Abstract
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.
Highlights
New, is the idea that cognitive psychology can help to fine-tune the notions of conceivability and imagination, which are relevant for the assessment of Hume’s Other Principle’ (HOP)
We cannot help but see a face and a nose when we look at a friend: if the kind of imagination which is relevant for HOP crucially involves labeling components, the relevant mental representations cannot be purely pictorial mental imagery
Some elements in the imagery must work as labels for the objects and features of the represented scenarios. It will be argued throughout the rest of this paper that it is such labeling component that spells trouble for HOP, under the hypothesis—the only one remaining, if our arguing by cases has left nothing else out—that the imagination which entails possibility according to Humeans is pictorial-cum-labeling mental imagery
Summary
Synthese (2018) 195:2697–2715 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. Keywords Conceivability and possibility · Imagination · Modal epistemology · Mental representation · Mental imagery
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