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О несуществовании возможных миров в античной философии
Why could Ancient Philosophers not conceive possibility of others worlds? According Plato (Timaeus, 31a2) and Aristotle (De Caelo, I, 8, 276a18), there is only one world, — our world who is eternal and indestructible. Philo of Alexandria is the first to mention “kosmos noètos" (De opificio mundi, §35) and, after him, all Neoplatonists do the same. Nevertheless, two worlds in Plotinus’s thought are necessary: one being a model and the other his mirror image. It is the same, mutatis mutandis, with Epicurians who have no doubt about the existence of others worlds, infinite in number: these possible worlds are necessary. Only a philosopher who accepts God’s omnipotence, Leibniz for example, can consider “possible worlds” “purement possibles” (Lettre à Arnauld, Gerhardt, 2, p. 54).