Possible Worlds presents the first up-to-date and comprehensive examination of one of the most important topics in metaphysics. John Divers considers the prevalent philosophical positions, including realism, antirealism and the work of important writers on possible worlds such as David Lewis, evaluating them in detail.

Ever since Saul Kripke and others developed a semantic interpretation for modal logic, 'possible worlds' has been a much debated issue in contemporary metaphysics. To propose the idea of a possible world that differs in some way from our actual world - for example a world where the grass is red or where no people exist - can help us to analyse and understand a wide range of philosophical concepts, such as counterfactuals, properties, modality, and of course, the notions of possibility and necessity. This book examines the ways in which possible worlds have been used as a framework for considering problems in logic and argument analysis. The book begins with a non-technical introduction to the basic ideas of modal logic in terms of Kripke's possible worlds and then moves on to a discussion of 'possible for' and 'possible that'. The central chapters examine questions of meaning, epistemic possibility, temporal logic, metaphysics, and impossibility. Girle also investigates how the idea of a possible world can be put to use in different areas of philosophy, the problems it may raise, and the benefits that can be gained.

The concept of possible worlds is useful because it defines the four modalities – possibility, necessity, contingency, and impossibility – but a challenge lies in defining it. David Lewis’ polemical hypothesis (“genuine modal realism” as it is called) succeeds in it. Lewis’ modal realism stirred controversy because he maintains that a plurality of worlds exists. Some philosophers suggest that the Lewisian view is a violation to the law of parsimony, also known as Ockham’s Razor, i.e. not multiply entities beyond necessity. While avoiding a circular definition, Lewis constructs an inflated ontology. Is it worth it, and if we do not want to assume too many Lewisian worlds, what alternatives remain? Actualist modal realism and modal antirealism are the most relevant alternatives because modal abstentionism simply will not progress in this direction. This study evaluates the theories of possible worlds.

Written in hypertext and read from a computer, hypertext novels exist as a collection of textual fragments, which must be pieced together by the reader. The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction offers a new critical theory tailored specifically for this burgeoning genre, providing a much needed body of criticism in a key area of new media fiction.

Possible worlds in humanities, arts, and sciences : proceedings of Nobel Symposium 65.

From its use in literary theory, film criticism and the discourse of games design, Salomé Voegelin expands 'possible world theory' to think the worlding of sound in music, in art and in the everyday. The modal logic of possible worlds, articulated principally via David K. Lewis and developed through Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological life-worlds, creates a view on the invisible slices of the world and reflects on how to make them count, politically and aesthetically. How to make them thinkable and accessible as the possibility of the everyday and of art: to reach a new materialist understanding from the invisible and to develop an ear for the as yet inaudible. This revised edition continues Voegelin's exploration of the sonic possibility of the world into the sonic possibility and impossibility of the body. Listening to work by Áine O'Dwyer, Hannah Silva and Jocy de Oliveira, it considers sonic possible worlds' radical power to rethink normative constructions and to fabulate a different body from its sound: Hearing the Continuum Between Plural Bodies; between humans, humanoid aliens, monsters, vampires, plants, things and anything we have no name for yet but which a sonic philosophy might start to hear and call.

Originally published: New York: Farrar. Straus, and Giroux, 2008.

This book discusses a range of important issues in current philosophical work on the nature of possible worlds. Areas investigated include the theories of the nature of possible worlds, general questions about metaphysical analysis and questions about the direction of dependence between what is necessary or possible and what could be.

The first comprehensive survey of the criticisms of Leibniz's philosophical optimism in the first half of the eighteenth century, when what has been called the ‘debacle of the perfect world’ first began.

Modal realism says that non-actual possible worlds and individuals are as real as the actual world and individuals. Takashi Yagisawa defends modal realism of a variety different from David Lewis's theory. The notion of reality is left primitive and sharply distinguished from that of existence, which is proposed as a relation between a thing and a domain. Worlds are postulated as modal indices for truth on a par with times, which are temporal indices for truth. Ordinary individual objects are conceived as being extended in spatial, temporal, and modal dimensions, and their transworld identity is explicated by the closest-continuer theory. Impossible worlds and individuals are postulated and used to provide accounts of propositions, belief sentences, and fictional discourse.