Abstract

Morton White proposes two patterns of expansion for sentences of the form "Possible (x is Q)" in "On What Could Have Happened" (Philosophical Review, 1968). His attempts in "Ands and Cans" (Mind, 1974) and in "Positive Freedom, Negative Freedom, and Possibility" (Journal of Philosophy, 1973) to simplify these two patterns and his argument for abandoning the first pattern are mistaken. Although I question a number of White's claims, my purpose is to improve his treatment of possibility rather than to refute it. Our understanding of what constitutes "the same circumstances" largely determines whether a given condition is appropriately mentioned in a first-pattern expansion. This point helps support the form of compatibilism White advocates.