Modal Rationalism

Dialectica 65 (1):103-115 (2011)
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Abstract

Hossack (2007) defends what he calls the rationalist thesis: the thesis that necessity reduces to (or at least always coincides with) a priori knowledge. In this paper I discuss some features of Hossack’s rationalist account of necessity. In the first half, I attempt to fill in a missing link in the rationalist thesis, connecting the notions of primitiveness of facts and a priori modes of presentation. In the second half, I complain that the strategy of dissolving counterexamples is not enough, and that a general principle connecting necessity and a prioricity is needed. I suggest further kinds of counterexamples that might arise, but rather than demand a response to each counterexample, I suggest that they highlight the need for a general argument for the rationalist thesis.

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2010-12-22

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Jessica Leech
King's College London

References found in this work

The metaphysics of knowledge.Keith Hossack - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Metaphysics of Knowledge.Keith Hossack - 2009 - Analysis 69 (1):178-181.
Reference, contingency, and the two-dimensional framework.Martin Davies - 2004 - Philosophical Studies 118 (1-2):83-131.

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