Conceivability and Possibility Research Papers (original) (raw)

In various arguments, Descartes relies on the principles that conceivability implies possibility and that inconceivability implies impossibility. Those principles are in tension with another Cartesian view about the source of modality, i.e. the doctrine of the free creation of eternal truths. In this paper, I develop a ‘two-modality’ interpretation of the doctrine of eternal truths which resolves the tension and I discuss how the resulting modal epistemology can still be relevant for the contemporary
discussion.

- by
- •
- Modal Epistemology, Descartes, Epistemology of Modality, Conceivability & Possibility

The Humean view that conceivability entails possibility can be criticized via input from cognitive psychology. A mainstream view here has it that there are two candidate codings for mental representations (one of them being, according to some, reducible to the other): the linguistic and the pictorial, the difference between the two consisting in the degree of arbitrariness of the representation relation. If the con-ceivability of P at issue for Humeans involves the having of a linguistic mental representation, then it is easy to show that we can conceive the impossible, for impossibilities can be represented by meaningful bits of language. If the conceivability of P amounts to the pictorial imaginability of a situation verifying P , then the question is whether the imagination at issue works purely qualitatively, that is, only by phenomenological resemblance with the imagined scenario. If so, the range of situations imaginable in this way is too limited to have a significant role in modal epistemology. If not, imagination will involve some arbitrary labeling component, which turns out to be sufficient for imagining the impossible. And if the relevant imagination is neither linguistic nor pictorial, Humeans will appear to resort to some representational magic, until they come up with a theory of a 'third code' for mental representations.

- by Francesco Berto and +1
- •
- Mental Representation, Modal Epistemology, Imagination, Mental Imagery

Three points of view on the problem of the answerability of philosophical questions are developed:
a) the traditional view that the questions are perfectly genuine but just very difficult;
b) what I call the 'nonsensicalist' view, characteristic of logical positivists and Wittgensteinians, that they are largely meaningless pseudo-problems;
c) the 'mysterian' or transcendental naturalist view that they are genuine problems but ones that our intellects are unequipped, or at least very ill-equipped, to handle.

- by ian dearden
- •
- Metaphysics, Philosophy Of Language, Analytic Philosophy, Metaphilosophy

In this paper, I present the following argument: (1) All knowledge from fiction is from imagination (2) All knowledge from imagination is of possibility (3) So, all knowledge from fiction is of possibility Moreover, some knowledge is from... more

In this paper, I present the following argument:
(1) All knowledge from fiction is from imagination
(2) All knowledge from imagination is of possibility
(3) So, all knowledge from fiction is of possibility
Moreover, some knowledge is from fiction, so (1)-(3) are non-vacuously true.

- by Ben Blumson
- •
- Aesthetics, Philosophy of Literature, Imagination, Science Fiction and Fantasy

In the paper, I discuss Robert Kirk’s attempt to refute the zombie argument against materialism by demonstrating, “in a way that is intuitively appealing as well as cogent”, that the idea of phenomenal zombies involves incoherence. Kirk’s argues that if one admits that a world of zombies z is conceivable, one should also admit the conceivability of a certain transformation from such a world to a world z* that satisfies a description D, and it is arguable that D is incoherent. From which, Kirk suggests, it follows that the idea of zombies is incoherent. I argue that Kirk’s argument has several minor deficiencies and two major flaws. First, he takes for granted that cognitive mental states are physical (cognitive physicalism), although a zombist is free to—and would better—reject this view. Second, he confuses elements of different scenarios of transformation, none of which results in the incoherent description D.

- by Dmytro Sepetyi
- •
- Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness, Qualia, Zombies

We will discuss the problem of the appearance of contingency in the case of a posteriory identity of mind and body. This is the so-called Kripke's challenge. Most aposteriory identities are not problematic because the appearance of... more

- by Alen Lipuš
- •
- Philosophy of Mind, Conceivability and Possibility

Conceivability arguments for metaphysical possibility play a considerable role in philosophical discussions, especially in the philosophy of mind. The most famous classical example is Rene Descartes’ conceivability argument for the possibility of the unembodied mind; the most outstanding recent example is David Chalmers’ conceivability argument for the logical possibility of phenomenal zombies (as part of the zombie argument against materialism). The general discussions about the conceivability-entails-possibility thesis (in the rest of the paper, I will refer to it as CP) – including highly sophisticated accounts and defenses by Chalmers – were not lacking too. Nevertheless, the way the entailment works – and whether it does really work – remains obscure. In this paper, I discuss Chalmers’ accounts of the CP entailment and argue that they fail because of circularity, and reconsider the gravest problems with the CP entailment. An argument is made that the judgment of conceivability cannot be made independently of the judgment of logical coherence (no a priori contradiction), which, by definition, is the same as the judgment of logical possibility. The conclusion is that although in a sense conceivability does entail possibility, this entailment boils down to logical possibility entailing itself. Therefore, it is not helpful for any substantial argument. Nevertheless, there are some points in the vicinity that seem good candidates to survive the collapse of the CP enterprise and may ground re-construal and defense of some of the arguments formerly grounded in CP.

World semantics for relevant logics include so-called non-normal or impossible worlds providing model-theoretic counterexamples to such irrelevant entailments as (A ∧ ¬A) → B, A → (B∨¬B), or A → (B → B). Some well-known views interpret non-normal worlds as information states. If so, they can plausibly model our ability of conceiving or representing logical impossibilities. The phenomenon is explored by combining a formal setting with philosophical discussion. I take Priest’s basic relevant logic N4 and extend it, on the syntactic side, with a representation operator, (R), and on the semantic side, with particularly anarchic non-normal worlds. This combination easily invalidates unwelcome “logical omniscience” inferences of standard epistemic logic, such as belief-consistency and closure under entailment. Some open questions are then raised on the best strategies to regiment (R) in order to express more vertebrate kinds of conceivability.

- by Francesco Berto
- •
- Epistemic Logic, Impossible Worlds, Relevance Logic, Logical Omniscience

本文通过论述休漠在反驳因果原则过程当申所使用的“可设想性原则”，解释了其中存在的问题，通过对休漠该原则的历史追溯说明休漠在使用该原则的过程当中所具有的特殊性，最终通过一种可能的替代性解释提供了在这一个层面维系休漠论述的维度。

- by Qilin Li
- •
- Philosophy Of Language, Analytic Philosophy, Epistemology, Conceivability & Possibility