Actuality and Knowability
نویسنده
چکیده
It is widely believed that for all p, or at least for all entertainable p, it is knowable a priori that (p iff actually p). It is even more widely believed that for all such p, it is knowable that (p iff actually p). There is a simple argument against these claims from five antecedently plausible premises. The argument is given below. Here ‘A’, ‘E’, ‘K’, ‘ ’, ‘^’ stand for ‘Actually’ ‘Someone entertains’, ‘Someone knows’, ‘Necessarily’, and ‘Possibly’, while ‘→’ and ‘↔’ are the material conditional and biconditional. In addition, q is any (entertainable) proposition that no-one actually entertains, while r is ¬Eq, the proposition that no-one entertains q.
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