Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.
(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)
On the plurality of actual worlds
Abstract
In this dissertation, I articulate and defend the claim that there are many actual worlds, and so there are many truths. My point of departure is an argument presented and criticized by Donald Davidson: (1) reality is relative to conceptual scheme, (2) there are many conceptual schemes, therefore, (3) there are many realities or worlds. Although it might seem that the weak premise is (1), Davidson's strategy is to attack (2). I maintain that in doing this, he isolates the scheme idea from the ontological background that gives it sense, and so he attacks a straw man. I aim to provide an account of the ontology underlying the scheme idea, which may be summarized in the thesis that there are many actual worlds. It follows, I argue, that there are many truths. My argument for these theses is based on the conception of what it is to be an object that Kant presents in the Transcendental Deduction of his first Critique. (I also discuss the work of Whorf, Quine, Goodman and Putnam, not to mention many others.) My argument has five premises. (1) There are many representing beings. (2) The set of representing beings partitions into many non-empty classes. (3) For each such class of representing beings, there is a set of purposes, and each set of purposes is incompatible with every other such set. (4) For each class of representing beings, there is an ideal sum of representations that has an asymmetric structure that is imposed by the set of purposes that is associated with the class of representing beings in question. (5) For each ideal sum of representations, there is an actual world. My argument proceeds as follows. (6) Given, (3) and (4), there is no ideal sum of representations that includes or subsumes all the ideal sums of representations that are associated with the various classes of representing beings. (7) Given (1), (2), (4) and (6), there are many ideal sums of representations. (8) Given (7) and (5), there are many actual worlds. (9) Given (7) and (8), there are many truths.
Subject Area
Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Blais, Andrew L, "On the plurality of actual worlds" (1994). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9434457.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9434457