Or i might not have existed at all neither i myself, nor any counterpart of me. Possible worlds semantics university of notre dame. View possible worlds theory and fictional worlds research papers on academia. So in creating this world god made some evil to make the best of all possible worlds. Project muse possible worlds of fiction and history. Zaltay center for the study of language and information stanford university the appeal to possible worlds in the semantics of modal logic and the philosophical defense of possible worlds as an essential element of ontology have led philosophers and logicians to introduce other kinds of. The theory of fictional worlds considers fictional worlds to be specific kinds of possible worlds but, at the same time, fictional worlds are determined by their specific qualities. This universe is hierarchically structured by the opposition of one welldesignated element, to all the other members of the set ryan 2005, 446. The basic premise of text world theory is that human beings process and understand all discourse by constructing mental representations of it in their minds. Possible world, conception of a total way the universe might have been. Possible worlds semantics and fiction springerlink. On the other hand, the theory explains evil not by denying it or even rationalizing itbut simply by declaring it to be part of the optimum combination of elements that comprise the best possible godly choice. Possible worlds theory and contemporary narratology. Hence, unpacked in terms of the abstractionists definitions, the possible world truth conditions for modal propositions are themselves irreducibly modal.
Copies of acrobat reader are available free from adobe and are offered in many. His most recent work, possible worlds of fiction and history. As noted, possible world semantics does not make modal logic itself extensional. The intuition is that the meaning of a sentence specifies how the world would have to be for that sentence to be true or false. X has p essentially or necessarily, on the other hand, if x has p in every possible world. Beginning with a discussion of the extant semantics and pragmatics of fictionality. In this project, we used prover9 to prove the fundamental theorems of possible worlds theory, as developed in the paper by e. In this article, i discuss the view, championed by david lewis, that philosophers talk of possible worlds is the literal truth. Possible worlds theory and fictional worlds research. From this groundwork, the theory of possible worlds became a central part of many philosophical developments, from the 1960s onwards including. The creation of literary worlds can be understood within the framework of possible worlds theory as developed by thomas pavel, lubomir dolezel and others. This is because a literary text houses its own system of modality.
Also available online in html, pdf, and epub formats in a sidebyside. A classicallybased theory of impossible worlds edward n. Possible worlds semantics is a general approach to theories of meaning, on which meanings or, more precisely, semantic values are assigned to sentences in terms of the truthvalues they take across all possible worlds. Starting out from lubomir dolezels theory of possible worlds, the essay traces how ye shitao engages with historical knowledge and how he transforms such knowledge into imaginary worlds. The idea of possible worlds raised the prospect of extensional respectability for modal logic, not by rendering modal logic itself extensional, but by endowing it with an extensional semantic theory one whose own logical foundation is that of classical predicate logic and, hence, one on which possibility and necessity can ultimately be. Watch part 1 of our discussion on david lewis modal realism to find out. Therefore no possible world can exist without this being the case. Pdf the expressive power of the possible worlds theory.
In his two concepts of possible worlds 1986, peter van inwagen explores two kinds of views about the nature of possible worlds. The basis of possible worlds theory is the settheoretical idea that realitythe sum of the imaginableis a universe composed of a plurality of distinct elements. Possible worlds theory and contemporary narratology on jstor. Kripke transformed both the model theory of modal logic and the understanding of metaphysical modality. Possible worlds the extensionality of possible world. This paper sets reductive theories aside, and articulates and applies a framework for evaluating non. What does it mean to say something might have been true.
The concept of possible worlds henceforth pw, loosely inspired by leibniz. Three philosophical conceptions of possible worlds. Beyond these simple descriptions of modality in terms of possible worlds we find that the concept of modal realism allows us a great deal of further explanatory power a power that. Pdf possible worlds in recent literary theory marie. Lewis, 1986 has been used in literary studies and narratology dolezel. Developed by philosophers belonging to the anglosaxon school of analytic philosophy as a means to solve problems in formal semantics, pw theory was adapted. This paper reassesses lewiss theory and draws attention to some novel problems for his account. But unlike lewiss actual possible worlds we might one day have empirical evidence for the other physical worlds of multiverse theory. Open a book or article of contemporary analytic philosophy, and you are likely to find talk of possible worlds therein. This article argues that in order to fully appreciate the power of. What are possible worlds, and how do they factor into philosophy and our understanding of language.
Similar to tarskian semantics, a possible world interpretation m of a modal language. Taking its point of departure from possible worlds theory, the essay then focuses on speci. In heterocosmica, lubomir dolezel offers a complete theory of literary fiction based on the idea of possible worlds. Possible worlds theory and contemporary narratology updates the field of possible worlds theory and postclassical narratology by developing this theoretical framework further and applying it to a range of contemporary literary narratives. In addition, the essay analyzes the welter of new meanings generated by this transformation. The traditional theory of propositions 121 nominalism about propositions facts, states of affairs, and events 142 notes 150 further reading 152 5 the necessary and the possible 153 overview 153 problems about modality 154 possible worlds 158 possible worlds nominalism 162 the metaphysics of possible worlds nominalism david lewis 166. As to the question what kinds of things are possible worlds, it will be assumed that any theory answering this question should have as a consequence that every instance of the pw link is true. Hintikkas insight was to see that an agents beliefs could be characterized as a set of possible worlds, in the following way. I begin with a theory of possible worlds on which the notion of a possible world is explained in terms similar to other notions conveyed by english. These are laid out in detail in the corresponding sections below. The concept of possible worlds, originally introduced in philosophical logic, proves to be a productive tool when borrowed by literary theory to explain the notion of fictional worlds.
This is a survey article on the significance of possible worlds theory for literary studies. Reading the identity of dramatis personae through the. The concept of possible worlds, originally introduced in philosophical logic, has recently gained interdisciplinary influence. Some have hoped that a theory of possible worlds can be used to reduce modality to non. Incompleteness theory of euclidean possibleworlds semantics and resolution of the surprise quiz paradox i abstract our best attempt at formalizing modal intuitions in a logical system. In particular, he analysed the modeltheoretic conditions for the barcan formula and its converse to hold. The postmodern stage, both refines and furthers the fusion of possibleworlds theory and theory of fiction as he drafted it over ten years ago in heterocosmica. Thus, there are limits on the opinions that possible worlds may have. This applies not only to analytic metaphysics, but to areas as diverse as philosophy of language, philosophy of science, epistemology, and ethics.
As representatives of language as the universal medium, hintikka had. However, a literary world is a specific type of possible world, quite distinct from the possible worlds in logic. Best of all possible worlds, in the philosophy of the early modern philosopher gottfried wilhelm leibniz 16461716, the thesis that the existing world is the best world that god could have created. Project muse possible worlds theory and contemporary. In philosophy and logic, the concept of a possible world is used to express modal claims. Ruth ronen develops a comparative reading of the use of possible worlds in philosophy and in literary theory. Rather, it is the semantic theory itself more exactly, the logic in which the theory is expressed. Realism about possible worlds will be presupposed, where this is the thesis that there are several possible worlds, among which is the actual world. There has been much attention paid recently the idea of the right to the city. Possible worlds is being made available, free of charge, for personal i. Or the physical constants might have had somewhat different values, incompatible with the. Zalta, 25 basic theorems in situation and world theory in pdf. Pdf the expressive power of the possible worlds theory in video. Text world theory is a cognitivelinguistic model of human discourse processing.
This book is a masterly summary of the progress made so far in the application of possible worlds theory to narratology and a valuable indicator of the many fascinating and thoughtprovoking directions in which research can be taken in the future. Possible worlds in literary theory literature, culture. The expressive power of the possible worlds theory in video games. Starting in the mid70s, pw theory was adapted to the fictional worlds of narrative by. Pdf the philosophical concept of possible worlds lenzen, 2004. The manyworlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Possibleworlds theory by marielaure ryan entry for the routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory the theory of possible worlds henceforth pw, a modern adaptation of a leibnizian concept, was originally developed by philosophers of the analytic school kripke, lewis, rescher, hintikka as a means to solve problems in formal semantics. Henri lefebvre and the right to the city mark purcell university of washington abstract. Since the pioneering work by kripke and montague, the term possible world has appeared in most theories of formal semantics for modal logics, natural languages, and knowledgebased. Leibniz used the concept of a possible world in his proposed solution to the theological problem of the existence of evil, arguing that an allperfect god would actualize the best of all possible worlds. Preliminary motivations fictional worlds semantics builds to a considerable extent on the notion of possible worlds used by logical semantics. Possible worlds the living handbook of narratology. This volume systematically outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the possible worlds approach, provides.
What are those possible worlds, the entities to which theorists in these disciplines all appeal. The canonical version of possible worlds semantics for story prefixes is due to david lewis. Possible worlds, physics and metaphysics springerlink. Actualism and possible worlds 141 now be explained as much like modal properties of propositions. Leibnizs argument for the doctrine of the best of all possible worlds, now commonly called. The basic premise of text world theory is that human beings process and understand all discourse by constructing mental. Possible worlds stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. World literature and the creation of literary worlds. Text world theory aims to provide the analytical tools necessary for the systematic examination and discussion of these mental representations, or textworlds.
The next two chapters move beyond the constraints of a oneworld semantics, formulating a theory of possible worlds that is justifiable logically and linguistically, and. It is often contrasted with the way things actually are. Other possible worlds are just as real as the actual world. In particular, possibleworld theory provides a useful vocabulary and conceptual framework with which to describe such worlds. Other modal systems have been built around operators expressing what is known as propositional attitudes such as beliefs, obligation, and desires. The possible worlds model for logics of knowledge and belief was originally proposed by hintikka hintikka, 1962, and is now most commonly formulated in a normal modal logic using the techniques developed by kripke kripke, 1963. However, the relation between the model theory of modal logic and the correctness of formulas on their metaphysical readings is not straightforward.
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