Search in the writings of David Lewis

• Postscripts to "Causation" (1986)
  • p.194: …what it likes. Such cases can be left as spoils to the victor, in D. M. Armstrong's phrase. We can…
  • p.194: …all other cases of redundant causation as spoils to the victor, doubting that common-sense opinions…
  • p.195: …common-sense indecision. Sometimes I am still content to leave far-fetched cases as spoils to the…
  • p.195: …victor. But sometimes it seems that additions to my original analysis are needed. I consider first a…
  • p.197: …happily leave them as spoils to the victor. For we could plausibly suggest that common sense is misled…
  • p.203: …common-sense judgements about them therefore went astray—spoils to the victor! Common sense does judge…
  • p.204: …case becomes far-fetched, not worrisome, spoils to the victor.) If the effect is taken to be fragile…
  • p.207: …respected—spoils to the victor.…
  • p.208: …matter much what the analysis said, since all such cases were spoils to the victor for lack of firm…
  • p.208: …event in turn is a cause of the effect. The cases should not all be left as spoils to the victor…
  • p.212: …cases of overdetermination, as opposed to preemption, could be left as spoils to the victor; and that is…
  Source: David Lewis (1986): 'Postscripts to "Causation"'. In Philosophical Papers, Volume II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 172--213
• Philosophical Letters, Volume 1
  • p.126: …continuous chain after all. Spoils to the victor! – But to me this doesn't ring true. I feel a bit…
  • p.126: …about the possibility to leave it as a spoils-to-the-victor question.…
  • p.219: …'spoils to the victor' move. It gives me license to clean up the ragged edges of my offhand…
  • p.669: …stand or let them fall, depending on what we want to believe otherwise. Spoils to the victor. That…
  Source: Helen Beebee and A.R.J. Fisher (eds.): Philosophical Letters of David K. Lewis, Volume 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020
• Philosophical Letters, Volume 2
  • p.54: …paper: it's a 'spoils to the victor' question.1   Letter from D.M. Armstrong to…
  • p.155: …spoils-to-the-victor question. Given the rest of what we disagree about, Frank and I should indeed…
  Source: Helen Beebee and A.R.J. Fisher (eds.): Philosophical Letters of David K. Lewis, Volume 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020
• Humean Supervenience Debugged (1994)
  • p.230: …nature . (At least, the ones we know about do; and I think it's a spoils- to-the-victor question…
  • p.232: …they may be confirmed by their instances. If not, not. It's a standoff— spoils to the victor. Other…
  Source: David Lewis (1994): 'Humean Supervenience Debugged' Mind, 103(412), 473-490. Reprinted in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, pp. 224-247
• Critical Notice of David Armstrong, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility (1992)
  • p.213: …alternative possibilities. I think this is a spoils-to- the-victor issue: if you accept the many-worlds…
  Source: David Lewis (1992): 'Critical Notice of David Armstrong, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility' Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 70(2), 211-224. Reprinted in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, pp. 196-214