Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

Jack Spencer has recently argued that somebody might be able to do the impossible.  In response, Anthony Nguyen has argued against Spencer’s arguments. In this paper, I do not argue against Spencer’s arguments. Instead, I argue directly against Spencer’s thesis. In the first part of my paper, I develop an argument that suggests that it is implausible that somebody is able to do the impossible (because somebody who is able to do the impossible would be able to do something that would have incredible consequences). In the second part of my paper, I develop an argument that suggests that it is impossible that somebody is able to do the impossible (because somebody who is able to do the impossible would have inconsistent obligations). In the third part of my paper, I discuss and reject three objections to my arguments. I conclude that there are good reasons to believe that it is impossible that somebody is able to do the impossible.

Jack Spencer (2017) has recently argued that somebody might be able to do the impossible. His arguments consist, to a large extent, in describing a class of cases—G-cases, as he calls them—in which it is intuitively plausible to hold that somebody is able to do something impossible. Here is one of Spencer’s G-cases: …

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