Contingent A Priori Knowledge

The Standard Metre: Has It Anything to Do With The Contingent A Priori

The Vicious Triangle of a Priori Truth, Contingent Truth, and Logical Truth

In this paper, I argue against the view there are contingent a priori truths, and against the related view that there are contingent logical truths. I will suggest that in general, predicates ›a priori‹ and ›contingent‹ are implicitly relativized to circumstances, and argue that apriority entails necessity, whenever the two are relativized to the same circumstance. I will then criticize the ide...

The Contingent a Priori and de re Knowledge

In this paper I discuss some objections raised by Donnellan (1977) and by Soames (2005) against the examples of contingent a priori truths proposed by Kripke (1980) and by Kaplan (1989). According to Kaplan and Kripke, the mechanism of direct reference alone can guarantee that some contingent truths can be known without any relevant experience. Both Donnellan and Soames claim that the examples ...

A Priori Skepticism and the KK Thesis

In Beebe (2011), I argued against the widespread reluctance of philosophers to treat skeptical challenges to our a priori knowledge of necessary truths with the same seriousness as skeptical challenges to our a posteriori knowledge of contingent truths. Vahid (2013) offers several reasons for thinking the unequal treatment of these two kinds of skepticism is justified, one of which is a priori ...

Presupposition and the a priori

This paper argues for and explores the implications of the following epistemological principle for knowability a priori (with ‘KA’ abbreviating ‘it is knowable a priori that’). (AK) For all /, w such that / semantically presupposes w: if KA/; KAw: Well-known arguments for the contingent a priori and a priori knowledge of logical truth founder when the semantic presuppositions of the putative it...