The Counterpossibles of Science versus the Science of Counterpossibles

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 75 (4):947-970 (2024)
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Abstract

Orthodoxy has it that all counterpossibles are vacuously true. Yet there are strong arguments both for and against the use of non-vacuous counterpossibles in metaphysics. Even more compelling evidence may be expected from science. Arguably philosophy should defer to best scientific practice. If scientific practice comes with a commitment to non-vacuous counterpossibles, this may be the decisive reason to reject semantic orthodoxy and accept non-vacuity. I critically examine various examples of the purported scientific use of non-vacuous counterpossibles and argue that they are not convincing. They neither establish that scientific practice comes with a commitment to the non-vacuity of counterpossibles, nor that incurring such a commitment would be useful in scientific practice. I illustrate a variety of counter-strategies on behalf of orthodoxy.

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Daniel Dohrn
Università degli Studi di Milano

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References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Philosophy of Science 42 (3):341-344.
Models and Analogies in Science.Mary B. Hesse - 1966 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 3 (3):190-191.
How scientific models can explain.Alisa Bokulich - 2011 - Synthese 180 (1):33 - 45.
Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):535-572.
Interventionism and Causal Exclusion.James Woodward - 2015 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (2):303-347.

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