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Deeply Contingent A Priori Knowledge
Author(s) -
HAWTHORNE JOHN
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00201.x
Subject(s) - citation , a priori and a posteriori , hawthorne effect , epistemology , computer science , philosophy , psychology , library science , social psychology
0.1 In 'Reference and Contingency," Gareth Evans distinguished between 'superficially contingent' and 'deeply contingent' truths. A true sentence is superficially contingent just in case the function from possible worlds to truth-values associated with that sentence reckons it false at some (non-actual) world. A deeply contingent true sentence is one for which there is no semantic guarantee that there actually exists some verifying state of affairs.2 Supposing I introduce 'Julius' by the reference fixer 'the inventor of the zip', then the sentence 'If anyone uniquely invented the zip, Julius invented the zip' is merely superficially contingent. Though false at some worlds, anyone who understands it will see that it is true at the actual world just in case 'If anyone uniquely invented the zip, then the unique inventor of the zip invented the zip' is true. Since it is quite clear that the latter can be known without empirical investigation,3 the same is true of the former. We have little trouble seeing how there can be superficially contingent a priori knowledge: once we get straight about what is involved in understanding (merely) superficially contingent sentences-which is part of the more general project of accounting for our understanding of indexical elements of language, there is no genuine