What are Possible Worlds?

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This is a video lecture in a course on the philosophy of language. It explains possible worlds, rigid designators, and non-rigid designators using some basketball examples involving LeBron James and Mt Everest and some other stuff. Even though the idea of possible worlds goes back to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, this short video is specifically designed to provide the background necessary to understand Lecture 2 of Saul Kripke's famous work, Naming and Necessity.

[ivermec-tin]

Candide is a French satirical novel written by Voltaire in 1759. It is a savage denunciation of metaphysical optimism that proclaims that all disaster and human suffering is part of a benevolent cosmic plan. The story follows a gentle man who, despite being pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759), Candide: or, The Optimist (1762), and Candide: Optimism (1947). Voltaire wrote the novel in three days, and it has been a gayer place for readers ever since.

[hakimal-hakim]

I am a physicist and I really enjoy your videos, especially this kind of videos where physics and philosophy inrtersect

[DrGus]

Love your videos Jeffrey, I think to be able to teach is a gift, not only to be able to make someone absorb information but to transmit the passion and the interest for the discipline, I encourage you to keep going! It had been a while since I watched new videos and I think the imagery from editing makes the ideas easier to follow. I personaly feel that zooming in ends up cutting out the rest of the board and making it a little bit too cut-up, the slower pace, almost classroom-ish vibe was really tender and accessible. Love your work.

[tomw]

Na there’s no world where Draymond keeps his composure

[not_enough_space]

I'm not sure I understand rigid designation. Or, more specifically, I'm unclear about when something is the same object between worlds. I mean, there's going to be a gradient of differences regarding features and contexts across worlds. So how is it possible for there to be a fact of the matter about where the line is that's separating what variation counts as the same object from what variation counts as a different object?

[陈孜-nt]

As a nonnative english speaker who is fed up with hectic college routine, I can follow your train of thought smoothly even though my english sucks and I don't major in philosophy.Shoutout to your articulation and explanation skills!

[geoffhead]

i can certainly see why the philosophy of language is one of your core subjects. words are simple labels for complex realities, so we really need a set of ideas about logic and syntax and meaning to properly use them, nice work, im really enjoying your lectures. youre obviously enthused by your subject, you have good pedagogic technique and youve wrapped your head around the topic so you can summarize complex ideas simply

[jayxavier]

I appreciate, as always, the clarity and concision in exposition, but I find that: by going by way of Kripke, and saving Lewis for some other time, the focus stays on the periphery: rigid designators are important to possible world semantics, but they arguably matter less than questions of identity and similarity (a big issue in Lewis); and the distinction between de re (a word that refers or denotes) and de dicto (a description) can operate independently of possible worlds theory (i.e., de re/dicto could have surfaced in a possible world in which there were no possible worlds). And, of course, missing is how it all started, at least in the 20th century: modal logic, modal/intensional operators, and the difference between possibility and necessity in semantics and truth conditionals...

[bendontran]

Babe wake up! New Jeffrey Kaplan video just dropped!

[a_creamsyst]

Could you say a world in which the Himalayas are called something else disproves rigid descriptors being unchanging, or does the fact that I still had to reference the Himalayas prove it more?

[Inebia-All-El-daBlackZeitgeist]

I love your videos. Do you have a general time line of when your book is going to go on sale and what aspect of philosophy will it cover?

[Paladin_]

Hi Jeffery, it's great to see another presentation. I've enjoyed al your others. In fact I've enjoyed them many times and I would love to see more; thank you for all those that you have done. I've learnt so much that I didn't know I didn't know. Cheers🙏🙏

[yurivincentweber]

Just a heads up about your pronunciation of Aconcagua (not the point of the video, I know). It's pronounced more like "ah-kon-KAH-gwah". Your rendering of the pronunciation had me sniggering haha

[johnclay]

sir can you make video on Hegel dialectics and his work .!!! thanks

[jsphwst]

I love your content! I had a quick question though. Is the "rigidity" of the designator determined by the intention of the speaker? For example, lets say I use "Mt. Everest" to refer to the mountain that we call Mt. Everest. There is a possible world where "the mountain "world @" calls Mt. Everest" is actually called something else (lets say Mt. Kaplan). I would assume that the designator would still be considered rigid, since my intention is to refer to the same mountain that resulted from India's impact. But now, lets assume I say "the mountain called Mt. Everest" in a non-rigid way to refer to any mountain in any possible world that is mamed Mt. Everest. This would exclude Mt. Kaplan, but possibly include other mountains in other worlds that are not "our" Mt. Everest. So, I guess what I am asking is: what determines the rigidity? Is it the intention of the one making the statement? Would I need to clarify the "non-rigidty" by phrasing the designator as "any mountain named Mt. Everest in any possible world"?

[IntegralDeLinha]

So, it seems to me that the only expressions that are actual rigid designators are the ones that mention the referent's world. For instance, "This world's Mt. Everest" is a rigid designator, but "Mt. Everest" isn't since it refers to different things in different worlds.
What makes World-12309832's Mt. Everest still count as the referent in the expression "Mt. Everest" uttered in World-7?
Whatever uniquely identifies this world's Mt. Everest can't be in any other world. And whatever doesn't uniquely identify a single entity is necessarily a non-rigid designator.

[balinttanos]

Maybe the several serious problems around Kripke's theory are also worth a video :) I just mention that Kripke refers to intiution no less than 48 times in the book, so what if others' intuitions about 'sameness' of stuff in different possible worlds are different form Kripke's, as later turned out they are? What if LeBron James was a car mechanic in Canada in a possible world of the height of 5'6"? How would that be the 'same' LeBron James? (Not speaking of the possibility of a possible world where LeBron James is a particulary intelligent octopus :) )

[lux]

I'm not sure if you're into political philosophy, and this is a bit weird to ask, but can you make a lecture about Machiavelli's philosophy?

[umbomb]

I enjoy your videos, which I watch while working out. I rarely read books. Thanks!

[mussyhall]

Hi, thanx for these videos. Insightful stuf. Could you talk a bit about the word "possible" in possible worlds?. Does it actually have to be possible? Or can it just be something that is made up, or thought of or said. I feel that some people use the term to suggest that something is plausible or could have existed, whilst they have not yet shown their "possible world" is actually possible or could actually have existed. Are their philosophical rules for "possible"?