Notes
If your metaphysics is Lewisian, you may do all this with counterpart theory, but that is different from centering.
This difference is analogous to the difference between the stage one and stage two changes in Mary’s cognitive situation, as discussed above in the response to Stoljar.
One question, for example: even if the argument works, what if there is no such irrelevant information? It would be ironic if we could justify the 1/3 answer to the key question on the assumption that SB receives some distinctive but irrelevant information, but not on the assumption that she received no information at all that distinguishes, or is believed to distinguish, the Monday from the Tuesday epistemic situations.
A longer story, involving the strategy I have called diagonalization, needs to be told about how an identity statement with names for distinct substances can express a contingent proposition, but it is a story I have told elsewhere.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stalnaker, R. Responses to Stoljar, Weatherson and Boghossian. Philos Stud 155, 467–479 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9614-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9614-0