Possibility and Imagination_.pdf

Philosop hical Persp ectives (2007) * Possibility and Imagination Alex Byrne, MIT 1. Introduction Here is a familiar argument: Argument K 1. It is conceivable/imaginable that there is C-fiber stimulation without pain. 2. If it is conceivable/imaginable that there is C-fiber stimulation without pain, then there could be C-fiber stimulation without pain. 3. If there could be C-fiber stimulation without pain, pain is not identical to C- fiber stimulation. Hence: 4. Pain is not identical to C-fiber stimulation. In the argument ’s more recent and general dress, what is said to be conceivable/imaginable is that “zombies” exist (see, e.g., Chalmers 1996: 94-9), but let us concentrate on Argument K. Descartes’ case for the “real distinction” between mind and body arguably relies on a variant of Argument K, where what is conceivable is mind without body, rather than body without mind.1 Kripke is widely supposed to have breathed new life into such “conceivability arguments”. Did he? The first claim of this paper is that he didn’t. Argument K is not Kripke ’s; §2 presents the evidence. But even if Argument K does not bear the Kripkean seal of approval, many others have been eager to endorse it, or to agree that it poses a serious * Many thanks to Lauren Ashwell and Tyler Doggett who commented on this paper at, respectively , a conference at MIT and the 2007 Pacific APA ; thanks also to the audiences on those occasions. I am especially grateful to Steve Yablo for many helpful conversations. 1 See, e.g., Williams 1978: ch . 4, Yablo 1990, Gendler and Hawthorne 2002: 13-26. In the Meditations there are two hints of the modern sort of con