalnaker’s reason to not believe in these impossible worlds,
looking for textual clues to help him. He quotes Stalnaker who says to the effect that the only
possible worlds are ones with elements of the actual world, as well as that they are not
concrete, but rather abstract objects whose existence is inferred by rational agents. King went
on to explain that he thinks that properties exist independently of minds and languages,
meaning that if our minds and languages never existed then the properties still would have
existed, almost returning to a sort of “Plato’s Heaven” view. Either way, he finalizes his paper
saying that he sees no reason to deny impossible worlds and says that Stalnaker has no reason
either.
The next author that I looked at has a much different view on the whole matter. Phillip
Bricker challenges and discusses McGinn’s book Logical Properties in his paper DiscussionMcGinn on Non-Existent Objects and Reducing Modality. It is sometimes hard to discern
Bricker’s position because he seems to agree on most points with McGinn, or rather, focuses on
discussing McGinn’s views rather than his own. Actually, the only thing they disagree on
fundamentally is the use of necessity, but that’s not why this paper is interesting to us.
Bricker/McGinn start by arguing with the traditional Russellian view on existence. The
issue they raise is that the condition “having instances” that is central to Russell’s view should
be altered to say, “having instances that exist” (Bricker 440). The reason they want to make this
distinction is so that nonexistent objects, such as Sherlock Holmes, can still hold instances, such
as being a man. Thus existence itself would become a property, one which some things like
Holmes lack. Now this lets in some interesting problems, namely that Holmes is just as real as
you or me, but that he simply lacks the property of true existence. That being said Holmes is
free to have his own set of beliefs. Where it gets bizarre is that Holmes holds the belief that
Watson exists, something we know to be false, but for him is true. To take it even further
Bricker asks us to imagine another mythical detective named Notson. Holmes does not believe
that Notson exists, but for an entirely different reason than we do. So, strangely, “In Holmes
stories, Holmes is a man” entails “Holmes is a man,” whereas “In Holmes stories, Holmes
exists,” does not entail, “Holmes exists,” for some reason. So this view of existence as a
property is not very sturdy unfortunately.
Bricker then diverges from McGinn’s book to ask himself a few metaphysical questions.
He states oddly, “[Holmes believes] that he exists. Holmes doesn’t exist, so he is wrong in this
belief. I believe that I exist, and (presumably) I am right. But whatever sort of evidence,
whatever sort of reason I have for believing that I exist, Holmes, it seems, could have as well.
How then can I know that I exist?” (Bricker 444). He offers one contention in his favor: Holmes
and other non-existent objects are incomplete and indeterminate. “[It] is neither true nor false
that Holmes has a freckle on his left shoulder” (Bricker 444) as he puts it. However, he still
seems shaky with this, mainly because a fully determinate fictional object is still possible, at
least in principle. Bricker awkwardly puts this point aside as absurd skepticism, and moves on
from existence to necessity, the part that is more useful to us.
According to McGinn the notion of “world” could neither include nor avoid impossible
ones. Supposedly, if it does include impossible worlds in its semantics then the analysis would
be inadequate making truth in an impossible world sufficient for being possible. I am not sure
what he means by this, and unfortunately Bricker does not elaborate leaving a very important
problem and issue to us up in the air. But, what is more interesting is that they hold the belief
that if impossibility is not included then the possible worlds model would be circular. According
to McGinn if impossible worlds are to be excluded from the semantics of worlds “possibly p”
and would mean the same as “in some possible world, p.” This seems odd to me because the
two things they are worried about being synonymous are the same reason Lewis wanted to
make the concept of possible worlds in the first place. He wanted another way to say possibly p
and necessarily p. Yet McGinn is calling out his semantics for being circular? This is a silly
problem, making me really wonder about the reputability of the author. The rest of the paper
expands on this topic, cumulating in Bricker saying that Lewis’s modal is not able to exclude
impossible worlds, and it would not be enough for him to simply hear Lewis say that there are
none. However his conclusion is highly open ended, he does not say what he would like Lewis
to argue or claim, nor does he even make a statement as to his own beliefs on the existence of
impossible worlds. I can extrapolate that he does not believe in them or support them, but that
is never clearly stated.
So we have two authors, arguing for and against impossibility, but we have yet to get a
true definition or coherent and logical argument to their need to exist. Francesco Berto
addresses this problem in his paper Impossible Worlds and Propositions: Against the Parity
Thesis. Berto is my favorite and probably most useful of these authors, concise and clear about
his views, yet very technical. He starts his paper by addressing a major problem with the
possible worlds account of propositions, the Granularity Problem. Briefly put, the granularity
problem states that possible worlds can include opposite and opposing properties, for example
that swans are blue and that swans are not blue. This leads him and many other philosophers
to turn to the idea that we are discussing, the concept of impossible worlds. Could it be as easy
as just letting impossible world exist to get rid of the Granularity problem? It seems to me that
Berto thinks that it can.
However, you are left with a new problem now by accepting impossible worlds, one that
is called the Parity Thesis, which he devotes the rest of the article to solving. The Parity Thesis,
put simply, is all impossible worlds must be of the same kind, meaning that the same rules need
to apply to both possible and impossible worlds. This causes a dilemma. Berto and other
philosophers are not willing to accept that impossible worlds are Lewisian or that possible
worlds are all ersatz (fake cheap knock offs of the real world). He spends the next several pages
of his paper talking about all of the philosophers who advocate one or the other and the
problems that all of them face.
After advocating all of the other positions he takes his own seemingly unique approach
to the problem. He seems to think that the Parity Thesis is not all that much of a problem and
comes up with his own solution he calls Hybrid Modal Realism. He wants to make a
compromise, saying that possible worlds can be realist and Lewisian, whereas impossible
worlds can be abstract ersatz worlds. He says that he is fine with outright rejection of the parity
thesis because this solution works so well that it makes up for it. I’m not sure that I understand
his logic, but he moves right along to talk of why it is such a great idea. He presents many
reasons why his solution is all inclusive and then reviews his own theory to specifically point out
the good and bad parts, something that helps his credibility in this otherwise very dense
reading. He concludes by reminding the audience that his Hybrid Modal Reasoning is just a
sketch of a theory and implores others to try to support or reject it.
We now have three views on the existence of possible worlds: one which says that they
do because there is no reason for them not to; one which (supposedly) says they do not
because that would cause circular reasoning; and another which argues for their necessity
because of its removal of the Granularity problem. Unfortunately I am not very happy with any
of these solutions and thus would like to give my own. Put simply I do believe in impossible
worlds and moreover that they are concrete Lewisian worlds somewhere out there. The main
reason I think this is because the universe does not base itself around human understanding.
Philosophers seem to get wrapped up around the idea that we have to be able to comprehend
every part of a problem for it to be true. Reality was going on long before humans were here to
rationalize it. So, simply because we cannot wrap our head around the concept of an
“impossible” world does not mean that they cannot exist. And, as King said, if there is no reason
for something not to exist, there is every reason for it to exist. This problem really appealed to
me because in the Zen tradition of Buddhism the masters regularly answer the questions that
their disciples give them with conundrums usually taking the form of “A and not A.” These
impossible answers challenge the mind of the disciples to question the normal ways of the
world. Who knows? The master’s enlightenment could, in a broad and general sense, have
allowed them to comprehend these concrete impossible worlds that we believe are still purely
irrational.