Branching in the landscape of possibilities.
The metaphor of a branching tree of future possibilities has a number of important philosophical and logical uses. In this paper we trace this metaphor through some of its uses and argue that the metaphor works the same way in physics as in philosophy. We then give an overview of formal systems for...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 188; no. 1; pp. 41 - 66 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Sep2012
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=82067500&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 82067500 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2012 vid: 188 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 82067500 10.1007/s11229-011-0059-6 ppf: 41 ppct: 25 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 333KB tig: atl: Branching in the landscape of possibilities. aug: au: Müller, Thomas affil: Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University, Janskerkhof 13a 3512 BL Utrecht The Netherlands su: Spacetime Modal logic Notions (Philosophy) Possibility Branching processes Nuclear reactions sug: subj: Spacetime Modal logic Notions (Philosophy) Possibility Branching processes Nuclear reactions keyword: Branching space-times Branching time Experiment Modality ab: The metaphor of a branching tree of future possibilities has a number of important philosophical and logical uses. In this paper we trace this metaphor through some of its uses and argue that the metaphor works the same way in physics as in philosophy. We then give an overview of formal systems for branching possibilities, viz., branching time and (briefly) branching space-times. In a next step we describe a number of different notions of possibility, thereby sketching a landscape of possibilities. In the final section of the paper we look at the place of branching-based possibilities in that larger landscape of possibilities. Our main message is that far from being an outlandish metaphysical extravagancy, branching-based possibilities are epistemically as well as metaphysically basic. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2012. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2012 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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