Transition periods and miracles

Abstract

A counterfactual conditional "If it were the case that A it would be the case that C", where A and C are false propositions claiming that some events a and c (respectively) occurred, is true at the actual world according to Lewis's theory iff C is true at certain possible worlds. These worlds have the same history as our world up to a time shortly before a, when there occurred a so-called small miracle, which led to A being true. The theory says that there is a transition period between the occurrence of the small miracle and the event a. Our point in this paper is that transition periods and small miracles are notions Lewis could do without. We will argue that they lead to problems, and we will suggest a way his theory could work without them.Small miracles are part of Lewis's philosophical system. Our paper begins with explaining the role that this part plays in the system and puts it in the context of the questions Lewis deals with. This includes an explanation of the method Lewis developed to determine the similarity relation, which led him to the notions of small miracles and the transition period. We try to show, first, that the very same method does not favour the worlds with the transition period 1 We would like to thank Miloš Arsenijević and Milan Jovanović for encouragement and helpful discussions. Our first plan was to write a joint paper with Milan Jovanović, but he left us to take a job in another city. We benefited form discussions with him especially about the transition period problems.