{"id":11912,"date":"2010-01-18T18:31:40","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T18:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/01\/18\/conceivability-possibility-self-and-body\/"},"modified":"2010-01-18T18:31:40","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T18:31:40","slug":"conceivability-possibility-self-and-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/01\/18\/conceivability-possibility-self-and-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Conceivability, Possibility, Self, and Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reader sent me the following argument which he considers a good one:<\/font><\/p>\n

1. It is conceivable that I exist without my present body (or any part of it).
2. Therefore, it is possible that I exist without my present body (or any part of it).
3. Therefore, I have a property P that my body does not, namely, being such that possibly, I exist when my body (or any part of it) doesn't.
4. Therefore, I am not my body (or any part of it).<\/span> <\/font><\/p>\n

The argument as it stands is enthymematic.  The inferential move from (3) to (4) requires an auxiliary premise, one which is easily supplied.  It is the contrapositive of the Identity of Indiscernibles, and so we can call it the Discernibility of the Diverse, to wit: If two things differ in respect of a property, then they are numerically diverse (not numerically identical). <\/em> That is a rough formulation, but it is good enough for present purposes.  With the assistance of DD, the move from (3) to (4) is unproblematic.<\/font><\/p>\n

I should think the move from (2) to (3) is also unproblematic.  The inference from (1) to (2), however, puzzles me and troubles me.  I accept the conclusion: I cannot for the life of me see how I could be strictly and numerically identical <\/em>to my body or any part of it.  So I would like the above argument, or a reasonable facsimile, to be valid. But I stumble over the move from (1) to (2).  To validate this inference we need some such principle as <\/font><\/p>\n

CEP. For any proposition p, conceivably p entails possibly p.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

CEP is what I want to discuss.  The possibility in question is not epistemic but real, and is that species of real possibility called broadly logical or metaphysical.  Now here is a reason why I have doubts about CEP.  I accept that there is an Absolute.  Now any decent Absolute (the One of Plotinus is a good candidate as is the God of Aquinas) will be a necessary being, one whose possibility entails its actuality.  An Absolute, then, cannot not exist if it exists: it either exists in every possible world or in no world.  To prove that an Absolute exists all I need is the premise, Possibly an Absolute exists.<\/em>  I may think to infer this proposition from Conceivably an Absolute exists<\/em>, by way of CEP.  Unfortunately, it seems I can just as easily conceive of the nonexistence of a an Absolute.  To paraphrase Hume, whatever I can conceive as existent I can just as easily conceive as nonexistent.  We can call that Hume's Existence Principle:<\/font><\/p>\n

HEP.  Everything (concrete)<\/span> is such that its nonexistence is conceivable.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

If HEP is true, then every being is contingent.  But if CEP is true, then at least one being is noncontingent.  This shows that either CEP is false or HEP is false.  Since I am strongly inclined to accept HEP, I have doubts about CEP.<\/font><\/p>\n

Clearly, much depends on what we mean by 'conceivable.'  Trading Latin for Anglo-Saxon, to be conceivable is to be thinkable.  But since there is a sense in which logical contradictions are thinkable, we must add: thinkable without broadly logical contradiction.  By whom?  The average schmuck?  Or the ideally penetrative intellect?  If an ideally penetrative intellect examines a proposition and detects no broadly logical contradiction, then there will be no gap between conceivability in this sense and possibility.  But our intellects are not ideally penetrative.  Suppose a person reads and understands Zorn's Lemma, reads and understands the Axiom of Choice, and then is asked whether it is possible that the first  be true and the second false.  He examines the conjunction of Zorn's Lemma with the negation of the Axiom of Choice and discerns no contradiction.  So he concludes that it is possible that the Lemma be true and the Axiom false.  He would be wrong since the two are provably equivalent.  This shows, I think, that for intellects like ours one cannot in general validly infer possibility from conceivability.<\/font><\/p>\n

Returning to our opening argument, I would say that it is plausible and renders dualism rationally acceptable.  But it doesn't  establish<\/em> dualism.  For the move from (1) to (2) is questionable.<\/font><\/p>\n

What is to stop a materialist from running the argument in reverse?  He denies the conclusion and then denies (2).    If you insist that your non-identity with your body is conceivable and therefore possible, he tells you that it only seems so to you, and that seeming is not being. Or else he rejects CEP<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader sent me the following argument which he considers a good one: 1. It is conceivable that I exist without my present body (or any part of it).2. Therefore, it is possible that I exist without my present body (or any part of it).3. Therefore, I have a property P that my body does … Continue reading “Conceivability, Possibility, Self, and Body”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind","category-modal-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}