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Full Idea
Imaginability can give us access to conceptual possibility, when we come to believe situations to be conceptually possible by reflecting on their descriptions and seeing no contradiction or incoherence.
Gist of Idea
Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence
Source
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VI)
Book Ref
Shoemaker,Sydney: 'Identity, Cause and Mind' [OUP 2003], p.424
A Reaction
If take the absence of contradiction to indicate 'logical' possibility, but the absence of incoherence is more interesting, even if it is a bit vague. He is talking of 'situations', which I take to be features of reality. A priori synthetic?
| 15091 | Restrict 'logical truth' to formal logic, rather than including analytic and metaphysical truths [Shoemaker] |
| 15093 | We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker] |
| 15096 | 'Grue' only has causal features because of its relation to green [Shoemaker] |
| 15095 | A property's causal features are essential, and only they fix its identity [Shoemaker] |
| 15097 | I claim that a property has its causal features in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
| 15094 | I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker] |
| 15099 | If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker] |
| 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] |
| 15101 | Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker] |