Conceivability and possibility: some dilemmas for Humeans.
The Humean view that conceivability entails possibility can be criticized via input from cognitive psychology. A mainstream view here has it that there are two candidate codings for mental representations (one of them being, according to some, reducible to the other): the linguistic and the pictoria...
| Published in: | Synthese Vol. 195; no. 6; pp. 2697 - 2716 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Jun2018
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=129833583&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 129833583 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2018 vid: 195 iid: 6 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 129833583 10.1007/s11229-017-1346-7 ppf: 2697 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 527KB tig: atl: Conceivability and possibility: some dilemmas for Humeans. aug: au: Berto, Francesco Schoonen, Tom affil: Department of Philosophy, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), University of Amsterdam, Oude Turfmarkt 141-147, 1012 GC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands su: Cognitive psychology Cognitive science Mental representation Sensory perception Imagination Theory of knowledge sug: subj: Cognitive psychology Cognitive science Mental representation Sensory perception Imagination Theory of knowledge keyword: Conceivability and possibility Mental imagery Modal epistemology ab: The Humean view that conceivability entails possibility can be criticized via input from cognitive psychology. A mainstream view here has it that there are two candidate codings for mental representations (one of them being, according to some, reducible to the other): the linguistic and the pictorial, the difference between the two consisting in the degree of arbitrariness of the representation relation. If the conceivability of P at issue for Humeans involves the having of a linguistic mental representation, then it is easy to show that we can conceive the impossible, for impossibilities can be represented by meaningful bits of language. If the conceivability of P amounts to the pictorial imaginability of a situation verifying P, then the question is whether the imagination at issue works purely qualitatively, that is, only by phenomenological resemblance with the imagined scenario. If so, the range of situations imaginable in this way is too limited to have a significant role in modal epistemology. If not, imagination will involve some arbitrary labeling component, which turns out to be sufficient for imagining the impossible. And if the relevant imagination is neither linguistic nor pictorial, Humeans will appear to resort to some representational magic, until they come up with a theory of a ‘third code’ for mental representations. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2018. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2018 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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