我们本周的话题是:本来会怎样!许多没有发生的事情，可能已经发生了。例如，如果约翰不是这样一个拖延者，他可能会在他的职业生涯中写更多的东西。当然，由于约翰的职业生涯非常出色，而且卓有成效，这是一种令人恐惧的想法。同样地，许多确实发生的事情可能不会发生。比如，我上过巴黎圣母院。但我可能没有。我可能会去麻省理工学院或凯斯西储大学，我也被那里录取了。另一方面，有些事情是注定要发生的。除非你是永生的，否则你注定会死。 They say that taxes are inevitable too. But that’s probably not true. If you’re rich enough and you’ve got good enough lawyers and investment counselors, you can probably get around that one.

All kidding aside, the distinctions among what actually happens, what might or might not happen, and what is bound to happen are what philosophers call modal distinctions. And in this episode, we’re going to explore the role that modal thinking plays in our lives. For those of you who know a bit about the history of analytic philosophy, you know that that means we’re going to ignore the advice of that sage philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine. He said, “Ask not what a thing may or must be, ask only what it is.” And don’t forget Sgt. Joe Friday’s mantra -- “Just the facts, ma’am.” We're going to ignore their advice because both Friday and Quine got it wrong, Contrary to the good detective, talking about what might have been is a way of sticking to the facts and not just idle speculation,as he seemed to believe. And that’s just because, contrary to the sceptical philosopher, in addition to facts about what is, there are also facts about what might be, must be, or can’t be.

Now I can hear a modal sceptic like Quine objecting that facts about what actually happened are perfectly intelligible. But facts about what might have been – well, that’s another matter. I am a philosopher. That’s a fact. What makes it a fact? Well, the fact that I went to a fairly reputable university, got a degree, got a job teaching -- things like that. But now, what about the supposed fact that I mightnot成为了哲学家?是什么让这成为事实?我有什么具体的属性?似乎不正确。我采取了哪些具体的行动?似乎也不对。

This sort of worry about the provenance of modal facts seems to be motivated by the desire to reduce facts about the possible to facts about the actual. But part of me thinks that that can’t be the right approach. There isn’t enough room among the actual for everything that’s possible. That is, since what’s possible far outstrips the actual (contrary to Kant, who thought that this was a mistaken way of thinking about the possible in relation to the actual) it’s hard to see how the possible could just reduce to the actual.

On the other hand, it seems equally problematic to hold that facts about the possible are just brute further facts, above and beyond facts about the actual? That can’t be right either, it seems. How could we even know any such facts? The world confronts us with a stream of actualities, not a stream of brute possibilities.

I know I may beginning to sound a little like Quine, but unlike Quine, I’m willing to admit that we confidently and coherently talk about things beyond the actual all the time, especially when we engage in counterfactual reasoning about things that are contrary to fact. I once thought about becoming a lawyer. But I didn’t. And I am glad, because if I had become a lawyer, although I would have had a lot more money than I now have, I wouldn’t have been as happy as I now am.

If you’re a sceptic you might want to challenge the claim that my counterfactual is true. What makes me so sure of that, you might ask. For all I know, you might say, if I had become a lawyer, I might have been one of those crusading do-gooders in it more to save the world than to make a buck.

But I think I can answer that challenge pretty easily and in a way that shows something about the nature of counterfactual reasoning. I know my counterfactual is true because I know that in general lawyers are richer than philosophers. Plus I know that ideas matter more to me than money. My becoming a lawyer wouldn’t change that. Ergo, if I had become a lawyer, then I’d probably be a lot wealthier than I am now but not nearly as happy as I am now.

See how I just reasoned? I went from a premise about the way things actually are to a conclusion about the way things would have been had I become a lawyer. So our thinking about the possible is more tied to the actual than our imagined sceptic might imagine. And that also suggests that it’s probably wrong to think of facts about the possible as brute facts, above and beyond all facts about the actual.

Of course, thinking about the possible isn’t strictly and entirely limited by our thinking about the actual either. We can imagine remote possibilities far removed from the actual. Even remote possibilities are still possibilities. And it often takes a real visionary, with a rich imagination, to look beyond the actual and find the outer limits of the possible.

Of course, we have to be careful here. Just because we can imagine something, doesn’t mean it’s really possible. We can imagine all sorts of things that will never be and could never be -- faster than light travel, magic wands, frogs that turns into princes upon being kissed.

显然，这里有许多具有挑战性的问题需要深入研究。关于可能发生的事情的事实是什么以及它们如何与实际情况的事实联系起来?我们如何知道可能会发生什么，因为世界面对我们的是一系列的现实，而不是一系列的可能性?显然，我们的想象力在让我们思考各种可能性方面发挥了一定的作用。但是，如果存在我们无法想象的可能性和我们可以想象但却不可能的事情，我们怎么能用想象来区分真正的可能性和纯粹的虚构呢?

Perhaps with the help of Laurie Paul, our listeners, and you, dear readers, we can find a few answers – at least possible answers.

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