A Reply about Worlds

This is a reply I wrote to an email from Tom Nagel. It may be helpful even without his prompting email.

A Reply

My OED gives as the primary meaning of “world” “the earth with all its countries and peoples”, immediately followed by “one’s life and activities”. The first is not philosophically relevant except as indicating that the word has a very narrow denotation reflecting human interests. The second makes this explicit. I’m not focusing on the individual but on the reference to some sort of life or consciousness. It is surely clear that using the word to refer to the whole shebang is an extension of this use (arguably illicit). It’s not necessarily human but can refer to an animal’s world.

I don’t think “the world” means “everything”, which anyway raises similar difficulties. First, it’s a quantifier word not a singular term, and applying Russell’s theory to “the world” does not give us “everything”. Second, what is meant by “thing”—does it mean objects or facts or something else? Third, quantification is generally restricted and sortal-relative; this isn’t. Fourth, how does it apply to such uses as “possible world” or “many worlds”? Fifth, “everything” is non-descriptive and non-specific, unlike “the world” (this uses “world” in the sense derived from the primary meaning of the term). Sixth, can we say “for all everythings”? Seventh, does everything include non-existent entities? You can quantify over these (“All fictional characters…”) but they are not part of the world, which must exist. Lewis thought a possible world was a big concrete particular like the actual world—how does this fit with the “everything” interpretation? Eighth, the whole point of the philosophical locution is to strip away any reference to humans or other living beings, but “everything” carries no such connotation. The philosophical use is just not the same as the use of “everything”. In fact, the context-independent use of “everything” is clearly a (possibly illicit) extension of restricted uses of the universal quantifier and is not primitive (this is why Geach deplored it).

It may be that there is some inchoate concept (and entity) that is ineptly expressed by “the world”—we do seem to have a need for some such idea. But this concept is highly problematic and cannot be invoked uncritically or without scare-quotes. We don’t really have any good word for it, and possibly can’t invent one. It is just an empty designator that has a reference we can’t properly grasp. It isn’t just an easy familiar concept like “every dog”. It’s not part of ordinary language but a philosophical contraption that sounds familiar.