Skip to content
Carmelics
TopicsThinkersChangesContributorsLoading account…

    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

    Navigate

    • Topics
    • Search
    • Recent Changes
    • Contribute
    • How It Works
    • Glossary
    • Thinkers
    • Contributors
    • About
    • Statistics
    • Terms
    • Privacy

    Database

    Statements
    —
    Perspectives
    —
    Topics
    —

    Press ? for keyboard shortcuts

    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Hume's Dialogues Part IX argues that whatever can be conceived as existing can be conceived as not existing, which directly targets modal necessity claims.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Conceivability is a poor guide to possibility: we can fail to conceive of necessary truths (like mathematical proofs) without making them contingent.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Hume conflates psychological conceivability with metaphysical possibility, ignoring that imagination has limits independent of modal facts.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Logical and mathematical necessities (e.g., contradictions being impossible) seem to escape Hume's principle without absurd consequences.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Conceivability and possibility are epistemically linked: if something is genuinely inconceivable, we have reason to doubt its metaphysical possibility.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Hume's principle challenges rationalist claims that necessity is knowable a priori through reason alone, requiring empirical grounding instead.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.The principle successfully undermines essentialist arguments that treat certain properties as necessarily inhering in objects by nature.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Next step

    Based on where you are in your exploration

    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.