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

In Christian Nimtz, Nikola Kompa & Christian Suhm (eds.), A Priori Justification and Its Role in Philosophy. Berlin: Mentis Verlag. pp. 69-82 (2009)
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Abstract

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 idea, inspired by David Kaplan's framework, of contingent contents "knowable under a priori characters." I will also argue, against Kaplan, that sentences of the form »The actual F is F« do not deserve the status of logical truths, since what they express is neither necessary nor a priori.

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Isidora Stojanovic
Institut Jean Nicod

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Critica 17 (49):69-71.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 2003 - In John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford University Press.
The contingent a priori and rigid designators.Keith S. Donnellan - 1977 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2 (1):12-27.
Semantic Relativism and the Logic of Indexicals.Stefano Predelli & Isidora Stojanovic - 2008 - In Manuel García-Carpintero & Max Kölbel (eds.), Relative Truth. Oxford University Press. pp. 63--90.

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