Talk:David Kellogg Lewis
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The claim that many consider Lewis to be the leading analytic philopher of the second half of the 20th century could only be established by polling those that have a view on the subject. However, I would suggest that many also consider Michael Dummett to be the leading analytic philosopher of his time. This is what the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says (http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/dummett.htm):
"Michael Dummett is one of the most influential British philosophers of his generation. His philosophical reputation is based partly on his studies of the history of analytical philosophy, and partly on his own contributions to philosophy. Of the historical work, it is his commentaries on Gottlob Frege that are of outstanding importance. His most discussed contribution to contemporary philosophical debate is his presentation of the case that could be made for anti-realism. His work on realism and anti-realism involves all of the following fields: philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logic, philosophy of language and metaphysics."
I would add from personal experience that his grasp of the philosophy of quantum mechanics is truly impressive.
--- The quote says that Dummet is one of the most influential "British" philosophers of his generation. But Lewis is an American, so there's no real issue here if we wanted Lewis to be the leading philosopher. Anyway it's no doubt better to say "one of the leading philosophers of the 20th century" which is uncontroversially true. --- Fab
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[edit] David Lewis (philosopher)
It's a fairly pointless business trying to rank philosophers, especially when they're our contemporaries. Much depends upon one's sympathies with their conclusions, their basic approaches to doing philosophy, and their fields of interest. Moreover, there's no contradiction or even tension between the claims that many consider David Lewis to be the finest [..., etc.] and that many consider Michael Dummett to be. Because I disagree with Dummett's view of the role of language in philosophy, I'd tend to favour Lewis - but then I find Lewis' philosophy of mind unattractive... (Oh, and Dummett smokes too much and inconsiderately; but Lewis wore his trousers at half mast...) But philosophy isn't a competitive sport, so why not just say that they're both important and influential philosophers, both worth reading and thinking about. Peter J. King
Does anyone know when and where Lewis made the remark about there being Beth three spatio-termporal separate possible worlds?
[edit] Time travel
David Lewis also wrote a rather famous piece about time travel arguing for the differences between personal and external time. He believed that time travel was possible on a single timeline and not a multi-verse... does anything know enough about this to write about it some? gren 01:31, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Move
I think this should be moved to David Kellog Lewis with [[David Lewis (philosopher)]] as a redirect page to it. gren 01:31, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Agreed, I've done it. I'll get rid of the double redirects. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 21:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Biography
Sorry. But i did not understand that period.
Lewis was born in Oberlin, Ohio, to a Professor of Government at Oberlin College and a distinguished medieval historian
I am translating this article into Portuguese, and i think that this information is about Lewis's parents. Is it that?
Lewis's parents were John D. Lewis Professor of Government and Ruth Ewart Kellogg Lewis medieval historian. David Kellogg Lewis is survived by his wife Stephie Lewis and two siblings Donald E. Lewis who owns and runs a car repair business and Ellen Lewis a child psychologist. Rose-design@hotmail.com 22:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Was David Lewis jewish? I think so but found no proof. If so he should be listed also on Category:Jewish_philosophers. --Aragon7 (talk) 11:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] A mistake
Hi! There's a mistake on the page when you're writing about the history of possible worlds in philosophy: C. S. Lewis was a writer, not a logician; the one who dealt with modal logic is C. I. Lewis. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.98.188.212 (talk) 09:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC).
[edit] About needed citation
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.
The needed citation is already retold in next sentence:
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).
The full citation is:
Thus if we say ‘Humphrey might have won the election (if only he had done such-and-such), we [according to Lewis] are not talking about something that might have happened to Humphrey but to someone else, a “counterpart”.’ Probably, however, Humphrey could not care less whether someone else, no matter how much resembling him, would have been victorious in another possible world.
(Saul Kripke, “Naming and Necessity”, p. 45, fn. 13, italics original, note in square brackets mine.)
Note that this criticism addresses Lewis’ counterpart theory rather than his realism about possible worlds. In the article they seem not to be clearly distinguished.--193.219.41.244 (talk) 15:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I deleted the need for citation. The context is enought. And there is good references to the article on counterpart theory. --RickardV (talk) 10:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Time Travel
I stumbleupon'ed this [1] and this is what the person above seems to be referring to. However, that linked article is very short and lacking in details so I went here to find out more. Nothing about that mentioned in the WP article David Kellog Lewis though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.106.182.81 (talk) 19:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
