There is Some Truth in That

We all know that metaphysical possibility isn’t the same thing as physical possibility, or other ‘restricted’ notions. It is sometimes suggested that the modifiers ‘metaphysically’, ‘physically’, ‘epistemically’, etc., in phrases like ‘metaphysically possible’ act as restrictors on the more general, univocal, property of possibility. (Compare: someone can be surprisingly wealthy, unjustly wealthy, or extremely wealthy [...]

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Rational Imagination and Modal Knowledge, with Benjamin Jarvis. Forthcoming in Nous. How do we know what’s (metaphysically) possible and impossible?  Kripke-Putnam considerations suggest that possibility is not merely a matter of (coherent) conceivability/imaginability.  For example, we can coherently imagine that Hesperus and Phosphorus are distinct objects even though they are not possibly distinct.  Despite this [...]

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