 The intuitive idea behind counterpart theory was that individuals, at least ordinary individuals of the kind we regularly talk about, are world-bound. That is, they exist in only one world. But they do not have all of their properties essentially. We can truly say of a non-contender, say Malloy, that he could have been a contender. In the language of possible worlds, there is a possible world w such that, according to it, Malloy is a contender. But what in turn does this mean? Does it mean that Malloy himself is in w? Not really, according to counterpart theory. Rather, a counterpart of Malloy’s is a contender in w. And Malloy himself has the modal property could have been a contender in virtue of having a counterpart in w who is a contender. This way of thinking about modal properties of individuals has, claims Lewis, a number of advantages.