Knowledge of Necessity: Logical Positivism and Kripkean Essentialism

Philosophy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen K. McLeod
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Modal Epistemology ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Logical Positivist ◽  
Contingent Truth ◽  
Contingent A Priori ◽  
Necessary A Posteriori ◽  
Necessary Truth

AbstractBy the lights of a central logical positivist thesis in modal epistemology, for every necessary truth that we know, we know it a priori and for every contingent truth that we know, we know it a posteriori. Kripke attacks on both flanks, arguing that we know necessary a posteriori truths and that we probably know contingent a priori truths. In a reflection of Kripke's confidence in his own arguments, the first of these Kripkean claims is far more widely accepted than the second. Contrary to received opinion, the paper argues, the considerations Kripke adduces concerning truths purported to be necessary a posteriori do not disprove the logical positivist thesis that necessary truth and a priori truth are co-extensive.

scholarly journals Naming and necessity in a two-dimensional semantic framework

KÜLÖNBSÉG ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
János Kovács
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Semantic Framework ◽  
Contingent A Priori ◽  
Necessary A Posteriori ◽  
Naming And Necessity

This paper surveys the relevance of Kripke’s semantics of proper names. In his Naming and Necessity Kripke takes issue with Frege’s and Russell’s descriptive semantics of proper names. He proposes a new model called the causal model of proper names. Kripke’s model of the philosophy of language have challenged the relation of the metaphysical concepts necessity/contingency and the epistemological concepts apriority/a posteriority, respectively. Since Kant it has been accepted that all a priori truth is necessary, while all a posteriori truth is contingent. Kripke’s book has changed these tenets and nowadays it is accepted that the four concepts are independent of each other and that the complex concepts generated with them have instance.   This paper investigates Kripke’s arguments on necessity and apriority in a two-dimensional semantic framework. The paper argues that the two-dimensional model is in harmony with Kripke’s model although Soames has been claiming the opposite in several publications. The paper claims that Soames’ theory of direct reference is unable to account for necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori statements.

Kripke’s Contingent A Priori and Necessary A Posteriori

1985 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 481-489
Author(s):  
Peter Nicholls ◽  
Dan Passell ◽  
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Contingent A Priori ◽  
Necessary A Posteriori

Metaphysics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin McGinn
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
De Re ◽  
Necessary Truth ◽  
Possible Worlds Theory ◽  
De Dicto

This chapter explores philosophical issues in metaphysics. It begins by distinguishing between de re and de dicto necessity. All necessity is uniformly de re; there is simply no such thing as de dicto necessity. Indeed, in the glory days of positivism, all necessity was understood as uniformly the same: a necessary truth was always an a priori truth, while contingent truths were always a posteriori. The chapter then assesses the concept of antirealism. Antirealism is always an error theory: there is some sort of mistake or distortion or sloppiness embedded in the usual discourse. The chapter also considers paradoxes, causation, conceptual analysis, scientific mysteries, the possible worlds theory of modality, the concept of a person, the nature of existence, and logic and propositions.

Plantinga's Necessary A Posteriori Truths

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-327
Author(s):  
Gregory W. Fitch
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Other ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Necessary A Posteriori ◽  
Necessary Truths

Alvin Plantinga has recently argued that there are certain propositions which are necessary but known only a posteriori. If Plantinga is correct then he has shown that the traditional view that all necessary truths are knowable a priori is false. Plantinga's examples deserve special attention because they differ in important respects from other proposed examples of necessary a posteriori truths. His examples depend on a certain conception of possible worlds and in particular on his conception of the actual world. It will be argued that these examples of necessary a posteriori propositions can be understood in two different ways. According to one way of understanding Plantinga, the propositions turn out to be contingent a posteriori truths, and according to the other way they turn out to be necessary a priori truths. The plausibility of Plantinga's position is due to a confusion between the two possible interpretations.

Necessary truth and convention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Sidelle
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Necessary Truth ◽  
Necessary Truths ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Necessary truths have always seemed problematic, particularly to empiricists and other naturalistically-minded philosophers. Our knowledge here is a priori - grounded in appeals to what we can imagine or conceive (or can prove on that basis) - which seems hard to reconcile with such truths being factual, short of appealing to some peculiar faculty of a priori intuition. And what mysterious extra feature do necessary truths possess which makes their falsity impossible? Conventionalism about necessity claims that necessary truths obtain by virtue of rules of language, such as that ‘vixen’ means the same as ‘female fox’. Because such rules govern our descriptions of all cases - including counterfactual or imagined ones - they generate necessary truths (‘All vixens are foxes’), and our a priori knowledge is just knowledge of word meaning. Opponents of conventionalism argue that conventions cannot ground necessary truths, particularly in logic, and have also challenged the notion of analyticity (truth by virtue of meaning). More recent claims that some necessary truths are a posteriori have also fuelled opposition to conventionalism.

scholarly journals Martha Kneale on Why Metaphysical Necessities Are Not A Priori

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-409
Author(s):  
JESSICA LEECH
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Modal Epistemology ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Metaphysical Necessity ◽  
Independent Reality

AbstractIn her 1938 paper ‘Logical and Metaphysical Necessity’, Martha Kneale introduces the necessary a posteriori. I present a critical summary of Kneale's argument that so-called ‘metaphysical propositions’ are necessary but not a priori. I argue that Kneale is well placed to offer a template for reconciling conceivability approaches to modal epistemology with the post-Kripkean trend for taking metaphysical necessities to have their source in mind-independent reality.

Reply to Boghossian on the A Priori and the Analytic1

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-92
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian ◽  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Metaphysical Modality ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Necessary Truth ◽  
And Mathematics

This chapter replies to Boghossian’s defence of the a priori–a posteriori distinction against the arguments for its shallowness in?The Philosophy of Philosophy. In particular, it shows how to understand the example of an unorthodox thinker who is linguistically competent with conjunction but refuses to treat the rule of conjunction elimination as logically valid. It also rebuts Boghossian’s charge of circularity against the account of knowledge of metaphysical modality in terms of the cognitive capacities required to assess ordinary counterfactual conditionals. For the explanation of knowledge of logic and mathematics, the key significance is emphasized of the distinction between knowing the truth of what is in fact a necessary truth and knowing that it is necessary.

scholarly journals Chalmers’ defense of the conceivability argument

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-55
Author(s):  
Dusko Prelevic
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Metaphysical Possibility ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Necessary A Posteriori ◽  
Modal Rationalism ◽  
Zombie Argument ◽  
Minimal Physicalism

Modal rationalism is a view according to which conceivability a priori entails metaphysical possibility. One of the most influential objections against this view is the claim that there are necessary a posteriori statements. For it seems that their falsity is conceivable but nevertheless metaphysically impossible. However, David Chalmers argues that modal rationalism could be compatible with the existence of necessary a posteriori statements because epistemic two-dimensional semantics framework could explain their nature and there are relevant senses of conceivability and possibility which could plausibly be connected. This paper assesses Chalmers? argument and shows that shifting the burden of proof to the skeptics is one of its best features. The zombie argument is a useful example which shows that even without epistemic two-dimensional semantics modal rationalism could be effective in metaphysics (i.e. it could defeat minimal physicalism). It is also argued in this paper that making parody of the zombie argument, in order to turn the table on modal rationalists, could be a better tool for distinguishing two senses of ideal positive primary conceivability. The zombie argument could be expressed in ?non-idealized? sense of ideal positive primary conceivability, while parody is bound to its ?idealized? reading only. This makes parody liable to objections which do not affect the zombie argument. The zombie argument and modal rationalism still stand.

scholarly journals In defence of logical nominalism: reply to Leftow

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-330
Author(s):  
RICHARD SWINBURNE
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Logical Necessity ◽  
Human Language ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Rigid Designators ◽  
Essential Properties ◽  
Necessary Truth ◽  
Transcendent Reality ◽  
Recent Attack

AbstractThis paper defends (especially in response to Brian Leftow's recent attack) logical nominalism, the thesis that logically necessary truth belongs primarily to sentences and depends solely on the conventions of human language. A sentence is logically necessary (that is, a priori metaphysically necessary) iff its negation entails a contradiction. A sentence is a posteriori metaphysically necessary iff it reduces to a logical necessity when we substitute for rigid designators of objects or properties canonical descriptions of the essential properties of those objects or properties. The truth-conditions of necessary sentences are not to be found in any transcendent reality, such as God's thoughts. ‘There is a God’ is neither a priori nor a posteriori metaphysically necessary; God is necessary in the sense that His existence is not causally contingent on anything else.

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