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15099
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If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
If it is possible that there could be possible states of affairs that are not nomologically possible, don't we therefore need a notion of metaphysical possibility that outruns nomological possibility?
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VI)
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A reaction:
Shoemaker rejects this possibility (p.425). I sympathise. So there is 'natural' possibility (my preferred term), which is anything which stuff, if it exists, could do, and 'logical' possibility, which is anything that doesn't lead to contradiction.
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15101
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Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
Once the obstacle of the deeply rooted conviction that necessary truths should be knowable a priori is removed, ...causal necessity is (pretheoretically) the very paradigm of necessity, in ordinary usage and in dictionaries.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VII)
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A reaction:
The a priori route seems to lead to logical necessity, just by doing a priori logic, and also to metaphysical necessity, by some sort of intuitive vision. This is a powerful idea of Shoemaker's (implied, of course, in Kripke).
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15100
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Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker]
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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.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VI)
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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?
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16397
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If it might be true, it might be true in particular ways, and possible worlds describe such ways [Stalnaker]
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Full Idea:
A clarifying assumption is that if something might be true, then it might be true in some particular way. …Possible worlds begin from this, and the assumption that what might be true can be described as how a possibility might be realised.
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From:
Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 2)
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A reaction:
This is a leading practitioner giving his best shot at explaining the rationale of the possible worlds approach, addressed to many sceptics. Most sceptics, I think, don't understand the qualifications the practitioners apply to their game.
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16399
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Possible worlds are ontologically neutral, but a commitment to possibilities remains [Stalnaker]
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Full Idea:
I argue for the metaphysical neutrality of the possible worlds framework, but I do not suggest that its use is free of ontological commitment to possibilities (ways things might be, counterfactual situations, possible states of worlds).
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From:
Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 2)
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A reaction:
Glad to hear this, as I have always been puzzled at possible aspirations to eliminate modality (such as possibility) by introducing 'possible' worlds. Commitment to possibilities I take to be basic and unavoidable.
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