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    Imaginability is a solid test for possibility — Carmelics
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
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    Topics
    42
    Home/Modality & Possibility
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    Imaginability is a solid test for possibility

    Modality & Possibility
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.No clear example has been produced where one can imagine that p and there is also a good argument that it is impossible that p
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    • 2.No counterexamples to imaginability entailing possibility have been forthcoming
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Kant demonstrated that Euclidean geometry was imaginable as the only possible geometry, yet non-Euclidean geometries are mathematically coherent.
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    • 2.Historical imaginability is constrained by contingent cognitive and conceptual limitations, not by metaphysical necessity.
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    • 3.Therefore imaginability tracks epistemic accessibility rather than genuine possibility.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kripke showed that water being XYZ is imaginable under a description yet impossible, since 'water' rigidly designates H2O across all possible worlds.
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    • 2.Imaginability operates on descriptions and concepts, while possibility concerns the underlying essences those concepts pick out.
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    • 3.When concepts fail to transparently reveal essence, imagination systematically misfires as a guide to possibility.
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    Topics

    Modality & Possibility

    Related

    Historical imaginability is constrained by contingent cognitive and conceptual l...Imaginability operates on descriptions and concepts, while possibility concerns ...Kant demonstrated that Euclidean geometry was imaginable as the only possible ge...Kripke showed that water being XYZ is imaginable under a description yet impossi...
    +4 moreShow less
    No clear example has been produced where one can imagine that p and there is als...No counterexamples to imaginability entailing possibility have been forthcomingTherefore imaginability tracks epistemic accessibility rather than genuine possi...When concepts fail to transparently reveal essence, imagination systematically m...

    Similar

    Imaginability is not a reliable test for possibility89%Conceivability is evidence of possibility85%Conceivability is some evidence for possibility83%Conceivability provides the usual kind of evidence for logical possibi...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: dualism
    View source passageHide passage
    Before Kripke (1972/80), the first challenge to such an argument would have concerned the move from (3) to (4). When philosophers generally believed in contingent identity, that move seemed to them invalid. But nowadays that inference is generally accepted and the issue concerns the relation between imaginability and possibility. No-one would nowadays identify the two (except, perhaps, for certain quasi-realists and anti-realists), but the view that imaginability is a solid test for possibility
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit