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Full Idea
Critics say there are no irreducible a posteriori truths. They can be factored into a part that is necessary, but knowable a priori through conceptual analysis, and a part knowable only a posteriori, but contingent. 2-D semantics makes this precise.
Gist of Idea
Critics say there are just an a priori necessary part, and an a posteriori contingent part
Source
Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 1)
Book Ref
Stalnaker,Robert C.: 'Ways a World Might Be' [OUP 2003], p.202
A Reaction
[Critics are Sidelle, Jackson and Chalmers] Interesting. If gold is necessarily atomic number 79, or it wouldn't be gold, that sounds like an analytic truth about gold. Discovering the 79 wasn't a discovery of a necessity. Stalnaker rejects this idea.
| 8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
| 2796 | For Quine the only way to know a necessity is empirically [Quine, by Dancy,J] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
| 2408 | Kripke has demonstrated that some necessary truths are only knowable a posteriori [Kripke, by Chalmers] |
| 4960 | "'Hesperus' is 'Phosphorus'" is necessarily true, if it is true, but not known a priori [Kripke] |
| 4966 | Theoretical identities are between rigid designators, and so are necessary a posteriori [Kripke] |
| 14631 | How can you show the necessity of an a posteriori necessity, if it might turn out to be false? [Jackson] |
| 16421 | Critics say there are just an a priori necessary part, and an a posteriori contingent part [Stalnaker] |
| 15171 | The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle] |