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    Imaginability is not a reliable test for possibility — Carmelics
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Skepticism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Imaginability is not a reliable test for possibility

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

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Conceivability arguments depend on imaginers correctly tracking metaphysical necessity, but Kripke's a posteriori necessities show our modal intuitions systematically fail at this.
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    • 2.Water's necessity of being H2O is not imaginable a priori, yet is necessarily true—proving imagination underdetermines metaphysical possibility.
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    • 3.If imagination tracked possibility reliably, no necessary a posteriori truths could exist, yet Kripke and Putnam have established that they do.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Chalmers' conceivability-possibility inference requires 'ideal conceivability,' meaning conceivability under perfect a priori reflection, which ordinary imagination almost never achieves.
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    • 2.Ordinary imagination operates under cognitive limitations, including incomplete conceptual mastery and implicit contradictions that escape phenomenal notice.
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    • 3.Therefore, the imaginability that generates apparent counterexamples to impossibility claims is systematically weaker than the idealized standard required to license possibility inferences.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.There are good arguments that time-travel is incoherent (i.e., impossible)
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    • 2.One can imagine time-travel through fictional narratives such as Star Trek or Doctor Who
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    • 3.Therefore a scenario can be both imaginable and impossible
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    Related

    Chalmers' conceivability-possibility inference requires 'ideal conceivability,' ...Conceivability arguments depend on imaginers correctly tracking metaphysical nec...If imagination tracked possibility reliably, no necessary a posteriori truths co...One can imagine time-travel through fictional narratives such as Star Trek or Do...
    +5 moreShow less
    Ordinary imagination operates under cognitive limitations, including incomplete ...There are good arguments that time-travel is incoherent (i.e., impossible)Therefore a scenario can be both imaginable and impossibleTherefore, the imaginability that generates apparent counterexamples to impossib...Water's necessity of being H2O is not imaginable a priori, yet is necessarily tr...

    Similar

    Imaginability is a solid test for possibility89%Imagination is not a safe indication of real possibility, even when su...83%Nothing is possible which neither is nor will be true82%Conceivability is evidence of possibility82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: dualism
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    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 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit