Title

What Are Centered Worlds?

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2012

Publication Title

Philosophical Quarterly

Department

Philosophy

Abstract

David Lewis argues that centered worlds give us a way to capture de se, or self-locating, contents in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. In recent years, centered worlds have also gained other uses in areas ranging widely from metaphysics to ethics. This paper raises a problem for centered worlds and discusses the costs and benefits of different solutions. The present investigation into the nature of centered worlds helps to explicate potentially problematic implicit commitments of the theories that employ them. In addition, this investigation reveals that the conception of centered worlds widely attributed to David Lewis is not only problematic, but in fact not his.

Volume

62

Issue

247

pp.

294–316

ISSN

0031-8094

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