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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.
| 16435 | Plantinga proposes necessary existent essences as surrogates for the nonexistent things [Plantinga, by Stalnaker] |
| 14653 | X is essentially P if it is P in every world, or in every X-world, or in the actual world (and not ¬P elsewhere) [Plantinga] |
| 14652 | 'De re' modality is as clear as 'de dicto' modality, because they are logically equivalent [Plantinga] |
| 14655 | The 'identity criteria' of a name are a group of essential and established facts [Plantinga] |
| 14654 | Properties are 'trivially essential' if they are instantiated by every object in every possible world [Plantinga] |
| 14658 | 'Being Socrates' and 'being identical with Socrates' characterise Socrates, so they are among his properties [Plantinga] |
| 14656 | Does Socrates have essential properties, plus a unique essence (or 'haecceity') which entails them? [Plantinga] |
| 14657 | Does 'being identical with Socrates' name a property? I can think of no objections to it [Plantinga] |
| 14659 | We can imagine being beetles or alligators, so it is possible we might have such bodies [Plantinga] |
| 14660 | If a property is ever essential, can it only ever be an essential property? [Plantinga] |
| 14661 | Essences are instantiated, and are what entails a thing's properties and lack of properties [Plantinga] |