Coulda,Woulda, Shoulda
By Stephen Yablo
(...)
An enormous amount has been done with the metaphysical/conceptual distinction. Yet, and I think this is agreed by everyone, the distinction remains not terribly well understood. One reason it is not well understood is that the conceptual side of the distinction didn't receive at Kripke's hands the same sort of development as the metaphysical side.
This might have been intentional on Kripke's part. He might have thought the conceptual notion to be irremediably obscure, but important to mention lest it obscure our view of metaphysical necessity. Certainly this is the attitude that many take about the conceptual notion today. It could be argued that much of the contemporary skepticism about narrow content is at the same time skepticism about conceptual possibility. Narrow content, if it existed, would give sense to conceptual possibility: holding its narrow content fixed, S could have expressed a truth. If one rejects narrow content, one needs a different explanation, and none comes to mind. Going in the other direction, one might try to define S's narrow content as the set of worlds w whose obtaining conceptually necessitates that S. Lewis remarks somewhere that whoever claims not to understand something will take care not to understand anything else whereby it might be explained. If you don't understand narrow content, you will take care not to understand conceptual possibility either.
But,although many people have doubts about conceptual possibility,a number of other people are entirely gung ho about it. Some even treat it (and narrow content) as more, or anyway no less, fundamental than metaphysical possibility (and broad content). (...)
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Posted by Tony Marmo
at 04:06 BST
Updated: Friday, 22 October 2004 04:08 BST
