Modal realists

Kripke's response

Saul Kripke described modal realism as "totally misguided", "wrong", and "objectionable". Kripke argued that possible worlds were not like distant countries out there to be discovered; rather, we stipulate what is true according to them. Kripke also criticized modal realism for its reliance on counterpart theory, which he regarded as untenable. Specifically, Kripke states that Lewis' modal realism implies that when we refer to possibilities regarding persons like you or me, we're not referring to you or me. Instead, we're referring to counterparts who are similar to us but not identical. This seems problematic because it seems like when, for example, we say that, 'Humphrey could have become President', we are talking about Humphrey (and we're not talking about a person that is like Humphrey). Lewis responds by saying this objection (i.e. The Humphrey Objection) wouldn't apply to modal realists who believe that the identity of persons can "overlap" in multiple worlds, even though Lewis thinks that view is problematic. Secondly, Lewis doesn't seem to share the intuition that there is any problem, as evidenced by the fact that he calls it an "alleged" intuition.