This book answers three questions: (i) What is it for a statement to be analytically true? (ii) What is a priori knowledge? (How does it differ from inherited empirical knowledge? And how does it differ from acquired conceptual (non-empirical) knowledge, such as one's knowledge that not all continuous functions are differentiable?). (iii) Do we have a priori knowledge? It is shown that content-externalism is an 'epistemologicization' of the (logically, not psychologically) innocuous fact that, (...) if a sentence S of natural language expresses a multiply quantified generalization, S also expresses each quantified generalization obtained by permuting the quantifiers in it. It is also shown that, through judicious usage of Kaplan's dthat-operator, the shred of truth in content externalism can be reconciled with the datum that, in virtue of having a given representational content R, a mental state M has causal powers that it would not otherwise have. And it is thereby shown how to reconcile content-externalism, so far as the latter is true, with the legitimacy of individualist approaches to psychology. Finally, it is shown that content-externalism embodies a crude and false conception of the nature of the relationship between the literal meanings of linguistic expressions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the contents of the thoughts underlying our usage of such expressions. More precisely, content-externalism presupposes that literal meaning and cognitive content are in lockstep with each other; which, it is shown, is not the case and---what is also shown---only appears to be the case because of a failure on the part of semanticists to know where to draw the line between semantics and pragmatics. (shrink)

Many philosophers are again examining the traditional topic of a priori knowledge, or knowledge that does not depend on sensory experience. This volume collects the most important recent essays on the subject by well-known thinkers such as A.J. Ayer, W.V. Quine, Barry Stroud, C.I. Lewis, Hilary Putnam, Roderick M. Chisholm, Saul A. Kripke, Albert Casullo, R.G. Swinburne, and Philip Kitcher. Including an introduction by the editor and an extensive bibliography, this book provides philosophers and students with an (...) in-depth look at contemporary investigations into the nature of a priori knowledge. (shrink)

a priori. Since I ended up defending an unpopular answer to this question—"No"—it’s hardly surprising that people have scrutinized the account, or that many have concluded that I stacked the deck in the first place. Of course, this was not my view of the matter. My own judgment was that I’d uncovered the tacit commitments of mathematical apriorists and that the widespread acceptance of mathematical apriorism rested on failure to ask what was needed for knowledge to be a (...) priori . Nevertheless, my critics have raised important challenges, and have offered rival conceptions that are less demanding. I want to examine their objections to my explication of a priori knowledge, and to explore whether the weaker alternatives succeed in preserving traditional philosophical claims. What follows is a mixture of penitence and intransigence. (shrink)

The book sets out to analyse the notion of a priori justification and of a priori knowledge.

In the First Chapter, I give an interpretation of Kant's characterization of a priori knowledge which sharply distinguishes Kant's from an innatist conception; in this way, I distinguish Kant's transcendental explanation of a prioricity from both innatist and naturalistic explanations. ;The arguments given by Kant to support his claim that we are in fact in possession of a priori knowledge rely on his criterion of a prioricity: if a truth is necessary then it must be justified (...) a priori. I criticize the criterion's failure to account for actual cases of being justified in believing necessary truths. Finally, I discuss whether Kant has arguments to show that there is a priori knowledge which are independent of the criterion. ;In the Second Chapter, I examine the similarities and differences between Kant's and Frege's conceptions of a priori knowledge. I argue that Frege, like Kant, concentrates exclusively on the ways we must justify our beliefs in certain truths . I show, however, that Frege does not have straightforward arguments to prove that we can and do know a priori any arithmetical or logical truths, and that he does not have any straightforward explanation of the a prioricity of the laws of logic. Finally, I argue that even though a priori items of knowledge play a privileged role in Frege's project, this role differs from the one that such items have in a Kantian-transcendental project. ;In the Third Chapter, I explore whether we can make sense of the notion of a prioricity and prove that there is a priori knowledge by adopting an approach to justification which differs from both Kant's and Frege's. This approach does not concentrate on the ways we must be justified, but on the actual ways we justify our beliefs. I argue that this approach faces enormous difficulties regarding a prioricity. The central difficulty is that the actual complete justification for a belief cannot be captured exclusively in propositional terms. If a belief is based on inference, practical abilities, tendencies or dispositions enter in its justification. . . . UMI. (shrink)

I exist. That is something I know. Most philosophers think that Descartes was right that each of us knows that we exist. Furthermore most philosophers agree with Descartes that there is something special about how we know it. Agreement ends there. There is little agreement about exactly what is special about this knowledge. I shall present an account that is in some respects Cartesian in spirit, although I shall not pursue interpretive questions very far. On this account, I know (...) that I exist a priori; and I shall advance an explanation of how this a priori knowledge is possible and actual. I then consider the question of whether the belief that I exist is justified and, if so, how. I argue that the situation is different in important ways from the knowledge that I exist. (shrink)

There are four approaches to analyzing the concept of a priori knowledge. The primary target of the reductive approach is the concept of a priori justification. The primary target of the nonreductive approach is the concept of a priori knowledge. There are two approaches to analyzing each primary target. A theory-neutral approach provides an analysis that does not presuppose any general theory of knowledge or justification. A theory-laden approach provides an analysis that does presuppose (...) some general theory of knowledge or justification (call it the background theory). Those who embrace a theory-laden analysis incur a special burden: they must separate the features of their analysis that are constitutive of the a priori from those that are constitutive of the background theory. My goal is to illustrate how the failure to separate these features leads to erroneous conclusions about the nature of a priori knowledge. (shrink)

The argument is not, however, problem-free. First: while the meaning of s might not guarantee a verifying state of affairs, mightn’t the fact of one’s believing that s is true guarantee a verifying state of affairs? And mightn’t this fact be exploited to secure knowledge of truths that are deeply contingent? Second: the argument seems to rely on the principle that if I can conceive that not P is actually the case, then I do not know that P. But (...) it is generally agreed that a knowledge-conferring warrant for some P need not offer a watertight guarantee of P and thus need not render it inconceivable that the actual world falsifies P. Why then require such a guarantee when it comes to priori warrant? The first objection is that a guarantee of truth need not come from semantics. The second is that no such guarantee is required for a priori knowledge. I shall be exploring both of these ideas in what follows. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with explaining how a subject can acquire a priori knowledge of arithmetic. Every account for arithmetical, and in general mathematical knowledge faces Benacerraf's well-known challenge, i.e. how to reconcile the truths of mathematics with what can be known by ordinary human thinkers. I suggest four requirements that jointly make up this challenge and discuss and reject four distinct solutions to it. This will motivate a broadly Fregean approach to our knowledge of arithmetic (...) and mathematics in general. Pursuing this strategy appeals to the context principle which, it is proposed, underwrites a form of Platonism and explains how reference to and object-directed thought about abstract entities is, in principle, possible. I discuss this principle and defend it against different criticisms as put forth in recent literature. Moreover, I will offer a general framework for implicit definitions by means of which - without an appeal to a faculty of intuition or purely pragmatic considerations - a priori and non-inferential knowledge of basic mathematical principles can be acquired. In the course of this discussion, I will argue against various types of opposition to this general approach. Also, I will highlight crucial shortcomings in the explanation of how implicit definitions may underwrite a priori knowledge of basic principles in broadly similar conceptions. In the final part, I will offer a general account of how non-inferential mathematical knowledge resulting from implicit definitions is best conceived which avoids these shortcomings. (shrink)

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.

This paper is aimed at understanding one central aspect of Bolzano's views on deductive knowledge: what it means for a proposition and for a term to be known a priori. I argue that, for Bolzano, a priori knowledge is knowledge by virtue of meaning and that Bolzano has substantial views about meaning and what it is to know the latter. In particular, Bolzano believes that meaning is determined by implicit definition, i.e. the fundamental propositions in (...) a deductive system. I go into some detail in presenting and discussing Bolzano's views on grounding, a priori knowledge and implicit definition. I explain why other aspects of Bolzano's theory and, in particular, his peculiar understanding of analyticity and the related notion of Ableitbarkeit might, as it has invariably in the past, mislead one to believe that Bolzano lacks a significant account oï a priori knowledge. Throughout the paper, I point out to the ways in which, in this respect, Bolzano's antagonistic relationship to Kant directly shaped his own views. (shrink)

Some recent discussions of a priori knowledge, taking their departure from Kant's characterization of such knowledge as being absolutely independent of experience, have concluded that while one might delineate a concept of a priori knowledge, it fails to have any application as any purported case of such knowledge can be undermined by suitably recalcitrant experiences. In response, certain defenders of apriority have claimed that a priori justification only requires that a belief be positively (...) dependent on no experience. In this paper, I begin by showing how the exchange of arguments between the disputants comes down, in the end, to no more than a display of conflicting intuitions. I shall then provide a diagnosis explaining how our explication of a priori justification depends on our standards for applying the term 'a priori' with this, in turn, reflecting our prior intentions as to whether we are willing to allow the existence of such warrants. I shall further argue that the claim that such knowledge can be affected by subversive experience is not entirely compatible with the spirit of apriority. Finally I conclude by making some methodological remarks about the prospects of a positive characterization of a priori knowledge by comparing it to the concept of knowledge. (shrink)

This article considers an apparent Achilles heel for Kant’s transcendental idealism, concerning his account of how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. The problem is that while Kant’s distinctive attempt to explain synthetic a priori knowledge lies at the heart of his transcendental idealism, this explanation appears to face a dilemma: either the explanation generates a problematic regress, or the explanation it offers gives us no reason to favour transcendental idealism over transcendental realism. In the article, (...) I consider G. E. Moore’s version of the problem, which I argue has not yet received an adequate response. Instead, I offer a way out of this dilemma by focusing on the normativity rather than the metaphysics of the mind. (shrink)

The past twenty-five years have seen a major renewal of interest in the topic of a priori knowledge. In the sixteen essays collected here, which span this entire period, philosopher Albert Casullo documents the complex set of issues motivating the renewed interest, identifies the central epistemological questions, and provides the leading ideas of a unified response to them.

This is the second in a two part series of articles that attempt to clarify the nature and enduring relevance of Kant's concept of a priori knowledge. (For Part I, see below.) In this article I focus mainly on Saul Kripke's critique of Kant, in Naming and Necessity. I argue that Kripke draws attention to a genuine defect in Kant's epistemological framework, but that he used definitions of certain key terms that were quite different from Kant's definitions. When (...) Kripke's definitions are replaced by Kant's definitions, Kripke's account of the status of naming turns out to be a defense of analytic aposteriority as a significant classification of knowledge that Kant neglected. I also introduce here a new way of understanding such epistemological labels, as defining the perspective adopted by the knowing subject in a given situation, rather than an objective characteristic of certain propositions as such. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss Hawthorne'€™s contextualist solution to Benacerraf'€™s dilemma. He wants to find a satisfactory epistemology to go with realist ontology, namely with causally inaccessible mathematical and modal entities. I claim that he is unsuccessful. The contextualist theories of knowledge attributions were primarily developed as a response to the skeptical argument based on the deductive closure principle. Hawthorne uses the same strategy in his attempt to solve the epistemologist puzzle facing the proponents of mathematical and modal realism, (...) but this problem is of a different nature than the skeptical one. The contextualist theory of knowledge attributions cannot help us with the question about the nature of mathematical and modal reality and how they can be known. I further argue that Hawthorne'€™s account does not say anything about a priori status of mathematical and modal knowledge. Later, Hawthorne adds to his account an implausible claim that in some contexts a gettierized belief counts as knowledge. (shrink)

The paper joins Horwich’s criticism of stipulationist accounts of a priori knowledge, and raises some problems for his own account of the a priori. It first questions the assumed separability of scientific investigation and non-scieentific assertoric practices in regard to norms of adequacy. It also questioned Horwich’s Restriction Assumption according to which only the former are answerable to the standards of empirical adequacy and overall simplicity (which threaten apriority in the case of science). Finally, it criticises his (...) argument that inability to think otherwise might guarantee apriority, pointing to science-driven reflective revisability of possibly innate beliefs. (shrink)

Recent defenses of a priori knowledge can be applied to the idea of conventions in science in order to indicate one important sense in which conventionalism is correctsome elements of physical theory have a unique epistemological status as a functionally a priori part of our physical theory. I will argue that the former a priori should be treated as empirical in a very abstract sense, but still conventional. Though actually coming closer to the Quinean position than (...) recent defenses of a priori knowledge, the picture of science developed here is very different from that developed in Quinean holism in that categories of knowledge can be differentiated. (shrink)

The two questions have dominated traditional discussions of a priori knowledge: What is its relationship to necessary truth? What is its relationship to analytic truth? Answering them is not necessary to answer the two primary epistemological questions about a priori knowledge: What is it? Does it exist? This chapter argues that the prominence of questions about the relationship between the a priori and the necessary derives from two traditional views: the rationalist conception of a (...) class='Hi'>priori knowledge and Kant’s claim that necessity is a criterion of the a priori. Independent grounds for rejecting both are offered, and it is argued that the two primary epistemological questions about a priori knowledge can be answered without resolving the disputes over its relationship to necessary truth. (shrink)

This chapter addresses two questions: Is there synthetic a priori knowledge? Is the analytic/synthetic distinction cogent? The epistemic significance of the first derives from the assumption that synthetic a priori knowledge raises difficult explanatory problems that are circumvented by analytic a priori knowledge. The epistemic significance of the second derives from the assumption that if the analytic/synthetic distinction is not cogent, then the cogency of the a priori/a posteriori distinction is also doubtful. It (...) is argued that both assumptions are false, and that resolving the controversies surrounding these two questions is not necessary to answer the primary epistemological questions about a priori knowledge. (shrink)

The idea that the epistemology of modality is in some sense a priori is a popular one, but it has turned out to be difficult to precisify in a way that does not expose it to decisive counterexamples. The most common precisifications follow Kripke’s suggestion that cases of necessary a posteriori truth that can be known a priori to be necessary if true ‘may give a clue to a general characterization of a posteriori knowledge of necessary truths’. (...) The idea is that whether it is contingent whether p can be known a priori for at least some broad range of sentences ‘p’. Recently, Al Casullo and Jens Kipper have discussed restrictions of such principles to atomic sentences. We show that decisive counterexamples even to such dramatically restricted Kripke-style principles can be constructed using minimal logical resources. We then consider further restrictions, and show that the counterexamples to the original principles can be turned into counterexamples to the further restricted principles. We conclude that, if there are any true restrictions of Kripke-style principles, then they are so weak as to be of little epistemological interest. (shrink)

This paper contains replies to comments on the author's paper "A Priori Knowledge and the Scope of Philosophy." Several points in the argument of that paper are given further clarification: the notion of our standard justificatory procedure, the notion of a basic source of evidence, and the doctrine of modal reliabilism. The reliability of intuition is then defended against Lycan's skepticism and a response is given to Lycan's claim that the scope of a priori knowledge does (...) not include philosophically central topics such as the nature of consciousness. Next a counterfactual account of intuitions proposed by Sosa is criticized. Finally, in response to certain questions raised by Sosa, the explanation of the evidential status of intuition offered in the original paper receives further elaboration. (shrink)

This paper provides a defense of two traditional theses: the Autonomy of Philosophy and the Authority of Philosophy. The first step is a defense of the evidential status of intuitions (intellectual seemings). Rival views (such as radical empiricism), which reject the evidential status of intuitions, are shown to be epistemically self-defeating. It is then argued that the only way to explain the evidential status of intuitions is to invoke modal reliabilism. This theory requires that intuitions have a certain qualified modal (...) tie to the truth. This result is then used as the basis of the defense of the Autonomy and Authority theses. The paper closes with a defense of the two theses against a potential threat from scientific essentialism. (shrink)

The past twenty-five years have seen a major renewal of interest in the topic of a priori knowledge. In the sixteen essays collected here, which span this entire period, philosopher Albert Casullo documents the complex set of issues motivating the renewed interest, identifies the central epistemological questions, and provides the leading ideas of a unified response to them.

This paper presents considerations against the linguistic view of a priori knowledge. The paper has two parts. In the first part I argue that problems about the individuation of lexical meanings provide evidence for a moderate indeterminacy, as distinct from the radical indeterminacy of meaning claimed by Quine, and that this undermines the idea of a priori knowledge based on knowledge of synonymies. In the second part of the paper I argue against the idea that (...) a priori knowledge not based on knowledge of synonymies can be explained in terms of implicit definitions. (shrink)

In this paper I will offer a novel understanding of a priori knowledge. My claim is that the sharp distinction that is usually made between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is groundless. It will be argued that a plausible understanding of a priori and a posteriori knowledge has to acknowledge that they are in a constant bootstrapping relationship. It is also crucial that we distinguish between a priori propositions that hold in the (...) actual world and merely possible, non-actual a priori propositions, as we will see when considering cases like Euclidean geometry. Furthermore, contrary to what Kripke seems to suggest, a priori knowledge is intimately connected with metaphysical modality, indeed, grounded in it. The task of a priori reasoning, according to this account, is to delimit the space of metaphysically possible worlds in order for us to be able to determine what is actual. (shrink)

This volume collects four published articles by the late Tamara Horowitz and two unpublished papers on decision theory: "Making Rational Decisions When Preferences Cycle" and the monograph-length "The Backtracking Fallacy." An introduction is provided by editor Joseph Camp. Horowitz preferred to recognize the diversity of rationality, both practical and theoretical rationality. She resisted the temptation to accept simple theories of rationality that are quick to characterize ordinary reasoning as fallacious. This broadly humanist approach to philosophy is exemplified by the articles (...) in this collection. As just one example, in "The Backtracking Fallacy," she argues that there are policies for decision-making a person may adopt if the person prefers to do so, but need not adopt. A person who employs such a policy no longer can regard standard expected utility theory as exceptionless, thereby sacrificing theoretical simplicity. But it is a mistake, Horowitz argues, to preserve theoretical simplicity by falsifying the decision making methods real people really use. (shrink)

M. McKinsey has argued that the externalist theory of mental content implies that one can have a priori knowledge of propositions that are in fact only knowable a posteriori. So, according to McKinsey, the externalist theory must be mistaken. A. Gallois and J. O'Leary-Hawthorne have formalized this argument. In this paper, I discuss their formalization and their criticisms of it.

This article is mainly a critique of Philip Kitcher's book, The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge. Four weaknesses in Kitcher's objection to Kant arise out of Kitcher's failure to recognize the perspectival nature of Kant's position. A proper understanding of Kant's theory of mathematics requires awareness of the perspectival nuances implicit in Kant's theory of pure intuition.

(K1) All knowledge of necessary propositions is a priori. (K2) All propositions known a priori are necessary. (K3) All knowledge of analytic propositions is a priori; and (K4) Some propositions known a priori are synthetic.

According to the most popular account of the a priori, which we might call Analytic Account of the A Priori, we can explain the a priori in terms of the notion of analyticity. According to the least popular account of the a priori, the explanation of the a priori proceeds by appealing to the faculties used in the acquisition of a priori knowledge, such as the faculty of rational intuition – call this Rationalist (...) Account of the A Priori. The main aim of this paper is to challenge the analytic account of the a priori to motivate a return to rationalism. To achieve this aim, I discuss and challenge two very different analytic accounts of the a priori: a concept-based account that relies on meaning-justification links, and an understanding-based account that does not rely on such links. I argue that the former is both extensionally inadequate and explanatorily deficient, and the latter can be made to work but only by employing such a rich notion of understanding that renders it a form of rationalism in disguise. I conclude by motivating a rationalist faculty-based account of the a priori. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with autonomous learning of plans in probabilistic domains without a priori domain-specific knowledge. In contrast to existing reinforcement learning algorithms that generate only reactive plans and existing probabilistic planning algorithms that require a substantial amount of a priori knowledge in order to plan, a two-stage bottom-up process is devised, in which first reinforcement learning/dynamic programming is applied, without the use of a priori domain-specific knowledge, to acquire a reactive plan and (...) then explicit plans are extracted from the reactive plan. Several options for plan extraction are examined, each of which is based on a beam search that performs temporal projection in a restricted fashion, guided by the value functions resulting from reinforcement learning/dynamic programming. Some completeness and soundness results are given. Examples in several domains are discussed that together demonstrate the working of the proposed model. (shrink)

forthcoming in Philosophy Compass. This is a paper which aims both to survey the field and do some work at its cutting edge.