Note: this assignment is for students in Group II only (see syllabus for a list of group assignments).
Due, as an attachment, via the Assignments tool on
ecommons, by midnight Thurs., Apr. 17.
Please respond to the following question in
two pages or less (double spaced). (Needless to say this should be
your own original work.)
On page 111, Lewis responds to the objection (voiced on
the previous page in a quote from Brian Skyrms) that, while we might
know of the existence of abstract entities without any causal
connection to them, possible worlds, being concrete, could only be
known by causal acquaintance. He replies first that, on any way of
understanding the abstractconcrete distinction, it does not seem
relevant to the alleged difference is the kind of evidence needed for
knowledge. He goes on to say:
I think it is true that causal acquaintance is required for some sorts of knowledge but not for others. However, the department of knowledge that requires causal acquaintance is not demarcated by its concrete subject matter. It is demarcate instead by its contingency. Here, the relevance is plain.
Explain, given Lewiss analysis of causation, and of the difference between necessary and contingent truths, exactly why the relevance is plain.
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