Imagined Situation As Evidence Of Possibility

Modal Epistemology is an area about how we know about possibility and necessity.This thesis tries to discuss a modal epistemology problem from the perspective of the relation between conceivability and possibility.I think if we understand conceivability as the ability to imagine,and construe its relation to possibility as fallible support to the latter,then we would better accept a constructive view of imagination,by which we think that we do imagine what we want to imagine.After that,by elucidating different evidential values of different parts in imagination,we can make sure whether this imagined situation provides new evidence of the possibility of this situation at issue.While this thesis argues for a constructive view,it based on reflection and criticism on the telescopic view of imagination.Since Stephen Yablo's fundamental paper on modal epistemology,we are accustomed to taking imagination as a tool to look for possibility: when we conceive some situations,we find them possible,just like we find any objects by telescopes;but this tool could mistake,especially when it comes to situations contradicts against a posteriori necessities,we would think it conceivable intuitively.So,what Yablo provides and debates later focused that how to defend his approach from general criticism and whether his solution for such mistakes is successful.However,during the debates,we find that the telescopic view contradicts our intuition about how we imagine,i.e.,imaginability is not subjective to modal knowledge.On the other hand,if we insist on this view of imagination,we then cannot make imagined situations correspond to possible situations at issue,which result in discrediting all imagination.This thesis argues for Peter Kung's papers which are challenged,too.Kung thinks that only sensory qualities in imagination have evidential status while assignments do not.If you want your imagination evidence of possibility of a certain situation,you should argue that its sensory qualities justify it.One of the objections is that,sensory qualities and assignments cannot be differed in their evidential values by the principles that Kung provides.I think we can appeal to the source of sensory qualities to secure their peculiarity against assignments.The other strategy to avoid this objection is to change the principle used for dividing,by which sensory qualities are regarded as evidence while assignments are not.So,this objection is not successful.