more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 19432

[filed under theme 10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary ]

Full Idea

Intelligible truth is independent of the truth or of the existence outside us of sensible and material things. ....It is generally true that we only know necessary truths by the natural light [of reason]

Gist of Idea

Intelligible truth is independent of any external things or experiences

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702)

Book Ref

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'Leibniz Selections', ed/tr. Wiener,Philip P. [Scribners 1951], p.360

A Reaction

A nice quotation summarising a view for which Leibniz is famous - that there is a tight correlation between necessary truths and our a priori knowledge of them. The obvious challenge comes from Kripke's claim that scientists can discover necessities.

The 22 ideas with the same theme [knowing what must be, just through thought]:

2301 We know by thought that what is done cannot be undone [Descartes]
12553 Some of our ideas contain relations which we cannot conceive to be absent [Locke]
2112 Truths of reason are known by analysis, and are necessary; facts are contingent, and their opposites possible [Leibniz]
17079 Proofs of necessity come from the understanding, where they have their source [Leibniz]
19432 Intelligible truth is independent of any external things or experiences [Leibniz]
23461 Kant thought worldly necessities are revealed by what maths needs to make sense [Kant, by Morris,M]
14710 Necessity is always knowable a priori, and what is known a priori is always necessary [Kant, by Schroeter]
16256 For Kant metaphysics must be necessary, so a priori, so can't be justified by experience [Kant, by Maudlin]
5524 Maths must be a priori because it is necessary, and that cannot be derived from experience [Kant]
23495 The tautologies of logic show the logic of language and the world [Wittgenstein]
9169 A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam]
15101 Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker]
4728 Kripke separates necessary and a priori, proposing necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori examples [Kripke, by O'Grady]
16990 A priori = Necessary because we imagine all worlds, and we know without looking at actuality? [Kripke]
15228 Necessity and contingency are separate from the a priori and the a posteriori [Harré/Madden]
2526 Philosophers regularly confuse failures of imagination with insights into necessity [Dennett]
12428 Many necessities are inexpressible, and unknowable a priori [Kitcher]
20476 If the necessary is a priori, so is the contingent, because the same evidence is involved [Casullo]
13956 Kripke is often taken to be challenging a priori insights into necessity [Chalmers]
9598 Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson]
21621 We can't infer metaphysical necessities to be a priori knowable - or indeed knowable in any way [Williamson]
4719 Maybe developments in logic and geometry have shown that the a priori may be relative [O'Grady]