I compare two prominent approaches to knowledge of metaphysical modality, the more traditional approach via conceiving viz. imagining a scenario and a more recent approach via counterfactual reasoning. In particular, Timothy Williamson has claimed that the proper context for a modal exercise of imagination is a counterfactual supposition. I critically assess this claim, arguing that a purely conceivability/imaginability-based approach has a key advantage compared to a counterfactual-based one. It can take on board Williamson’s insights about the structure of modal imagination (...) while avoiding aspects of counterfactual reasoning which are orthogonal to figuring out metaphysical modality. In assessing whether A is possible, we creatively devise test scenarios, psychologically and metaphysically apt A-scenarios, which manifest the relevant metaphysical requirements and test them for their compatibility with A. In this exercise, imagination is subject to implicit constraints as Williamson has it, but it is not bound to drawing consequences from minimally altering actuality such as to make room for A. (shrink)

We need to understand the impossible. Francesco Berto and Mark Jago start by considering what the concepts of meaning, information, knowledge, belief, fiction, conditionality, and counterfactual supposition have in common. They are all concepts which divide the world up more finely than logic does. Logically equivalent sentences may carry different meanings and information and may differ in how they're believed. Fictions can be inconsistent yet meaningful. We can suppose impossible things without collapsing into total incoherence. Yet for the leading philosophical (...) theories of meaning, these phenomena are an unfathomable mystery. To understand these concepts, we need a metaphysical, logical, and conceptual grasp of situations that could not possibly exist: Impossible Worlds. This book discusses the metaphysics of impossible worlds and applies the concept to a range of central topics and open issues in logic, semantics, and philosophy. It considers problems in the logic of knowledge, the meaning of alternative logics, models of imagination and mental simulation, the theory of information, truth in fiction, the meaning of conditional statements, and reasoning about the impossible. In all these cases, impossible worlds have an essential role to play. (shrink)

A particular family of imagination-based epistemologies of possibility promises to provide an account that overcomes problems raised by Kripkean a posteriori impossibilities. That is, they maintain that imagination plays a significant role in the epistemology of possibility. They claim that imagination consists of both linguistic and qualitative content, where the linguistic content is independently verified not to give rise to any impossibilities in the epistemically significant uses of imagination. However, I will argue that these accounts fail to provide a satisfactory (...) basis for an epistemology of possibility as they fall victim to, what I call, the problem of modally bad company. In particular, I will argue that there is a deep methodological problem that these accounts face: to deliver the significant epistemology of possibility that they promise, they have to rely on problematic prior knowledge of necessities. (shrink)

I know that I could have been where you are right now and that you could have been where I am right now, but that neither of us could have been turnips or natural numbers. This knowledge of metaphysical modality stands in need of explanation. I will offer an account based on our knowledge of the natures, or essencess, of things. I will argue that essences need not be viewed as metaphysically bizarre entities; that we can conceptualise and refer to (...) essences; and that we can gain knowledge of them. We can know about which properties are, and which properties are not, essential to a given entity. This knowledge of essence offers a route to knowledge of the ways those entities must be or could be. (shrink)

RESUMO Uma das críticas mais contundentes ao argumento de Hume contrário ao status a priori ou logicamente verdadeiro da máxima causal - a de que todo evento deve ter uma causa - é a de Anscombe. Ela critica a passagem de Hume da contingência das associações causais particulares - que este evento deva ter esta causa - para a contingência de qualquer causa - que este evento tenha que ter alguma causa. Meu objetivo é defendê-lo da sua crítica, argumentando que (...) o raciocínio de Hume depende de premissas anteriores do “Tratado da Natureza Humana”, particularmente da sua filosofia da percepção e da sua filosofia do tempo. A apreciação dessas premissas torna o seu argumento mais interessante e menos vulnerável às considerações de Anscombe. ABSTRACT One of the most incisive criticisms of Hume’s argument against the causal maxim - that every event must have a cause - a priori or logically true status comes from Anscombe. She criticizes Hume’s inference from the contingency of particular causal associations - that this event must have this cause - to the contingency of any cause - that this event must have any cause. My aim is to defend him from her criticism, arguing that Hume’s reasoning depends on earlier premises of the “Treatise of Human Nature”, particularly its philosophy of perception and philosophy of time. An appreciation of these premises makes his arguments more interesting and less vulnerable to Anscombe’s considerations. (shrink)

I present a formal theory of the logic and aboutness of imagination. Aboutness is understood as the relation between meaningful items and what they concern, as per Yablo and Fine’s works on the notion. Imagination is understood as per Chalmers’ positive conceivability: the intentional state of a subject who conceives that p by imagining a situation—a configuration of objects and properties—verifying p. So far aboutness theory has been developed mainly for linguistic representation, but it is natural to extend it to (...) intentional states. The proposed framework combines a modal semantics with a mereology of contents: imagination operators are understood as variably strict quantifiers over worlds with a content-preservation constraint. (shrink)