The contingent a priori

• Grant number: 15/21437-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2016
• End date: December 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: Marco Antonio Caron Ruffino
• Grantee: Rafael Albiero Vieira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The discussion about propositions that represent truths which can be known both contingently and a priori gained fame with Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity (1980). He demonstrates, against what most philosophers believed, that there are propositions that represent contingent a priori truths, and moreover, necessary a posteriori truths. One of the consequences of this thesis, and something that certain philosophers consider even more problematic (which is something that Kripke uses to demonstrate the existence of contingent a priori truths) is the idea that is possible to have access to singular propositions about objects without being acquainted with them, using only linguistic stipulations. Two philosophers criticized the possibility of having access to such propositions without being acquainted with the object: Keith Donnellan, in "The Contingent A Priori and Rigid Designators" (1977) and Scott Soames in Philosophical Analysis in the Tweentieth Century (2003). Both argue that, in Kripke examples, there is no possibility of having access to such propositions without having some kind of perceptive contact with the object, or without some kind of empirical evidence. The main objective of this project is to study the way that Kripke concludes that the access to contingent a priori propositions is possible, as well as studying the objections of Donnellan (1977) and Soames (2003) against this thesis.