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Related Terms

MODES OF EXPRESSION analogy argument configuration explanation expressions justification knowledge modes of expression necessary possible probable Complete Term List

 

Dictionary Definition from Wordnet

1. (1) possible -- (something that can be done; "politics is the art of the possible") 1. (141) possible [adj] -- (capable of happening or existing; "a breakthrough may be possible next year"; "anything is possible"; "warned of possible consequences") 2. (22) potential, possible -- (existing in possibility; "a potential problem"; "possible uses of nuclear power") 3. (1) conceivable, imaginable, possible -- (capable of being imagined; "that is one possible answer")

 

 

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Working Definition:

the condition of not being known to exist outside of being imagined.

Disciplinary Definitions:

possible: "capable of existing." Angeles, Dictionary of Philosophy

Comments:

[Note: in using the terms, "necessary," "probable," and "possible," I am not invoking modal logic. I am merely describing three states of belief, that something undeniably exists, that something probably exists but can be denied, and that something could possibly exist, but is neither necessary nor probable because it exists only as imagined.]

Aronson notes that humans are the only species who can imagine possibilities (Aronson, et. al., 1999, 153).   If I introduce possibilities into the discussion of configuring, then schemas are imagined.  Of course, schemas are invariably used to anticipate.  So, configuring anticipates how someone will behave toward you.  So we recognize a situation and anticipate that it will have a particular interpersonal pattern.  The recognition is based on recall, that is, the situation is stored in our memories as having happened. 

Is configuring to be contrasted to fantasizing?  Not necessarily because a configuration stored in memory originally depends on someone’s analogical inference, which over time became automatic.  So, if the fantasy is possible, then it is configural.  If it is not, then it is metaphoric(?).  However, it is the analog, not the content that is possible.  So, to take up arms against a sea is possible because it is analogous to a pattern of frustration one can experience—futility.  In configuring the analogy can be either to the structure and the content (realistic) or only to the structure (metaphoric).  The more metaphoric, the wider the applicability. 

Notes

There is a strong connection between narrtive & possibility: "as Claude Bremond emphasized, every narrative function opens an alternative, a set of possible directions, and every narrative progresses by following certain directions as opposed to others" (36). (Herman, Story Logic, 2002, 56)

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last revised: June 13, 2007 Send comments to jjs.

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