Merely superficially contingent a priori knowledge and the McKinsey paradox

Contingent A Priori Knowledge

I argue that you can have a priori knowledge of propositions that neither are nor appear necessarily true. You can know a priori contingent propositions that you recognize as such. This overturns a standard view in contemporary epistemology and the traditional view of the a priori, which restrict a priori knowledge to necessary truths, or at least to truths that appear necessary. The discussion...

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 ...

Singular Thought and the Contingent A Priori

De re or singular thoughts are, intuitively, those essentially or constitutively about a particular object or objects; any thought about different objects would be a different thought. What would a philosophical articulation or thematization of their nature be like? In spite of extensive discussion of the issue sin ce it was brought to the attention of the philosophical cornmunity in the late f...

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

Superfi cially and Deeply Contingent A Priori Truths

In this paper, I review some standard approaches to the cases of contingent a priori truths that emerge from Kripke’s (1980) discussion of proper names and Kaplan’s (1989) theory of indexicals. In particular, I discuss Evans’ (1979) distinction between superfi cially and deeply contingent truths. I shall raise doubts about Evans’ strategy in general, and also about the roots and meaningfulness ...