Ways a World Might Be

Résumé : This book features a collection of papers on metaphysical topics. These papers echo the recurring themes of the Quinean picture, resulting from his critique of logical empiricism. They reflect an ambivalence about metaphysics, a preoccupations with the interplay of semantic and metaphysical questions, and an externalist perspective reflected in Quine’s approach to semantic and metaphysical questions. The book is divided into five parts. Part I focuses on the questions about possible worlds. Parts II and III develop representations of the space of possible worlds that make sense of metaphysical thesis about relations between individuals and their properties. Part IV delves into the relation between semantics and metaphysics. Part V explores the problem of accounting for the subject’s point of view, and its relation to our account of the way the world is and the possible worlds are, in themselves.