Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics', 'Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed)' and 'Mereology'

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2 ideas

10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
Some of our ideas contain relations which we cannot conceive to be absent [Locke]
     Full Idea: In some of our ideas there are certain relations, habitudes, and connexions, so visibly included in the nature of the ideas themselves, that we cannot conceive them separable from them, by any power whatsoever.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.29)
     A reaction: This is the conceptual version of a priori necessity. The question then becomes whether this necessity can be traced back to reality, or merely to conventions which created the ideas in the first place. Analytic philosophy likes this idea.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / b. Conceivable but impossible
Conceivability may indicate possibility, but literary fantasy does not [Varzi]
     Full Idea: Conceivability may well be a guide to possibility, but literary fantasy is by itself no evidence of conceivability.
     From: Achille Varzi (Mereology [2003], 2.1)
     A reaction: Very nice. People who cite 'conceivability' in this context often have a disgracefully loose usage for the word. Really, really conceivable is probably our only guide to possibility.