possibility

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Possibility (from Old High German mugan / magan “can”, “be able”, “like”; Greek δύναμις dýnamis , Latin possibilitas , hence the foreign word “ possibility” ) is the feasibility of an object , process or state in a practical or theoretical sense. In philosophy, possibility is one of the three modalities of being alongside the real and the necessary .

Linguistic expression

Linguistics knows a number of grammatical-semantic constructions of the form of possibility, for example as a mode or auxiliary construction, which express the various aspects of meaning:

Meaning analysis

“Something is possible” when it cannot be ruled out that it is the case. "It is possible that you are right" means for example: "I cannot rule out that you are right."

The reasons for exclusion can be of various types:

Logical impossibility
“It is not possible that something should be the case and at the same time not the case in the same respect.” The principle of contradiction rules that out.
Conceptual impossibility
“It is not possible for a black mold to exist” because mold is by definition white.
Impossibility under natural law
"It is not possible to build a perpetual motion machine" because that would contradict the law of conservation of energy .
Technical impossibility
"It is (currently technically) not possible that a person is now in Berlin and that the same person is in Beijing a minute later," because the currently fastest means of transport, the rockets, take more than 15 minutes.

One can further distinguish between possible events and possible actions:

Possibility of events
“If there is a winning ticket in a lottery wheel in addition to rivets, it is possible to randomly win a prize”, because the probability of this event is greater than zero.
Possibility of action
“As a member of a firing squad, you have the option of shooting next to it,” because a rifleman can determine the direction of his gun barrel.

Statements about possible courses of action always refer to certain subjects under certain conditions (who is able to carry out this action under which conditions?).

Possibilities for action that can be realized individually but not at the same time because they exclude each other are referred to as "alternative options" or only briefly as " alternatives ". So you have to choose between alternatives ("I can either go to the sea or the mountains next Sunday. How should I decide?").

Alternatives and options

Possibility or option is in the construct "One possibility (among several) is ..." an indication that there is an alternative to the variant or version shown. The possibility is the idea or imagination whose feasibility has been recognized. This environment also includes the chance in which the occurrence of a possibility is intentionally encouraged. The possibility lies in the present and opens up a variable field for various possible actions in the future, such as in chess , for example, hundreds of new possibilities for future moves open up with every move. Your result is indefinite. Possibility is not something compelling and inevitable like fate, for example . It demands a decision. In microeconomics , options are valued in terms of their opportunity costs .

ability

“Someone (or something) has the opportunity” is another formulation for skills or qualities. The "limit of what is possible" is synonymous with the "limit of what is feasible (what can be experienced, imagined)".

This use of the concept of possibility corresponds to a non-modal, that is to say a predicative use. The concept of possibility is used to express a property or ability of a thing, for example “Wood is combustible.” → The possibility of burning is inherent in wood, it is its own. In philosophy this is called potency .

The possibility is subject to certain conditions or requirements.

Probability of occurrence

Possibility (“something is possible”) means, colloquially, a low probability of occurrence for an event according to a personal opinion. In this sense, the possibility can be seen as a variant of reality.

The theory of probability knows an exact quantification between 0 and 1 or 0 percent and 100 percent of the probability of the occurrence of mathematically detectable random events. Everyday language is content, however, with a rough and unclear subdivision, which is also applied to probabilities of occurrence that cannot be precisely determined.

The following terminology is common:

  1. safe, always (100 percent probability of occurrence)
  2. as good as sure
  3. very likely, most likely
  4. probably above average
  5. average, half-half, fifty-fifty (50 percent probability of occurrence)
  6. possible, below average
  7. imaginable, can be
  8. difficult to imagine, hardly possible, practically impossible, cannot be ruled out
  9. impossible, never (0 percent probability)

The vague probability possible is usually fall somewhere below the 50 percent threshold. Depending on the linguistic context used, the probability is both in the extremely improbable range ("It is possible to win the lottery.") And in the medium range ("It is possible that the weather tomorrow will be exactly the same as it is today.").

In fuzzy logic , one speaks of possibility distribution, analogous to the probability distribution of probability theory.

philosophy

Antiquity

In ancient philosophy, debates about the possible took place. The Megarists Diodoros Kronos and Philon von Megara , the Stoic Chrysippos von Soloi and Aristotle came to different conclusions.

Diodorus gave two definitions of what is possible: “What is either true or what will be true” (based on logical content) and “What is either the case or will be possible is possible” (based on physical content). Accordingly, the possible is identical with the real, there cannot be a possibility that has not been realized. Philo, a student of Diodorus, came to the contrary. He determined the possible as that which, due to its own nature or disposition, is suitable to be (true), regardless of whether external circumstances permanently prevent the realization.

Diodorus tried to prove the correctness of his determination of the possible with the argument that is known as the master's conclusion or master's argument and is known today only from indirect tradition. It says that of the three statements “Everything that is true in the past is necessary”, “The impossible does not follow from the possible” and “There is something possible that is neither true nor will it be true”, the first and the second are evidently true and from this the falsehood of the third could be inferred. However, it is not known which considerations Diodorus led to the first two statements, how they are to be understood exactly and why he considered them to be evident. The argument was considered formally correct in antiquity; only the plausible truth of the first or second statement was disputed.

Aristotle cannot have known the master's conclusion for chronological reasons, but he knew a view that agreed with Diodor’s view, which he reproduced and tried to refute as the position of “the megarists”. He was probably referring to an older Megarian doctrine that was later developed by Diodorus. Possibly the master's conclusion represents a reaction of Diodorus to the Aristotelian criticism. Aristotle asserted that the Megarian doctrine, according to which only the real is possible, leads to nonsensical consequences, for example that between someone who can see who closes his eyes and a blind person there is no Difference in being. According to Aristotle's argument, all processes of becoming and passing presuppose the possible. Otherwise the consideration would apply: “Only that can become what is not already. The impossible cannot become. What is not possible is impossible. So if only what is real is possible, then what is not yet is impossible. But then nothing at all can come about. ”Aristotle's counter-position to the Megarian negation of the possibility states that being created in certain conditions of being constitutes the possible. The constant regularity of these conditions makes it possible to assign categories of being to what is not yet and thus to differentiate between the possible and the nothing and the real.

Chrysippos developed his concept by examining both Megarian and Aristotelian considerations. According to his teaching, what is possible as a state of affairs is what can be true and is not prevented from being true by external circumstances.

Kant

In Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason , the pair of opposites possibility - impossibility is one of the modality categories, together with the pairs of existence - non-being and necessity - randomness. Possibility and impossibility correspond to the intellectual act in a problematic judgment , that is, a judgment in which the affirmation or denial is assumed to be merely possible and thus a correspondence of the knowledge with its object is only possible. The scheme the possibility determined Kant as "the harmony of the synthesis of different representations with the conditions of time at all," meaning "to determine the representation of a thing at any time." It depends on the time, because with the modality the decisive point of view is always the answer to the question of whether and, if so, how the object belongs to the time. As an example, Kant gives the fact that something cannot be in one thing at the same time as what is opposite to it. From the scheme of possibility he distinguishes that of reality as “the existence in a certain time” and the scheme of necessity as “the existence of an object at all time”.

For Kant, the condition for the possibility of things results from the scheme of possibility. He determines as possible that which "agrees with the formal conditions of experience (intuition and concepts)", in contrast to the real, which is "connected with the material conditions of experience (sensation)". The empirical use of the concept of possibility plays an important role in Kant's epistemology because he is concerned there with the determination of all possible objects of knowledge and their concepts and thus with the limits of possible knowledge.

For Kant, the distinction between logical and real possibility is of great importance. The logical possibility is a necessary criterion for marking the limits of intelligible speech. A term is logically possible for Kant if it is free of contradictions. Here, however, the problem already recognized by Kant arises that the question of the logical contradiction - apart from a few exceptions - cannot be clarified by a pure conceptual analysis.

The establishment of the real possibility of concepts and things also encounters obstacles, because it cannot be understood by conceptual analysis alone, rather a material basis is required. According to Kant, it should be noted that the categories of modality to the term to which they are attached as predicates contribute nothing as a determination of the object, but only relate to the relationship to the faculty of knowledge. Even if the concept of a thing is complete and free of contradictions, the question of the real possibility of the concept and the thing still remains open. For their answer it is decisive how the object and all its determinations relate to the understanding and its empirical use. In this analysis, the sensory faculty is decisive, because the possibility of a thing never arises merely from the non-contradiction of its concept, but - according to Kant - from "the fact that it is substantiated by an observation corresponding to it". An empirical concept can only be judged as real possible if there is an empirical object for it as an example. Here, however, there is the problem that the real possibility of pure concepts cannot be proven by looking for examples of them in experience, because the justification of their application to experience is questionable insofar as they are pure concepts. After all, it is true of mathematical concepts that a pure concept, for example that of a triangle, can be substantiated by a pure intuition before one has an empirical view for it.

Regarding the question of whether there are possible objects that are not real, Kant states that although the possibility of such things is given for human reason, it should not be inferred from this that the difference between the possible and the real lies in the things themselves .

Furthermore, Kant uses the concept of “absolute possibility” as a contrast to the conditioned nature of real possibility. For him it is not a mere concept of understanding, but belongs solely to reason, and can "in no way be of empirical use". The absolutely possible is possible “with all intention”, that is, not only under conditions that are themselves merely possible.

Nicolai Hartmann

In modern philosophy, the prevailing view is that the Megarian argumentation is flawed and that Aristotle's criticism of it is justified. However, Nicolai Hartmann took up the Megarian thesis that only the real is possible and defended it against the objections of Aristotle. In his view, the absurd consequences pointed out by Aristotle can be avoided. For Hartmann that which is not yet being is always at the same time something that is not yet possible and thus every non-being is an impossible one. The possibility of being and that of not being are mutually exclusive in reality. Something is only possible when all the necessary conditions are met, and it is precisely then that it must inevitably come about. The world as it is is necessary, that is, it is determined . The human talk of “possible” can only refer to degrees of certainty in the real sphere. Hartmann criticizes the Aristotelian "the possibility of being" as a "half-being" that leads a kind of ghostly existence.

Ernst Bloch

Like Hartmann, but from a different approach, Ernst Bloch tried to rehabilitate an ontological concept of possibility. Bloch saw in matter a synonym for possibility. However, he distinguished - with reference to Aristotle - two forms of possibility: the "in-possibility-being" , that is, that which is contained in matter in terms of latency and tendency, and the "after-possibility-being", that is, what can be made possible according to the given. In addition, Bloch differentiated four layers of the possibility category. Bloch's determination of the real possibility is an important component of his concept of the concrete utopia .

Philosophical logic

In philosophical logic , one of the two intensional modal operators can be interpreted as “possible”, which leads to an alethic modal logic . The possibility of a statement describes in a model-theoretical reading the givenness of this statement in an accessible possible world . In the usual calculi, this determination does not exclude the fact that the statement is necessary at the same time, but by definition the necessity of negating this statement, i.e. H. if " P is possible" applies, " ~ P is necessary" does not apply . A statement that is simultaneously possible but not necessary is called contingent (true or false), and if it is not given in the current world at the same time, it is “only possible”. The question of whether the modality relates to the level of description or whether it is based on an inner determination of the objects (“ de re and de dicto ”) has far-reaching consequences both for the ontology and for the axioms to be chosen, the Determine the use of the operators.

Analytical metaphysics

In the more recent metaphysical discussion of analytic philosophy , various explications of possibility are distinguished. These place differently strict conditions on what is considered possible and what is impossible. It is therefore assumed that the areas of the terms lie one inside the other, jokingly speaking of an Onion of Possibilities ("Onion of Possibilities"). The following, which are also significant for the theory of dispositions and the counterfactual conditionals, are considered most frequently :

logical or conceptual possibility
the 'widest' possibility, a statement is logically possible if it does not contain or imply a contradiction . Occasionally, a distinction is made between the conceptual possibility or conceivability, which only requires that a term be conceivable.
metaphysical possibility
this is narrower or at most congruent with logical possibility, depending on the philosophy of logic represented. This concerns the question of rigid designators of the identity of objects of two intensionally differentiated terms. Saul Kripke's example “Water is H 2 O” is, in the opinion of some, “only” necessary metaphysically, since negation is metaphysically impossible, but logically possible. Since water in nature does not consist solely of the chemical compound H 2 O, the example can be challenged.
nomological or natural law possibility
'Possible' within the natural laws existing in the actual world . Since David Hume , the prevailing view among empirical schools is that the laws of nature are metaphysically contingent and without inner necessity. From this point of view it follows that other laws of nature must be logically and metaphysically possible. Nevertheless, the laws of nature are necessary in a certain way: if laws of nature are sufficiently known, it follows what is physically and technically impossible. If it is argued that the laws of nature are also to be seen as necessary, then the nomological possibility is congruent with the metaphysical possibility.
temporal or historical possibility
Possible in view of the given past of the world state under consideration (given a concrete history and natural history or sequence of events). Thus, under given circumstances, two of three conceivable options were possible in the past, a third not because the circumstances did not provide for it or e.g. B. because it was unimaginable at the time and therefore could not have been a determining factor for a decision. If one of the options has now occurred, the other has also lost its status as currently possible. The imaginability, which is particularly relevant for decisions, concerns the concrete subjects of imagination.

literature

Overview representations

Investigations

Web links

Wiktionary: Possibility  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Remarks

  1. ↑ Klaus Döring : Socrates, the Socratics and the traditions they founded. In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 139–364, here: 227 f.
  2. ↑ Klaus Döring: Socrates, the Socratics and the traditions they founded. In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 139–364, here: 228 f.
  3. ↑ Klaus Döring: Socrates, the Socratics and the traditions they founded. In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 139–364, here: 228 f .; Josef Stallmach: Dynamis and Energeia , Meisenheim am Glan 1959, pp. 62–67.
  4. ↑ Peter Steinmetz : The Stoa. In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 4/2, Basel 1994, pp. 491–716, here: 597 f.
  5. ↑ Immanuel Kant: AA III, 138. Cf. Berna Kilinc: possibility. In: Marcus Willaschek et al: Kant-Lexikon , Volume 2, Berlin 2015, pp. 1591–1595, here: 1591.
  6. ↑ Immanuel Kant: AA III, 185.
  7. ↑ Berna Kilinc: Possibility. In: Marcus Willaschek et al.: Kant-Lexikon , Volume 2, Berlin 2015, pp. 1591–1595, here: 1591 f.
  8. ↑ Berna Kilinc: Possibility. In: Marcus Willaschek et al: Kant-Lexikon , Volume 2, Berlin 2015, pp. 1591–1595, here: 1592.
  9. ↑ Immanuel Kant: AA III, 186.
  10. ^ Immanuel Kant: AA III, 210.
  11. ↑ Berna Kilinc: Possibility. In: Marcus Willaschek et al: Kant-Lexikon , Volume 2, Berlin 2015, pp. 1591–1595, here: 1592–1594.
  12. ↑ Berna Kilinc: Possibility. In: Marcus Willaschek et al.: Kant-Lexikon , Volume 2, Berlin 2015, pp. 1591–1595, here: 1594.
  13. ↑ Immanuel Kant: AA III, 196 f.
  14. ↑ See for example Christoph Hubig: Possibility. In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Encyclopedia Philosophy. Volume 2, Hamburg 2010, pp. 1642–1649, here: 1644.
  15. ↑ See Josef Stallmach: Dynamis and Energeia , Meisenheim am Glan 1959, pp. 67–69, 79; Christoph Hubig: Possibility. In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Encyclopedia Philosophy. Volume 2, Hamburg 2010, pp. 1642–1649, here: 1647 f.