Thinker · TH-0119
David Lewis
David Lewis was an American philosopher, trained at Harvard and long based at Princeton, whose systematic metaphysics shaped late twentieth-century analytic philosophy. He defended…
Also known as David Kellogg Lewis
1941 – 2001 · Oberlin, Ohio; Harvard; Los Angeles; Princeton
Traditions: Analytic
David Lewis was an American philosopher, trained at Harvard and long based at Princeton, whose systematic metaphysics shaped late twentieth-century analytic philosophy. He defended modal realism, the view that other possible worlds are as real as ours, while acknowledging the 'incredulous stare' it provokes. He also developed perdurantism about persistence, an account of counterfactuals and conventions, and the thesis that composition is analogous to identity, making unrestricted composition ontologically innocent.
Key ideas
- Possible worlds are concrete and as real as the actual world; 'actual' is indexical.
- Objects persist by having temporal parts, which answers the problem of temporary intrinsics.
- Composition is analogous to identity, so wholes are no addition to being over their parts.
- Counterfactuals are true or false according to what holds at the closest possible worlds.
Major works
- Convention (1969)
- Counterfactuals (1973)
- On the Plurality of Worlds (1986)
- Parts of Classes (1991)
In the conversation
- Question Bent when sitting, straight when standing: what is the problem of temporary intrinsics?
- Debate Not every coherent prior is rational: subjective Bayesianism is far too permissive
- Debate Possibility lives in the powers of real things, not in other worlds
- Debate The incredulous stare is a perfectly respectable argument against modal realism
- Discussion Frank Jackson gave up on Mary. Should the rest of us?
- Question Do the laws of physics make things happen, or only describe what happens?
- Discussion “But for the defendant’s act”: thirty-one years of counterfactuals from the bench
- Debate Unrestricted composition is the only principled answer to when parts make a whole
- Reading group Reading group: David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (1986), chapters 1–4