Topics in the Philosophy of Possible Worlds

Content: Cover
 Title page
 Copyright
 Table of Contents
 Preface
 Introduction
 The General Approach
 Chapter One Possible Worlds
 What are \"\"Possible Worlds\"\"?
 The Competing Theories of Possible Worlds
 Chapter Two Towards Explaining the Connection Between Modality and Possible Worlds
 What Might the Connection between Possible Worlds Talk and Modal Operator Talk be?
 The Primitives of a Theory
 Modal Primitives
 Chapter Three Expressive Completeness without Possible Worlds
 The Hazen Cases
 Neutral Quantification
 The First Three Hazen Cases: Problems of Existence. Hazen Case Number Four: A Case to be Set AsideTwo Challenging Hazen Cases
 Defending The Use of Second-Order QML
 Chapter Four Problems for \'Strong\' Modal Fictionalism
 Three Varieties of Modal Fictionalism: Broad, Timid and Strong
 The First Problem: Artificiality
 The Second Problem: The Incompleteness of the Modal Fiction
 The Third Problem: Propositions
 An Assumption Relied on by the Incompleteness Objections, and a Defence Thereof
 A Final Problem: Redundancy
 Conclusion
 Chapter Five Representing Aliens
 The Problem
 Denials that the Problem Arises. Explaining the Caveat \"\"Not Constructible out of Existing Universals\"\"How to Represent Alien Universals
 The Problem for Linguistic Ersatzism and Modal Fictionalism
 Making Sure the World-Book Represents the Actual Universe
 From Universes to Worlds-Salvaging Ersatz Worlds from the Inter-Definition
 How a Linguistic Ersatzer Can Reply to Lewis\'s Objection Based on Alien Universals
 Conclusion
 Chapter Six Recombination Unbound
 The Principle of Recombination and Lewis\'s Restriction
 The Forrest/Armstrong Argument
 How Possibilia Can be Seen as Forming a Proper Class. Some Arguments Against the Thesis that there is a Maximum Size of Worlds (MS)Conclusion
 Chapter Seven A Reduction of Classes to Possible Worlds
 The State-of-Play in Lewis\'s System
 How Atoms Can Perform Double Duty
 A Surprising Feature of the Account
 Utilising the Surprising Feature
 Recapitulation
 Appendix One Proofs for Chapter Seven
 Section 1: Proving that My Systems Satisfy Lewis\'s So-Called \"\"Standard Axioms\"\"
 Section 2: Proofs of Impredicative Comprehension
 Appendix Two Trouble for Lewis\'s \"\"Main Thesis\"\"
 The Problem
 The Model
 The Remedy
 References
 Subject Index.