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Single Idea 14659

[filed under theme 10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible ]

Full Idea

We easily understand Kafka's story about the man who wakes up to discover that he now has the body of a beetle; and in fact the state of affairs depicted is entirely possible. I can imagine being an alligator, so Socrates could have had an alligator body.

Gist of Idea

We can imagine being beetles or alligators, so it is possible we might have such bodies

Source

Alvin Plantinga (World and Essence [1970], III)

Book Ref

Plantinga,Alvin: 'Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality' [OUP 2003], p.63

A Reaction

This really is going the whole hog with accepting whatever is conceivable as being possible. I take this to be shocking nonsense, and it greatly reduces Plantinga in my esteem, despite his displays of intelligence and erudition.

The 26 ideas with the same theme [ if conceivable then it is possible]:

22149 Scholastics assess possibility by what has actually happened in reality [Suárez, by Boulter]
4818 People who are ignorant of true causes imagine anything can change into anything else [Spinoza]
20310 Error does not result from imagining, but from lacking the evidence of impossibility [Spinoza]
23487 What is thinkable is possible [Wittgenstein]
5819 Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam]
5478 Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis]
15098 Empirical evidence shows that imagining a phenomenon can show it is possible [Shoemaker]
15100 Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker]
15764 'Conceivable' is either not-provably-false, or compatible with what we know? [Shoemaker]
13967 Kripke's essentialist necessary a posteriori opened the gap between conceivable and really possible [Soames on Kripke]
13970 Kripke gets to the necessary a posteriori by only allowing conceivability when combined with actuality [Kripke, by Soames]
14659 We can imagine being beetles or alligators, so it is possible we might have such bodies [Plantinga]
16522 It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins]
16473 Modal Rationalism: conceivability gives a priori access to modal truths [Chalmers, by Stalnaker]
19258 Evaluate primary possibility from some world, and secondary possibility from this world [Chalmers, by Vaidya]
13963 Maybe logical possibility does imply conceivability - by an ideal mind [Chalmers]
16536 Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson]
9596 We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson]
18853 A proposition is 'correctly' conceivable if an ominiscient being could conceive it [Rosen]
15167 Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle]
15177 Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle]
9505 Empiricist saw imaginability and possibility as close, but now they seem remote [Bird]
14606 Only ideal conceivability could indicate what is possible [Schaffer,J]
16978 If conceivability is a priori coherence, that implies possibility [Tahko]
19440 How do you know you have conceived a thing deeply enough to assess its possibility? [Vaidya]
19267 Define conceivable; how reliable is it; does inconceivability help; and what type of possibility results? [Vaidya]