David Lewis (Volume 4)

by Daniel Nolan

David Lewis's work is of fundamental importance in many areas of philosophical inquiry and there are few areas of Anglo-American philosophy where his impact has not been felt. Lewis's philosophy also has a rare his views form a comprehensive philosophical system, answering a broad range of questions in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of action and many other areas. This breadth of Lewis's work, however, has meant that it is difficult to know where to start in Lewis's work and a casual reader may often miss some of the illuminating connections between apparently quite disparate pieces of Lewis's work. This book aims to make this body of work more accessible to a general philosophical readership, while also providing a unified overview of the many contributions Lewis has made to contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. The book can be divided into four parts. The first part examines Lewis's metaphysical picture - one of the areas where he has had the greatest impact and also the framework for the rest of his theories. The second section discusses Lewis's important contributions in the philosophy of mind, language and meaning. The third part explores some of Lewis's work in decision theory, metaethics and applied ethics, areas where his work in not necessarily as widely appreciated, but in which he has done a range of work that is both accessible and important. The final section focuses on Lewis's distinctive philosophical method, perhaps one of his most significant legacies, which combines naturalism with "common-sense" theorizing.

Genres: Philosophy, Metaphysics

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 18, 2005

Reviews

[Warren Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that we have learned that the crazy bastards at Google have finally developed a self-aware AI (called Lambda), I imagine all sorts of ancient questions will resurface in a new light. So I thought it important to catch up on the work of our modern metaphysicians.

In the fascinating philosophy of David Kellogg Lewis, time travel is possible and almost any world you could possibly think of actually exists. Wow. Sometimes I think I went into the wrong career!

A summary of this interesting and influential 20th Century American thinker is provided here by Daniel Nolan, who takes the very technical writings of Lewis regarding metaphysical topics including, among other things, causation, realism, mind, morality, and language, and digests them in a surprisingly accessible and engaging book for the casual student as well as the professional philosopher.

Lewis believed that physics is the only science that gives us the set of all the natural properties that constitutes everything that exists in our world. In this sense, he is a scientific realist as well as a materialist. He believes that everything is made of spaciotemporal relations between point-sized things that have properties. In fact, these points in spacetime are the only things with perfectly natural properties which he presumes physics can tell us about. Of course, these properties could be beyond anything we have been able to conceive thus far--physics isn't finished yet.

He is not saying it is a necessary truth that everything is ultimately a matter of point-instantiations of properties linked by spatiotemporal relations, but only that this is so in possible worlds like our own. His bizarre and controversial ideas that any worlds we can think of really exist somewhere is called "modal realism," which is being used by many contemporary philosophers to analyze statements about what is possible or what is necessarily so.

When we say something about what is possible or necessary, what determines the truth or falsity of the statement? For example, I opened this review by suggesting I may have gone into the wrong line of work. I might even say, "I could have been a philosopher." We all have made statements like this at some point in our lives.

"I could'a been a contender! I could'a been somebody!"

So I am saying that one possibility for me was or is to enter the profession of philosophy. Sure, that seems true enough, right? But why? Normally, we think of a statement as true because it represents a situation that actually "obtains," but in my example, the statement represents a situation which does not actually obtain. So, why is the statement true?

Metaphysicians might respond that modal statements are not evaluated by how things actually are, but rather by how things might be or must be. Such modal facts are construed as facts about possible worlds, where the actual world is just one among the many worlds that are possible. But Lewis takes this a step further when he says that non-actual possibles exist in just the same way that we do.

Now, this is not as weird as you might think. Even hard science accepts things that can't be confirmed as existing if they are theoretically useful to talk about. Hell, even physicists believe in a multiverse. Take inflation theory, for example, which describes a hypothetical event that occurred when our universe was less than a second old. According to NASA, the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion, but this inflation didn't slow down uniformly. Individual universes "pinched off" of distant areas of expansion, creating an infinity of eternal inflation, filled with universes with its own laws of physics, its own collection of particles--in a sense, its own natural properties as Lewis envisioned.

So maybe Marvel comics were right after all, and the Scarlet Witch can really find her children somewhere out there after all!

I didn't always agree with Lewis' materialism, least of all his philosophy of mind. It was also clear that both Lewis (or the author) had a deep anger and bias against the core Christian belief of Jesus dying for the sins of the world. But this book helped me understand where he was coming from. And besides, as Lewis himself said, “the sceptical reader will consider breaking up the package and taking the parts that suit him.”

I read this book alongside my own study of some of Lewis' seminal papers like "New Work for a Theory of Universals," which also was useful in putting all these isolated examples of his ouvre into perspective so that I could better see how his conclusions impacted subsequent work in metaphysics as well as the philosophies of mind, language, science, and ethics.

There aren't a lot of books like this out there to help the general public appreciate the more contemporary work of philosophy, so kudos to David Nolan and Routledge Publishing for reprinting this book as part of the "Philosophy Now" series that brings fresh awareness to the work of these underappreciated thinkers and influencers.

Get yourself a copy, and be prepared to go down the rabbit hole. Literally.

[Kramer Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice overview of David Lewis's views on (almost?) everything he wrote about. I was previously quite familiar with his work on counterfactuals and modality, but a lot of the rest was very new to me. Despite this, I found the discussion on a wide range of topics very accessible and informative. Certainly worth reading for anyone interested in metaphysics, especially those who take seriously the Lewisian picture of the world.

[Henry Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant survey of Lewis's work. Nolan manages to explain Lewis's contributions to metaphysics and the philosophy of mind with outstanding clarity.

[Meg]

not gonna lie I skimmed most of that. I should have read this when I started the thesis :')

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful starting point for anyone looking for an introduction Lewis's philosophical work, which had a major impact on philosophy of mind and contemporary metaphysics, among other things.

[Evan Streeby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never know how to rate these introductions that cover complete philosophical oeuvres, but this one has strong examples for his interpretation and convinced me with examples and metaphors that he at least understands what he’s writing about.

The writing was clear and good

[Renato · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mais abrangente introdução a filosofia de David Lewis.