Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy
Name The name David Lewis may refer to several people: // David Lewis (lawyer) (c. ... Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ... It has been suggested that Contemporary philosophy be merged into this article or section. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1623x2014, 722 KB)David Kellogg Lewis Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy Princeton University Princeton NJ USA photo courtesy of Lewis family (19??) Source: http://www. ...	David Kellogg Lewis
Birth	September 28, 1941 Oberlin, Ohio is the 271st day of the year (272nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see 1941 (disambiguation). ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, to the south and west of Cleveland. ... Official language(s) English de facto Capital Columbus Largest city Columbus Largest metro area Greater Cleveland Area  Ranked 34th  - Total 44,825 sq mi (116,096 km²)  - Width 220 miles (355 km)  - Length 220 miles (355 km)  - % water 8. ...
Death	October 14, 2001 Princeton, New Jersey is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Nassau Street, Princetons main street. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ...
School/tradition	Analytic Analytic philosophy (sometimes, analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century. ...
Main interests	Logic · Language · Metaphysics Epistemology · Ethics Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... Plato (Left) and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. ... Theory of knowledge redirects here: for other uses, see theory of knowledge (disambiguation) According to Plato, knowledge is a subset of that which is both true and believed Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief. ... For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation). ...
Notable ideas	Possible worlds · Modal realism In philosophy and logic, the concept of possible worlds is used to express modal claims. ... Modal realism is the view, notably propounded by David Lewis, that possible worlds are as real as the actual world. ...
Influences	Leibniz · Hume · Carnap · Ryle Quine · Strawson Leibniz redirects here. ... This article is about the philosopher. ... Rudolf Carnap (May 18, 1891, Ronsdorf, Germany – September 14, 1970, Santa Monica, California) was an influential philosopher who was active in central Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. ... Gilbert Ryle (born August 19, 1900 in Brighton, died October 6, 1976 in Oxford), was a philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgensteins insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the... For people named Quine, see Quine (surname). ... Strawson redirects here. ...

David Kellogg Lewis (September 28, 1941 – October 14, 2001) is considered to have been one of the leading analytic philosophers of the latter half of the 20th century. Lewis taught briefly at UCLA and then at Princeton from 1970 until his death. He is also closely associated with Australia, whose philosophical community he visited almost annually for more than thirty years. He is most famous for his theory of modal realism but also made ground-breaking contributions in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, general metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical logic. Lewis's best known, and most controversial theory is that there exist an infinite number of concrete and causally isolated parallel universes, of which ours is just one, and which play the role of possible worlds in the analysis of necessity and possibility. He has also made lasting contributions to an incredible number of fields of philosophy. Indeed, a significant part of contemporary analytic philosophical work betrays the extent of his impact on the field. is the 271st day of the year (272nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see 1941 (disambiguation). ... is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Analytic philosophy (sometimes, analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Binomial name Ucla xenogrammus Holleman, 1993 The largemouth triplefin, Ucla xenogrammus, is a fish of the family Tripterygiidae and only member of the genus Ucla, found in the Pacific Ocean from Viet Nam, the Philippines, Palau and the Caroline Islands to Papua New Guinea, Australia (including Christmas Island), and the... Princeton University is a private coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. ... Modal realism is the view, notably propounded by David Lewis, that possible worlds are as real as the actual world. ... Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. ... A phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Plato (Left) and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. ... Theory of knowledge redirects here: for other uses, see theory of knowledge (disambiguation) According to Plato, knowledge is a subset of that which is both true and believed Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief. ... Philosophical logic is the application of formal logical techniques to problems that concern philosophers. ... For other uses, see Multiverse (disambiguation). ... In philosophy and logic, the concept of possible worlds is used to express modal claims. ...

Early life and education

Lewis was born in Oberlin, Ohio, to John D. Lewis a Professor of Government at Oberlin College and Ruth Ewart Kellogg Lewis a distinguished medieval historian. He was known later in life for his formidable intellect; this intelligence was already manifest during his years at Oberlin High School, when he attended college lectures in chemistry. He went on to Swarthmore College, and spent a year at Oxford (1959-1960), where he was tutored by Iris Murdoch and attended lectures by Gilbert Ryle, H.P. Grice, P.F. Strawson, and J.L. Austin. It was his year at Oxford that played a seminal role in his decision to study philosophy, and which made him the quintessentially analytic philosopher that he would soon become. Lewis went on to receive his Ph.D from Harvard in 1967, where he studied under W.V.O. Quine, many of whose views he came to repudiate. It was there that his connection with Australia was first established when he took a seminar with J.J.C. Smart, a leading Australian philosopher. "I taught David Lewis," Smart would say in later years, "Or rather, he taught me." Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, to the south and west of Cleveland. ... Official language(s) English de facto Capital Columbus Largest city Columbus Largest metro area Greater Cleveland Area  Ranked 34th  - Total 44,825 sq mi (116,096 km²)  - Width 220 miles (355 km)  - Length 220 miles (355 km)  - % water 8. ... Oberlin College is a small liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, in the United States. ... For other uses, see Chemistry (disambiguation). ... Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,450 students. ... Dame Jean Iris Murdoch DBE (July 15, 1919 – February 8, 1999) was an Irish-born British writer and philosopher, best known for her novels, which combine rich characterization and compelling plotlines, usually involving ethical or sexual themes. ... Gilbert Ryle (born August 19, 1900 in Brighton, died October 6, 1976 in Oxford), was a philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgensteins insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the... Herbert Paul Grice (1913 - 1988), often writing under the name Paul Grice, was a philosopher remembered mainly for his substantial contribution to the study of meaning within language, particularly his cooperative principle, the maxims of conversation derived from the cooperative principle, and his theory of implicatures. ... Peter Frederick Strawson (born November 23, 1919 in London) is a philosopher associated with the ordinary language philosophy movement within analytical philosophy. ... John Langshaw Austin (March 28, 1911 - February 8, 1960) was a philosopher of language, who developed much of the current theory of speech acts. ... The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University), located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Analytic philosophy (sometimes, analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ... W. V. Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 - December 25, 2000) was one of the most influential American philosophers and logicians of the 20th century. ... John Jameison Carswell Smart, or Jack Smart, (born 1920) is an English-Australian philosopher. ...

Early work on convention

Lewis's first monograph was Convention: A Philosophical Study (1969), which is based on his doctoral dissertation and uses concepts of game theory to analyze the nature of social conventions; it won the American Philosophical Association's first Franklin Matchette Prize for the best book published in philosophy by a philosopher under 40 years old. Lewis claimed that social conventions, such as the convention in most states that one drives on the right (not on the left), the convention that the original caller will re-call if a phone conversation is interrupted, etc., are solutions to so-called "'co-ordination problems'". Co-ordination problems were at the time of Lewis's book a much under-discussed kind of game-theoretical problem; most of the game-theoretical discussion had circulated around problems where the participants are in conflict, such as the prisoner's dilemma. Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is often used in the context of economics. ... Will the two prisoners cooperate to minimize total loss of liberty or will one of them, trusting the other to cooperate, betray him so as to go free? In game theory, the prisoners dilemma (sometimes abbreviated PD) is a type of non-zero-sum game in which two players...

Now co-ordination problems are problematic, for, though the participants have common interests, there are several solutions. Sometimes, one of the solutions may be "'salient'" a concept invented by the game-theorist Thomas Schelling (by whom Lewis was much inspired). For example, a co-ordination problem that has the form of a meeting may have a salient solution if there is only one possible spot to meet in town. But in most cases, we must rely on what Lewis calls "precedent" in order to get a salient solution. If both participants know that a particular co-ordination problem, say "which side should we drive on?" has been solved in the same way numerous times before, both know that both know this, both know that both know that both know this, etc. (this particular state Lewis calls common knowledge, and it has since been much discussed by philosophers and game theorists), then they will easily solve the problem. That they have solved the problem successfully will be seen by even more people, and thus the convention will spread in society. A convention is thus a behavioural regularity that sustains itself because it serves the interests of everyone involved. Another important feature of a convention is that a convention could be entirely different: one could just as well drive on the left; it is more or less arbitrary that one drives on the right in the USA, for example. Thomas Crombie Schelling (born 14 April 1921) is an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland College Park. ... Common knowledge is a special kind of knowledge for a group of agents. ...

Lewis's main goal in the book, however, wasn't simply to provide an account of convention but rather to investigate the "platitude that language is ruled by convention" (Convention, p. 1.) The last two chapters of the book (Signalling Systems and Conventions of Language; cf. also "Languages and Language", 1975) make the case that the use of a language in a population consists of conventions of truthfulness and trust among members of the population. Lewis recasts in this framework notions as those of truth and analyticity, claiming that they are better understood as relations between sentences and a language, rather than as properties of sentences.

Work on counterfactuals and modal realism

Lewis then went on with Counterfactuals (1973), which contained an analysis of counterfactual conditionals in terms of the theory of possible worlds. He had already proposed it in some of his earlier papers - "Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic" (1968), "Anselm and Actuality" (1970), and "Counterparts of Persons and their Bodies" (1971). In spite of significant technical advantages promised by this approach, the theory was widely considered to be too implausible to be taken literally, as Lewis urged it should be. Most often the idea that there exists an infinite number of causally isolated universes, each as real as our own but different from it in some way, and that furthermore that alluding to objects in this universe is necessary in order to explain what makes certain counterfactual statements true but not others, meets with what Lewis calls the "incredulous stare" (Lewis, OPW, 2005, pg. 135-137). Lewis defends and elaborates his theory of extreme modal realism, while insisting that there is nothing extreme about it, in On the Plurality of Worlds (1986). Lewis acknowledges that his theory is contrary to common sense, but believes that its advantages far outweigh this disadvantage, and that therefore we should not be hesitant to pay this price. A counterfactual conditional (sometimes called a subjunctive conditional) is a logical conditional statement whose antecedent is (ordinarily) taken to be contrary to fact by those who utter it. ... Possible Worlds is: Possible Worlds (play) a play by John Mighton Possible Worlds (poetry book) a book of poems by Peter Porter (poet) Possible Worlds (book) a book by J. B. S. Haldane This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Modal realism is the view, notably propounded by David Lewis, that possible worlds are as real as the actual world. ... On the Plurality of Worlds is an influential book by the philosopher David Lewis that defends the thesis of modal realism. ...

According to Lewis, what makes a counterfactual conditional of the form 'Had I made that shot our team would have won the game.' true is that there is a world, as concrete as ours and significantly similar to it, in which my counterpart makes rather than misses the shot and the counterpart of our team wins the game. Had there been a world even more similar to ours in which my counterpart makes the shot but the counterpart of our team still loses the counterfactual would have been false. When we speak of counterfactual possibilities we speak of what is the case in some possible world or worlds. Actuality, according to Lewis, is merely an indexical label we give to a world when we locate ourselves in it. Things are necessarily true when they are true in all possible worlds. (Note that Lewis is not the first one to speak of possible worlds in this context. Leibniz and C. I. Lewis, for example, both speak of possible worlds as a way of thinking about possibility and necessity, and some of David Kaplan's early work is on the counterpart theory. Lewis's original suggestion was that all possible worlds are equally concrete, and the world in which we find ourselves is no more real than any other possible world.) Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (July 1, 1646 in Leipzig - November 14, 1716 in Hannover) was a German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer of Sorb descent. ... Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 _ February 3, 1964) was a pragmatist philosopher. ... There are many people named David Kaplan. ... Counterpart theory (hereafter CT) is a theoretical framework that uses the counterpart relation (hereafter C-relation) as a replacement for the identity relation between objects in different possible world/times/spaces. ...

This theory has faced a number of criticisms. In particular, it is not clear how we could know what goes on in other worlds. After all, they are causally disconnected from ours; we can't look into them to see what is going on there.^{[citation needed]} A related objection is that, while people are concerned with what they could have done, they are not concerned with what some people in other worlds, no matter how similar to them, do.^{[citation needed]} As Saul Kripke once put it, a presidential candidate could not care less whether someone else, in another world, wins an election, but with whether he himself could have won it (Kripke 1980, p. 45). A more basic criticism is that introducing so many entities into our ontology violates the maxim of Occam's razor, which tells us not to multiply theoretical entities beyond what is necessary to explain the facts our theories aim to explain. One of the main concerns of Lewis (1986) is to address some of these criticisms. Saul Aaron Kripke (born in November 13, 1940 in Bay Shore, New York) is an American philosopher and logician now emeritus from Princeton and teaches as distinguished professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center. ... This article is about ontology in philosophy. ... For the House television show episode called Occams Razor, see Occams Razor (House episode) Occams razor (sometimes spelled Ockhams razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. ...

Possible worlds are employed in the work of Saul Kripke (Naming and Necessity, 1972, 1980), Gideon Rosen ("Modal Fictionalism", 1990), Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence, 1979), Robert Stalnaker (Inquiry, 1984), and many others, but not in the concrete sense propounded by Lewis. While none of these alternative approaches has found anything near universal acceptance, very few philosophers accept Lewis's particular brand of modal realism. Saul Aaron Kripke (born in November 13, 1940 in Bay Shore, New York) is an American philosopher and logician now emeritus from Princeton and teaches as distinguished professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center. ... Naming and Necessity is a series of lectures given by the philosopher Saul Kripke. ... Nathan U. Salmon (né Nathan Salmon Ucuzoglu, 1951-) is an American philosopher in the analytic tradition, specializing in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of logic. ... Robert C. Stalnaker is a professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ...

Other work

Lewis published five volumes containing 99 papers - almost all of the papers he published during his lifetime. These papers discuss his counterfactual theory of causation, the concept of semantic score, a contextualist analysis of knowledge, and a dispositional theory of value. This article is about causality as it is used in many different fields. ... Theories of Value ask What sorts of things are good? Or: What does good mean? If we had to give the most general, catch-all description of good things, then what would that description be? When that question is answered with God, this is called Summum bonum. Many people believe...

• Philosophical Papers, Vol. I (1983) includes his early work on counterpart theory, and the philosophy of language and of mind;
• Philosophical Papers, Vol. II (1986) includes his work on counterfactuals, causation, and decision theory. Its preface discusses "Humean Supervenience," the name Lewis gave to his overarching philosophical project;
• Papers in Philosophical Logic (1998);
• Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology (1999) contains "Elusive Knowledge" and "Naming the Colours," honored by being reprinted in the Philosopher's Annual for the year they were first published;
• Papers in Ethics and Social Philosophy.

Lewis's last monograph, Parts of Classes (1991), on the foundations of mathematics, sketched a reduction of set theory and Peano arithmetic to mereology and plural quantification. Very soon after its publication, Lewis became dissatisfied with some aspects of its argument; it is currently out of print. Counterpart theory (hereafter CT) is a theoretical framework that uses the counterpart relation (hereafter C-relation) as a replacement for the identity relation between objects in different possible world/times/spaces. ... Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. ... A phrenological mapping of the brain. ... A counterfactual conditional (sometimes called a subjunctive conditional) is a logical conditional statement whose antecedent is (ordinarily) taken to be contrary to fact by those who utter it. ... This article is about causality as it is used in many different fields. ... Decision theory is an area of study of discrete mathematics that models human decision-making in science, engineering and indeed all human social activities. ... Plato (Left) and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. ... Theory of knowledge redirects here: for other uses, see theory of knowledge (disambiguation) According to Plato, knowledge is a subset of that which is both true and believed Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief. ... For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation). ... Foundations of mathematics is a term sometimes used for certain fields of mathematics itself, namely for mathematical logic, axiomatic set theory, proof theory, model theory, and recursion theory. ... Set theory is the mathematical theory of sets, which represent collections of abstract objects. ... In mathematics, the Peano axioms (or Peano postulates) are a set of first-order axioms proposed by Giuseppe Peano which determine the theory of Peano arithmetic (also known as first-order arithmetic). ... Mereology is a collection of axiomatic formal systems dealing with parts and their respective wholes. ... In mathematics and logic, plural quantification is the theory that an individual variable x may take on plural, as well as singular values. ...

At Princeton, Lewis was a gifted mentor of young philosophers, and trained dozens of successful figures in the field, including several current Princeton faculty members, as well as people now teaching at a number of the leading programs in the U.S. Among his most prominent students are David Velleman, Peter Railton, and Wayne A. Davis. His direct and indirect influence is evident in the work of many prominent philosophers of the current generation. J. David Velleman is a Professor of Philosophy at New York University. ... Peter Railton is John Stephenson Perrin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. ...

Later life and death

David K. Lewis in Australia, where he liked to visit.

Lewis suffered from severe diabetes for much of his life, which eventually grew worse and led into kidney failure. In July of 2000 he received a kidney transplant from his wife Stephanie. The transplant allowed him to work and travel for another year, before he died suddenly and unexpectedly from further complications of his diabetes, on 14 October 2001. ^[1] David K. Lewis File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... David K. Lewis File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... This article is about the disease that features high blood sugar. ... The kidneys are organs that filter wastes (such as urea) from the blood and excrete them, along with water, as urine. ... is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ...

Since his death a number of posthumous papers have been published, on topics ranging from truth and causation to philosophy of physics. Lewisian Themes, a collection of papers on his philosophy, was published in 2004.

Selected works

1980. 'Mad pain and Martian pain', in Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. I. N. Block, ed., Harvard University Press, 1980, pp. 216-222. Mad Pain and Martian Pain is a philosophical article written by David Lewis. ...

References

The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... is the 293rd day of the year (294th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 202nd day of the year (203rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• David Lewis: Bibliography