ersatzer

English

Etymology

From ersatz +‎ -er. Coined in 1986 by the philosopher David Kellogg Lewis.

Noun

ersatzer (plural ersatzers)

1. (metaphysics) A proponent of ersatzism, the doctrine that possible worlds are merely abstract and do not have the same reality as the present world
   • 1986, David K. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds, Routledge, published 2001, page 140:

     The ersatzers just do not believe in what I call worlds; and sometimes -- depending on which version of ersatzism we encounter -- I just do not believe in what they call worlds.

   • 1989, David Malet Armstrong, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 49, →ISBN:

     My quarrel with the Ersatzer is perhaps not very deep, and I should not be too distressed if I were forced back to his position. But the quarrel is real. Mere representations of possibilities, which is what the Ersatzer uses, are not to be identified with the possibilities that we seek to represent.

   • 2006, Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 65, →ISBN:

     Now that the metaphysics and semantics have been given for ersatzer presentism, I should answer one possible objection: why is it that a certain atomic proposition p appears in a given E-related time if not because it was the case that p? But if this is the explanation, if this is how the story ultimately bottoms out, then how is ersatzer presentism any better off than Priorian presentism.