Philosophical Letters of David K. Lewis, Volume 2: Mind, Language, Epistemology

624 Pages·2020·6.819 MB·

by  David K. Lewis, Helen Beebee (editor), A.R.J. Fisher (editor)

PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS
OF DAVID K. LEWIS

Philosophical Letters
of David K. Lewis
VOLUME 2
Mind, Language, Epistemology
Edited by
HELEN BEEBEE
A.R.J. FISHER
1
1
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© Helen Beebee and A.R.J. Fisher 2020
Letters © the Estate of David Kellogg Lewis 2020
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Dedicated to the memory of Steffi Lewis

PREFACE
David Kellogg Lewis (1941–2001) was a highly influential figure of analytic phil oso­
phy. His work had an impact on most areas of analytic philosophy, including the
topics of this volume: Mind, Language, and Epistemology. Today his work continues
to be studied and examined as contributions to ongoing discussions. At the same
time he is fast becoming an important figure in the history of analytic philosophy.
For, as Gilbert Ryle once remarked, ‘History begins only when memory’s dust has
settled’ (Ryle 1956, 1), and analytic philosophy is on the cusp of treating its phil oso­
phy of the late twentieth century as a historical era and its major philosophers as
historical figures. As a historical figure of this sort, Lewis’s correspondence is an
important resource for understanding his views and his place in the history of ana­
lytic philosophy.
The present book is Volume 2 of this two­volume collection of Lewis’s letters. As edi­
tors we selected letters for this volume from the many thousands of pages that consti­
tute Lewis’s correspondence. As with Volume 1, we arranged the letters of this volume
under general headings that correspond roughly to an area of philosophy that Lewis
was interested in and contributed to. We have provided necessary edit or ial remarks and
simply offered the letters as they are to the philosophical public and others interested in
Lewis’s work. We hope that his letters are used as a primary resource for scholarship on
Lewis’s philosophy. We followed the same editorial rules in editing this book as we did
for Volume 1. We direct the reader to the Key to Symbols for various devices we used for
annotating the text. The letters published in this book are from the David Lewis Papers,
C1520, Princeton University Library (https://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/
C1520), except for Letter 421. To Jerome A. Shaffer, 3 October 1964, which is in the pos­
session of Samuel C. Wheeler III. The versions of the letters published here are based on
the copies in the David Lewis Papers.
One of us (Anthony) had the pleasure of working closely with Lewis’s cor res pond­
ence in 2014–16 at the Lewises’ residence before it was kindly deposited by Steffi
Lewis in the Princeton University Library in February 2016. Building on her earlier
efforts, we had the idea of publishing a comprehensive and systematic selection of
Lewis’s letters (one­sided) as part of a project funded by the AHRC in the UK. Without
Steffi’s initial toil and vision we would have had an even higher mountain to climb in
editing this work. We are greatly indebted to her. Analytic philosophy owes her a
great debt as well.
viii Preface
We also thank Steffi – as copyright holder and literary executor – for permission to
publish Lewis’s letters, courtesy of Princeton University Library, and John Cooper for
his assistance. We thank Brianna Cregle, Don C. Skemer, and other staff at Princeton’s
Firestone Library for their archival expertise. We thank Samuel C. Wheeler III for
providing a copy of Letter 421. To Jerome A. Shaffer, 3 October 1964. We thank
Aaron Wilson, Maeve MacPherson, Andries De Jong, Simon Walgenbach, Justin
Mullins, and Kendall Fisher for transcribing letters at Manchester. We also thank
those who contributed to the Lewis crowdsource transcription project on crowd­
crafting.org, especially Abigail Thwaites, Sara L. Uckelman, Antony Eagle, Michael
Bench­Capon, Peter Schulte, Nat Tobris, Daniel Kodsi, Ali Can Epozdemir, Manuel
Lechthaler, Nir Av­Gay, Colin Mullins, and Alexandra Hall. We thank Mike McLeod
for transcribing the letters to D.M. Armstrong and are especially grateful to Peter
Anstey for answering our queries and supplying documents as we worked through
the correspondence between Armstrong and Lewis. We thank John Bigelow and
Steffi Lewis for transcribing the letters to Jack Smart. We thank Sally Evans­Darby
and Jonathan Farrell for proofreading the letters of this volume. Thanks to Jonathan
Farrell and Simon Walgenbach for compiling the index of this volume. For consult­
ing the original version of Lewis’s letters and helping us with missing references,
we thank Brian Ellis, Stephen Hetherington, Lloyd Humberstone, Angelika Kratzer,
Fabrizio Mondadori, and Thomas Pink. Thanks to Brian Ellis, Sonya M. Davis (wife
of Lawrence H. Davis), Franz Kutschera, Tom McKay, Gary H. Merrill, Terence
Parsons, and Arnim von Stechow for kind permission to publish portions of their
letters to Lewis.
Finally, we acknowledge the generous support of the Arts and Humanities
Research Council for its funding of the project The Age of Metaphysical Revolution: David
Lewis and His Place in the History of Analytic Philosophy [grant no.: AH/N004000/1] and
are grateful to our project team members: Frederique Janssen­Lauret and Fraser
MacBride.
HB & ARJF
Manchester, UK
31 August 2019
CONTENTS
Introduction xi
List of Letters xxiii
Key to Symbols xxxiii
Feature Letter xxxv
LETTERS
Part 4: Mind 1
Part 5: Language 215
Part 6: Epistemology 383
References 559
Index of Terms and Names 573
Index of Lewis’s Works Cited 584
Index of Recipients 586