Conceivability and possibility: some dilemmas for Humeans.

Area of Science:

• Philosophy of Mind
• Cognitive Psychology
• Modal Epistemology

Background:

• The Humean view posits that if something is conceivable, it must be possible.
• This view is challenged by insights from cognitive psychology regarding mental representations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically evaluate the Humean principle that conceivability entails possibility.
• To explore the implications of different mental representation codes for conceivability.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of mental representation theories, specifically linguistic and pictorial coding.
• Examination of the arbitrariness of representation relations in cognitive psychology.
• Assessment of whether imagination, purely qualitative or otherwise, can represent impossibilities.

Main Results:

• Linguistic mental representations can easily represent impossibilities, as language allows for arbitrary connections.
• Pictorial imagination, if not purely qualitative, also involves arbitrary labeling, enabling conception of the impossible.
• The range of purely qualitative imagination is too limited for significant modal epistemology.

Conclusions:

• The Humean view is challenged by cognitive psychology's understanding of mental representations.
• Both linguistic and pictorial representational systems can lead to conceiving the impossible.
• Alternative theories of mental representation are needed to support the Humean principle.