Dictionary of Arguments


Philosophical and Scientific Issues in Dispute
 
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The author or concept searched is found in the following 7 entries.
Disputed term/author/ism Author
Entry
Reference
Causation Inwagen Lewis V 195
Individuation/redundant causation/Peter van Inwagen: thesis: an event that happens as a product of multiple causes could not have happened without being the product of these causes. The causes could not have caused any other event. Analogy to the individuation of objects and human beings by their causal origins.
LewisVsInwagen:
1. This would ruin my analysis of analyzing causation in concepts of contrafactual dependency. (s) Any deviation would be a different event, not comparable and it would not be applicable to contrafactual conditionals).
>Causation/Lewis.
2. It is prima facie implausible: I can legitimately make alternative hypotheses about how an event (or an object or a human being) has been caused.
But by that, I am assuming that it was the same event! Or that one and the same event might have had different effects. (Even Inwagen himself assumes that.)
Plan/LewisVsInwagen: a plan implies even more impossible: either my whole plans or hypotheses are hidden impossibilities, or they are not at all about a particular event.
Redundant causation/Lewis: important argument: if these are two "different deaths", then there is no redundancy!
>Effect, >Plan.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991
Determinism Inwagen Pauen I 273
Determinism/Peter van Inwagen/Pauen: determinism is not an implication of physicalism. The principle of causal closure refers to the fact that only physical explanations may be used. This does not mean that the cause/effect ratio must always be deterministic.
The principle of physical determination does not make a statement about the necessity of certain causal chains but only requires that there is a physically describable change for every change that can be described in a higher level.
van Inwagen: determinism thus stands for the thesis that the state of the world can be derived anytime later from a complete description and knowledge of the state of affair.
>Initial conditions.
Pauen: it is more than controversial that the determinism applies to our physical reality.
---
Lewis V 296
Determinism/VsSoft determinism/VsCompatibilism/van InwagenVsLewis: (against the soft determinism which I pretend to represent): E.g. supposed to reductio that I could have lifted my hand, though determinism would be true.
Then follows from four premises which I cannot deny that I could have produced a false conjunction HL from a proposition H over a time before my birth and a certain proposition about a law L.
Premise 5: if so, then I could have falsified L.
Premise 6: but I could not have falsified L (contradiction).
LewisVsInwagen: 5 and 6 are not both true. Which one is true depends on what Inwagen means by "could have falsified". But not in the ordinary language but in Inwagen's artificial language. Even there it does not matter what Inwagen himself means!
What is important is whether we can give a sense to this at all, which makes all premisses valid without circularity.
Inwagen: (verbally) third meaning for "could have falsified": namely, and only if the acting person could have arranged things the way that his/her acting plus the whole truth about the prehistory together imply the nontruth of the proposition.
Then, premise 6 says that I could not have arranged things the way that I was predestined not to arrange them like that.
Lewis: but it is not at all instructive to see that soft determinism has to reject premise 6 that was interpreted in that way.
V 297
Falsification/action/free will/Lewis: provisional definition: an event falsifies a proposition only if it is necessary that in the case that the event happens, then the proposition is false. But my act of throwing a rock would not itself falsify the proposition that the window in the course remains intact. Everything that is true, is that my act invokes another event that would falsify the proposition.
The act itself does not falsify any law. It would falsify only a conjunction of prehistory and law.
Everything that is true, is that my act precedes another act - the miracle - and this falsifies the law.
Weak: let us state that I would be able to falsify a proposition in the weak sense if and only if I do something, the proposition would be falsified (but not necessarily by my act and not necessarily by any event evoked by my act). (Lewis pro "weak thesis" (soft determinism)).
Strong: if the proposition is falsified either by my act itself or by an event which has been evoked by my act.
Inwagen/Lewis: the first part of his thesis stands, no matter whether we represent the strong or weak thesis:
If I could lift my hand although determinism is true and I have not lifted it then it is true in the weak and strong sense that I could have falsified the conjunction HL (propositions on the prehistory and the natural laws).
But I could have falsified the proposition L in the weak sense although I could not have falsified it in the strong sense.
Lewis: if we represent the weak sense, I deny premise 6.
If we represent the strong sense, I deny premise 5.
Inwagen: represents both premises by considering analogous cases.
LewisVsInwagen: I believe that the cases are not analogous: they are cases in which the strong case and the weak case do not diverge at all:
Premise 6/Inwagen: he asks us to reject the idea that a physicist could accelerate a particle faster than the light.
LewisVsInwagen: but that does not help to support premise 6 in the weak sense,...
V 298
...because the rejected presumption is that the physicist could falsify a natural law in the strong sense. Premise 5/Inwagen: here we are to reject the assumption that a traveler might falsify a conjunction of propositions about the prehistory and one about his/her future journey differently than by falsifying the nonhistorical part.
LewisVsInwagen: you can reject the assumption completely which does nothing to support premise 5 in the strong sense. What would follow if one could falsify the conjunction in the strong sense? That one could falsify the non-historical part in the strong sense? This is what premise 5 would support in the strong sense.
Or would only follow (what I think) that the non-historical part could be rejected in the weak sense? The example of the traveler does not help here because a proposition about future journeys could be falsified in the weak as well as the strong sense!
Cf. >Strength of theories.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Pauen I
M. Pauen
Grundprobleme der Philosophie des Geistes Frankfurt 2001

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991
Endurantism Inwagen Schwarz I 34
Endurantism/Van Inwagen/Schwarz: e.g. caterpillar/butterfly: thesis: there is no insect, nothing that exists beyond the pupation. Recombination/mereology/Schwarz: the existence of temporal parts follows directly from the mereological universalism together with the rejection of the presentism. Then there are also example aggregates from Socrates and the Eiffel Tower (mereological sum). Socrates is a temporal part of it, which at some point ceases to exist, just as e.g. a dried-out lake that fills up again during the rainy season.
Temporal parts/van Inwagen: (van Inwagen 1981)(1) van Inwagen basically rejects temporal parts.
>Mereology, >Parts, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum.
SchwarzVsInwagen: then he has to radically limit the mereological universalism or be a 'presentist'.
Cf. >Perdurantism.


1. Peter van Inwagen [1981]: “The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 62: 123–137.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Metaphysics Inwagen Schwarz I 27
Metaphysics/being/essential/van InwagenVsLewis/StalnakerVsLewis: knowing about contingent facts about the current situation would in principle not be sufficient to know all a posteriori necessities: Def strong necessity/Chalmers: thesis: in addition to substantial contingent truths, there are also substantial modal truths: e.g. that Kripke is essentially a human being, e.g. that pain is essentially identical to XY.
>Necessity, >a posteriori necessity, >necessity de re.
Important argument: knowledge of contingent facts is not sufficient to recognize these modal facts. How do we recognize them, perhaps we cannot do this (van Inwagen 1998)(1) or only hypothetically through methodological considerations (Block/Stalnaker 1999)(2).
A posteriori necessity/metaphysics/Lewis/Schwarz: normal cases are not cases of strong necessity. You can learn e.g. that Blair is premier or e.g. that the evening star corresponds to the morning star.
LewisVsInwagen/LewisVsStalnaker: other cases (which cannot be empirically found) do not exist.
LewisVsStrong Necessity: strong necessity has no place in his modal logic.
>LewisVsTelescope Theory: worlds are not like distant planets of which one can learn which ones exist.
>Possible worlds.


1. Peter van Inwagen [1998]: “Modal Epistemology”. Philosophical Studies, 92: 67–84.
2. Ned Block und Robert Stalnaker [1999]: “Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap”. The Philosophical Review, 108: 1–46.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Modalities Inwagen Schwarz I 227
Modality/LewisVsInwagen: there are no substantial modal facts: what possibilities there are is not contingent. You cannot get any information about this. >Modal facts.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Objects (Material Things) Inwagen Schwarz I 28ff
Object/thing/van Inwagen: (1990b(1)) thesis: parts only become an object when it is a living creature. After that, there are people, fish, cats but no computers, walls and bikinis. Object/thing/Lewis: better answer: two questions:
1. Under what conditions do parts form a whole? Under all! For any thing there is always a thing that they put together. (That is the definition of mereological universalism).
2. Which of these aggregates do we count in our everyday world as an independent thing? That we do not consider some aggregates as everyday things does not mean that these aggregates do not exist. (However, they exceed the normal domains of our normal quantifiers). But these limitations vary from culture to culture. It is not reality that is culture-dependent, but the part of reality that has been noticed. (1986e(2), 211 213, 1991:79 81).
>Mereology, >Parts, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum, >Ontology.
LewisVsInwagen/Schwarz: if only living creatures could form real objects, evolution could not begin.
LewisVsInwagen: no criterion for "living creatures" is so precise that it could draw a sharp cut.
Schwarz I 30
Lewis: for him this is no problem: the conventions of the German language do not determine with atomic accuracy to which aggregates "living creatures" applies (1986e, 212)(3). LewisVsInwagen: for him, this explanation is not available: for him, the border between living creatures and non-living creatures is the border between existence and non-existence. If it is vague what a living creature is, then existence is also vague.
Existence/van Inwagen: (1990b, Chap. 19)((1)) thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence.
LewisVsInwagen: (1991(3), 80f, 1986e(2), 212f): if one already said "there is", then the game is already lost: if one says, "something exists to a lower degree".
Def existence/Lewis: existence simply means to be one of the things that exist.


1. Peter van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.
2. D. Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell.
3. D. Lewis [1991]: Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Totality Inwagen Schwarz I 28ff
Wholes/object/thing/van Inwagen: (1990b)(1) thesis: parts only become an object when it is a living creature. After that, there are people, fish, cats but no computers, walls and bikinis. Object/thing/Lewis: better answer: two questions:
1. Under what conditions do parts form a whole? Under all! For any thing there is always a thing that they put together (That is the definition of mereological universalism).
2. Which of these aggregates do we count in our everyday world as an independent thing? That we do not consider some aggregates as everyday things does not mean that these aggregates do not exist. (However, they exceed the normal domains of our normal quantifiers). But these limitations vary from culture to culture. It is not reality that is culture-dependent, but the part of reality that has been noticed. (1986e(2), 211-213, 1991:79-81).
>Mereology, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum, >Ontology.
LewisVsInwagen/Schwarz: if only living creatures could form real objects, evolution could not begin.
LewisVsInwagen: no criterion for "living creatures" is so precise that it could draw a sharp cut.
Schwarz I 30
Lewis: for him this is no problem: the conventions of the German language do not determine with atomic accuracy to which aggregates "living creatures" applies (1986e(2), 212). LewisVsInwagen: for him, this explanation is not available: for him, the border between living creatures and non-living creatures is the border between existence and non-existence. If it is vague what a living creature is, then existence is also vague.
Existence/van Inwagen: (1990b(1), Chap. 19): thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence.
LewisVsInwagen: (1991(3), 80f, 1986e(2), 212f): if one already said "there is", then the game is already lost: if one says, "something exists to a lower degree".
Def existence/Lewis: existence simply means to be one of the things that exist.
>Existence.


1. Peter van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.
2. D. Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell.
3. D. Lewis [1991]: Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005

The author or concept searched is found in the following 3 controversies.
Disputed term/author/ism Author Vs Author
Entry
Reference
Four-Dimensionalism Wiggins Vs Four-Dimensionalism Simons I 115
WigginsVsFour Dimensionalism: the difference between a four-dimensional cat process and a sum of cat partial processes is
I 116
that the later phases of the sum may be unconnected, but those of the cat process may not be unconnected. Sum: can divide - Process: cannot
Process; cannot divide, sum: can divide.
Sum: can divide, even if this does not happen.
Process: cannot divide itself. (Logically impossible).
Modality/de re/Sum/Process: So sum and process differ in the modality de re, although they coincide as four-dimensional objects.
WigginsVsQuine: the modality is even referentially transparent in this case.
I 120
Tibbles-Example/Simons: i): the rejection of i) (or h)) allows to reject step (2). Tib and Tibbles coincide mereologically to t', but it is also sufficient to assume the super position of the two as a fact. The positive reason for never identifying Tib and Tibbles is Leibniz's Law: they differ because they differ in the qualities they have to t. (Tib = cat without tail).
I 121
g),e): their rejection blocks the step to (5). That tibbles to t' = Tib to t' then no longer means that they are identical to t. f): his refusal means reformulating identity with sortal predicates: E.g. Tib is the same cat as Tibbles to t' and the same cat part as Tib to t'. But we cannot conclude that Tib is the same cat as Tibbles to t' or the same cat part as Tibbles to t'.
This blocks the transitivity.
d): denying it means denying that Tib (and tail) exist to t, so the question does not arise what they are identical to what exists at the time.
Problem: if Tib comes into existence in an accident, how can it be identical with the previously existing Tibbles?
van Inwagen: accepts a) and b) and h) as well as classical identity. Therefore he must either deny that something (Tib) begins to exist or reject it like Chisholm: c).
Chisholm: Vs c).
Solution/van Inwagen: Tibbles gets smaller when the tail is gone, but the only thing that starts to exist is Tail (as a whole). SimonsVsInwagen, van: is against the common sense and unnecessarily radical. It is much easier to refuse h) or i).
Chisholm/Simons: is less radical in terms of identity logic or continuants, but more radical than just denying h) or i). Because denying c) blocks the argument already in step (2). Tibbles and Tib are not identical to t', although they are very closely connected, because at the time they are both constituted from the same mereologically constant ens per se.

Wiggins I
D. Wiggins
Essays on Identity and Substance Oxford 2016

Wiggins II
David Wiggins
"The De Re ’Must’: A Note on the Logical Form of Essentialist Claims"
In
Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987
Inwagen, P. van Lewis Vs Inwagen, P. van V 195
Individuation/Redundant Causation/Peter van Inwagen: Thesis: An event, which actually happens as a product of several causes, could not have happened had if it had not been the product of these causes. The causes could also not have led to another event. Analogy to individuation of objects and humans because of their causal origins.
LewisVsInwagen:
1. It would ruin my analysis to analyze causation in terms of counterfactual dependence. ((s) Any deviation would be a different event, not comparable, no counterfactual conditionals applicable.) 2. It is prima facie implausible: I am quite able to legitimately establish alternative hypotheses how an event (or an object or a human being) was caused.
But then I postulate that it was one and the same event! Or that one and the same event could have had different effects. >Events/Lewis.
(Even Inwagen postulates this.)
Plan/LewisVsInwagen: implies even more impossibilities: Either all my plans or hypotheses are hidden impossibilities or they do not even deal with particular event. >Planning.

V 296
Vs weak determinism/VsCompatibilism/van InwagenVsLewis: (against wD which I pretend to represent): e.g. Suppose of reductio that I could have lifted my left hand although determinism would be true.
Then follows from four premises, which I cannot deny, that I could have created a wrong conjunction HL from a proposition H of a moment in time before my birth, and a certain proposition about a law L.
Premise 5: If yes, I could have made L wrong.
Premise 6: But I could not have made L wrong. (Contradiction.)
LewisVInwagen: 5 and 6 are both not true. Which one of both is true depends on what Inwage calls "could have made wrong". However, not in everyday language, but in Inwagen's artificial language. But it does not matter as well what Inwagen means himself!
What matters is whether we can actually give sense to it, which would make all premises valid without circularity.
Inwagen: (oral) third meaning for "could have made wrong": only iff the actor could have arranged the things in such a way that both his action and the whole truth about the previous history would have implied the wrongness of the proposition.
Then premise 6 states that I could not have arranged the things in such a way to make me predetermined to not arrange them.
Lewis: But it is not instructive to see that compatibilism needs to reject premise 6 which is interpreted that way.
V 297
Falsification/Action/Free Will/Lewis: provisory definition: An event falsifies a proposition only when it is necessary that the proposition is wrong when an event happens. But my action to throw a stone is not going to falsify the proposition that the window which is on the other end of the trajectory will not be broken. The truth is that my action creates a different event which would falsify the proposition.
The action itself does not falsify a law. It would only falsify a conjunction of antecedent history and law.
The truth is that my action precedes another action, the miracle, and the latter falsifies the law.
feeble: let's say I could make a proposition wrong in a weak sense iff I do something. The proposition would be falsified (but not necessarily because of my action, and not necessarily because of an event which happened because of my action). (Lewis per "Weak Thesis". (Compatibilism)).
strong: If the proposition is falsified, either because of my action or because of an event that was caused because of my action.

Inwagen/Lewis: The first part of his thesis is strong, regardless of whether we advocate the strong or the weak thesis:
Had I been able to lift my hand, although determinism is true and I have not done so, then it is both true - according to the weak and strong sense- that I could have made the conjunctions HL (propositions about the antecedent history and the laws of nature) wrong.
But I could have made proposition L wrong in the weak sense, although I could not have done it wrong in the strong sense.
Lewis: If we advocate the weak sense, I deny premise 6.
If we advocate the strong sense, I deny premise 5.
Inwagen: Advocates both position by contemplating analogous cases.
LewisVsInwagen: I do believe that the cases are not analogous. They are cases in which the strong and the weak case do not diverge at all.
Premise 6/Inwagen: He invites us to reject the idea that a physicist could accelerate a particle faster than light.
LewisVsInwagen: But this does not contribute to support premise 6 in the weak sense.

V 298
Since the rejected assumption is that the physicist could falsify a law of nature in the strong sense. Premise 5/Inwagen: We should reject the assumption here that a traveller could falsify a conjunction of propositions about the antecedent history and the history of his future travel differently than a falsification of the non-historic part.
LewisVsInwagen: Reject the assumption as a whole if you would like to. It does not change anything: premise 5 is not supported in the strong sense. What would follow if a conjunction could be falsified in such a strong sense? Tht the non-historic part could be thus falsified in the strong sense? This is what would support premise 5 in the strong sense.
Or would simply follow (what I believe) that the non-historic part can be rejected in the weak sense? The example of the traveller is not helpful here because a proposition of future travels can be falsified in both weak as strong sense.

Schwarz I 28
Object/Lewis/Schwarz: Material things are accumulations or aggregates of such points. But not every collection of such points is a material object. Taken together they are neither constituting a cat nor any other object in the customary sense.
e.g. The same is valid for the aggregate of parts of which I am constituted of, together with the parts which constituted Hubert Humphrey at the beginning of 1968.
Thing: What is the difference between a thing in the normal sense and those aggregates? Sufficient conditions are difficult to find. Paradigmatic objects have no gaps, and holes are delimited from others, and fulfill a function. But not all things are of this nature, e.g. bikes have holes, bikinis and Saturn have disjointed parts. What we accept as a thing depends from our interests in our daily life. It depends on the context: e.g. whether we count the back wall or the stelae of the Holocaust Memorial or the screen or the keyboard as singly. But these things do also not disappear if we do not count them as singly!
Object/Thing/van Inwagen: (1990b)(1) Thesis: Parts will constitute themselves to an object if the latter is a living being. So, there are humans, fishes, cats, but not computers, walls and bikinis.
Object/Thing/Lewis: better answer: two questions:
1. Under what conditions parts will form themselves to a whole? Under all conditions! For random things there is always a thing which constitutes them. ((s) This is the definition of mereological Universalism).
2. Which of these aggregates do we call a singly thing in daily life? If certain aggregates are not viewed as daily things for us does not mean that they do not exist.(However, they go beyond the normal realms of our normal quantifiers.) But these restrictions vary from culture to culture. As such, it is not reality that is dependent on culture, but the respective observed part of reality (1986e(2), 211 213, 1991(3):79 81).
LewisVsInwagen/Schwarz: If only living things can form objects, evolution could not have begun. ((s) But if it is not a problem to say that living beings originated from emergentism, it should also not be a problem to say "objects" instead.)
LewisVsInwagen: no criteria for "living being" is so precise that it can clearly define.
Schwarz I 30
Lewis: It is not a problem for him: Conventions of the German language do not determine with atomic precision for which aggregates "living being" is accurate. (1986e(2), 212) LewisVsvan Inwagen: This explanation is not at his disposal: For him the distinction between living being and not a living being is the distinction between existence and non-existence. If the definition of living being is vague, the same is valid for existence as well.
Existence/Van Inwagen: (1990b(1). Kap.19) Thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence.
LewisVsvan Inwagen: (1991(3),80f,1983e(2),212f): If one already said "there is", then one has lost already: if one says that "something exists to a lesser degree".
Def Existence/Lewis: Simply means to be one of the things that exist.h

Schwarz I 34
Temporal Parts/van Inwagen: (1981)(4) generally rejects temporal parts. SchwarzVsInwagen: Then he must strongly limit the mereological universalims or be a presentist.

Schwarz I 227
Modality/LewisVsInwagen: There are no substantial modal facts: The existence of possibilities is not contingent. Information about this cannot be obtained.

1. Peter van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press
2. D. Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell
3. D. Lewis [1991]: Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell
4. P. van Inwagen [1981]: “The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 62: 123–137.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Stalnaker, R. Lewis Vs Stalnaker, R. Read III 101/102
Stalnaker equates the probability of the conditional clauses with the conditional probability. LewisVsStalnaker: there is no statement whose probability is measured by the conditional probability! (+ III 102)
According to Lewis, based on Stalnaker's assumption, the odds of drawing cards are independent. But this is obviously wrong (as opposed to throwing dice). Thus, the probability of the conditional clause cannot be measured by the conditional probability.
III 108
Example from Lewis If Bizet and Verdi were compatriots, Bizet would be Italian.
and
If Bizet and Verdi were compatriots, Bizet wouldn't be Italian.
Stalnaker: one or the other must be true.
Lewis: both are wrong. (Because only subjunctive conditional sentences are not truth functional). The indicative pieces would be entirely acceptable to those who do not know their nationality.

Lewis IV 149
Action/Rationality/Stalnaker: Propositions are the suitable objects of settings here. LewisVsStalnaker: it turns out that he actually needs a theory of attitudes de se.
Stalnaker: the rationally acting is someone who accepts various possible rational futures. The function of the wish is simple to subdivide these different event progressions into the desired and the rejected ones.
Or to provide an order or measure of alternative possibilities in terms of desirability.
Belief/Stalnaker: its function is simple to determine which the relevant alternative situations may be, or to arrange them in terms of their probability under different conditions.
Objects of attitude/Objects of belief/Stalnaker: are identical if and only if they are functionally equivalent, and they are only if they do not differ in any alternative possible situation.
Lewis: if these alternative situations are always alternative possible worlds, as Stalnaker assumes, then this is indeed an argument for propositions. ((s) Differentiation Situation/Possible world).
Situation/Possible world/Possibility/LewisVsStalnaker: I think there can also be alternatives within a single possible world!
For example, Lingens now knows almost enough to identify himself. He's reduced his options to two: a) he's on the 6th floor of the Stanford Library, then he'll have to go downstairs, or
b) he is in the basement of the Widener College library and must go upstairs.
The books tell him that there is exactly one person with memory loss in each of these places. And he found out that he must be one of them. His consideration provides 8 possibilities:
The eight cases are spread over only four types of worlds! For example, 1 and 3 do not belong to different worlds but are 3000 miles away in the same world.
In order to distinguish these you need qualities again, ((s) the propositions apply equally to both memory artists.)
V 145
Conditionals/Probability/Stalnaker: (1968)(1) Notation: ">" (pointed, not horseshoe!) Def Stalnaker Conditional: a conditional A > C is true if and only if the least possible change that makes A true, also makes C true. (Revision).
Stalnaker: assumes that P(A > C) and P(C I A) are adjusted if A is positive.
The sentences, which are true however under Stalnaker's conditions, are then exactly those that have positive probabilities under his hypothesis about probabilities of conditionals.
LewisVsStalnaker: this is probably true mostly, but not in certain modal contexts, where different interpretations of a language evaluate the same sentences differently.
V 148
Conditional/Stalnaker: to decide whether to believe a conditional: 1. add the antecedent to your set of beliefs,
2. make the necessary corrections for the consistency
3. decide if the consequence is true.
Lewis: that's right for a Stalnaker conditional if the fake revision is done by mapping.
V 148/149
LewisVsStalnaker: the passage suggests that one should pretend the kind of revision that would take place if the antecedens were actually added to the belief attitudes. But that is wrong: then conditionalisation was needed.
Schwarz I 60
Counterpart/c.p./counterpart theory/c.p.th./counterpart relation/c.p.r./StalnakerVsLewis: if you allow almost arbitrary relations as counterpart relations anyway, you could not use qualitative relations. (Stalnaker 1987a)(2): then you can reconcile counterpart with Haecceitism: if you come across the fact that Lewis (x)(y)(x = y > N(x = y) is wrong, (Lewis pro contingent identity, see above) you can also determine that a thing always has only one counter part per world. Stalnaker/Schwarz: this is not possible with qualitative counterpart relations, since it is always conceivable that several things - for example in a completely symmetrical world - are exactly the same as a third thing in another possible world.
LewisVsStalnaker: VsNon qualitative counter part relation: all truths including modal truths should be based on what things exist (in the real world and possible worlds) and what (qualitative) properties they have (>"mosaic": >Humean World).
Schwarz I 62
Mathematics/Truthmaking/Fact/Lewis/Schwarz: as with possible worlds, there is no real information: for example, that 34 is the root of 1156, tells us nothing about the world. ((s) That it applies in every possible world. Rules are not truthmakers). Schwarz: For example, that there is no one who shaves those who do not shave themselves is analogously no information about the world. ((s) So not that the world is qualitatively structured).
Schwarz: maybe we'll learn more about sentences here. But it is a contingent truth (!) that sentences like "there is someone who shaves those who do not shave themselves" are inconsistent.
Solution/Schwarz: the sentence could have meant something else and thus be consistent.
Schwarz I 63
Seemingly analytical truth/Lewis/Schwarz: e.g. what do we learn when we learn that ophthalmologists are eye specialists? We already knew that ophthalmologists are ophthalmologists. We have experienced a contingent semantic fact. Modal logic/Modality/Modal knowledge/Stalnaker/Schwarz: Thesis: Modal knowledge could always be understood as semantic knowledge. For example, when we ask if cats are necessary animals, we ask how the terms "cat" and "animal" are to be used. (Stalnaker 1991(3),1996(4), Lewis 1986e(5):36).
Knowledge/SchwarzVsStalnaker: that's not enough: to acquire contingent information, you always have to examine the world. (Contingent/Schwarz: empirical, non-semantic knowledge).
Modal Truth/Schwarz: the joke about logical, mathematical and modal truths is that they can be known without contact with the world. Here we do not acquire any information. ((s) >making true: no empirical fact "in the world" makes that 2+2 = 4; Cf. >Nonfactualism; >Truthmakers).
Schwarz I 207
"Secondary truth conditions"/truth conditions/tr.cond./semantic value/Lewis/Schwarz: contributing to the confusion is that the simple (see above, context-dependent, ((s) "indexical") and variable functions of worlds on truth values are often not only called "semantic values" but also as truth conditions. Important: these truth conditions (tr.cond.) must be distinguished from the normal truth conditions.
Lewis: use truth conditions like this. 1986e(5),42 48: for primary, 1969(6), Chapter V: for secondary).
Def Primary truth conditions/Schwarz: the conditions under which the sentence should be pronounced according to the conventions of the respective language community.
Truth Conditions/Lewis/Schwarz: are the link between language use and formal semantics, their purpose is the purpose of grammar.
Note:
Def Diagonalization/Stalnaker/Lewis/Schwarz: the primary truth conditions are obtained by diagonalization, i.e. by using world parameters for the world of the respective situation (correspondingly as time parameter the point of time of the situation etc.).
Def "diagonal proposition"/Terminology/Lewis: (according to Stalnaker, 1978(7)): primary truth conditions
Def horizontal proposition/Lewis: secondary truth condition (1980a(8),38, 1994b(9),296f).
Newer terminology:
Def A-Intension/Primary Intension/1-Intension/Terminology/Schwarz: for primary truth conditions
Def C-Intension/Secondary Intension/2-Intension/Terminology/Schwarz: for secondary truth conditions
Def A-Proposition/1-Proposition/C-Proposition/2-Propsition/Terminology/Schwarz: correspondingly. (Jackson 1998a(10),2004(11), Lewis 2002b(12),Chalmers 1996b(13), 56,65)
Def meaning1/Terminology/Lewis/Schwarz: (1975(14),173): secondary truth conditions.
Def meaning2/Lewis/Schwarz: complex function of situations and worlds on truth values, "two-dimensional intention".
Schwarz: Problem: this means very different things:
Primary truth conditions/LewisVsStalnaker: in Lewis not determined by meta-linguistic diagonalization like Stalnaker's diagonal proposition. Not even about a priori implication as with Chalmer's primary propositions.
Schwarz I 227
A posteriori necessity/Metaphysics/Lewis/Schwarz: normal cases are not cases of strong necessity. One can find out for example that Blair is premier or e.g. evening star = morning star. LewisVsInwagen/LewisVsStalnaker: there are no other cases (which cannot be empirically determined).
LewisVs Strong Need: has no place in its modal logic. LewisVs telescope theory: possible worlds are not like distant planets where you can find out which ones exist.


1. Robert C. Stalnaker [1968]: “A Theory of Conditionals”. In Nicholas Rescher (ed.), Studies
in Logical Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 98–112
2.Robert C. Stalnaker [1987a]: “Counterparts and Identity”. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 11: 121–140. In [Stalnaker 2003]
3. Robert C. Stalnaker [1991]: “The Problem of Logical Omniscience I”. Synthese, 89. In [Stalnaker 1999a]
4. Robert C. Stalnaker — [1996]: “On What Possible Worlds Could Not Be”. In Adam Morton und Stephen P.
Stich (Hg.) Benacerraf and his Critics, Cambridge (Mass.): Blackwell. In [Stalnaker 2003]
5. David Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell
6. David Lewis[1969a]: Convention: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University
Press
7. Robert C. Stalnaker [1978]: “Assertion”. In P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 9, New York: Academic Press, 315–332, und in [Stalnaker 1999a]
8. David Lewis [1980a]: “Index, Context, and Content”. In S. Kanger und S. ¨Ohmann (ed.), Philosophy
and Grammar, Dordrecht: Reidel, und in [Lewis 1998a]
9. David Lewis [1994b]: “Reduction of Mind”. In Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy
of Mind, Oxford: Blackwell, 412–431, und in [Lewis 1999a]
10. Frank Jackson [1998a]: From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis. Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. Frank Jackson [2004]: “Why We Need A-Intensions”. Philosophical Studies, 118: 257–277
12. David Lewis [2002b]: “Tharp’s Third Theorem”. Analysis, 62: 95–97
13. David Chalmers [1996b]: The Conscious Mind. New York: Oxford University Press
14. David Lewis [1975]: “Languages and Language”. In [Gunderson 1975], 3–35. And in [Lewis 1983d]

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Re III
St. Read
Thinking About Logic: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Logic. 1995 Oxford University Press
German Edition:
Philosophie der Logik Hamburg 1997

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005

The author or concept searched is found in the following theses of the more related field of specialization.
Disputed term/author/ism Author
Entry
Reference
Existence Lewis, D. Schw I 30
Existence / Van Inwagen: (1990b. Kap.19) some things are borderline cases of existence. LewisVsInwagen: (1991.80 f, 1983e, 212f): when you have already said "there is", then the game is already lost: when one says that "something exists to a lesser degree."
Def existence / Lewis: means simply to be one of the things that there are ((s) - "to be there" / "there are"/ existence, here: no difference, but still: Four dimensionalism see above pp 19.).