Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

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235727

Branching in the landscape of possibilities

Thomas Müller

pp. 41-65

Abstract

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.

Publication details

Published in:

Malpass Alex, Gifford Chris (2012) Branching-time and indeterminacy. Synthese 188 (1).

Pages: 41-65

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-011-0059-6

Full citation:

Müller Thomas (2012) „Branching in the landscape of possibilities“. Synthese 188 (1), 41–65.