Paper of the Day

Neil Sinhababu, "Possible Girls", in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 89, No. 2, June 2008, pp. 254–260.

I argue that if David Lewis' modal realism is true, modal realists from different possible worlds can fall in love with each other. I offer a method for uniquely picking out possible people who are in love with us and not with our counterparts. Impossible lovers and trans-world love letters are considered. Anticipating objections, I argue that we can stand in the right kinds of relations to merely possible people to be in love with them and that ending a trans-world relationship to start a relationship with an actual person isn't cruel to one's otherworldly lover.

This is, easily, the funniest philosophy paper I have ever read. Some quotes:

In an impossible girl's world, it can be true (and false) that she kissed me. In any possible girl's world, and in my world, it is merely false that she kissed me.

I must leave girls of whom everything is true (and false) to boys with less conventional tastes than mine.

I'm interested in real girls, and if Lewis convinces me that some non-actual ones like me, I'm going to get excited about them.