[lit-ideas] Beyond Belief
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 22:21:47 EDT
"Beyond belief", "Unbelievable"
Was: "A Hard Imagining"
In a message dated 8/22/2004 10:07:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
I just have a hard imagining that when one combines men and booze and
professional pleasers let's call them, that sex isn't involved. It still
leaves
the question of why these men prefer geishas to spending time at home. House
of Sand and Fog again ...
In re-reading this just before deleting it, I notice I wrote "I just have a
hard imagining". Filling in the blanks the ol fingers leave, I meant to say,
I have a hard time imagining ... I imagine you all figured it wasn't a hard
on. I think I'll give myself typing lessons for Christmas.
----
Actually, I read the original sentence to mean that you had a 'hard
imagining', literally, i.e. a difficult act of imagination.
Some people use 'imagine' (and notably, 'conceive') like that. They say, "It
is pretty inconceivable that..." and then add what they have _just_ noted it
was not possible to conceive.
I'm glad you only had a 'hard time' and not a 'hard imagining'. Imagining
should always be a pleasant, easy flowing experience.
The epitome is again in the Alice Books, where Lewis Carroll pokes fun at
people who 'overuse' 'unbelievable!':
--- Quote:
I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.'
`I can't believe THAT!' said Alice.
`Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long
breath, and shut your eyes.'
Alice laughed. `There's not use trying,' she said: `one CAN'T believe
impossible things.'
`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your
age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as
many as six impossible things before breakfast.
--- End of Quote:
Note that the Queen is right, "The Queen is one hundred and one, five months
and a day" is _quite_ possible to believe.
A recent philosophy title dealing with these problems is:
Conceivability and Possibility
edited by _Tamar Szabo Gendler_
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Gendler,%2520Tamar%2520Szabo/002-6770060-1806
440) and _John O'Leary-Hawthorne_
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=O'Leary-Hawthorne,%2520John/002-6770060-18
06440) (OUP blurb below), with contributions by M. Della Rocca et al.
Cheers,
JL
---
"The capacity to represent things to ourselves as possible plays a crucial
role both in everyday thinking and in philosophical reasoning; this volume
offers much-needed philosophical illumination of conceivability, possibility,
and the relations between them."
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