The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on March 3rd from 2:00-4:00 in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 7395) for a talk by Koji Tanaka (ANU).

Title: What’s so impossible about impossible worlds?

Abstract: Imagine a world where the laws of nature (or physics) are different from those in the actual world. In such a world, Usain Bolt might run faster than the speed of light. Graham Priest argues that such a world would be a physically impossible world. By analogy, a world where the laws of logic are different from those in the actual world is said to be a logically impossible world. But what’s so impossible about such a world? I argue that there is nothing impossible about a world that is merely different from the actual world. I will show that Priest’s position conflates how to evaluate modal statements with how to identify the actual world among all worlds. After rejecting Priest’s position, I will conclude by arguing that what makes a world impossible is not the difference in laws, but the violation of those laws.