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Single Idea 6284

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic ]

Full Idea

If we held, say, 'All unmarried men are unmarried' as absolutely immune from revision, why would this make it true?

Gist of Idea

If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true?

Source

Hilary Putnam (Meaning and the Moral Sciences [1978], Pt Four)

Book Ref

Putnam,Hilary: 'Meaning and the Moral Sciences' [RKP 1981], p.137

A Reaction

A very nice question. Like most American philosophers, Putnam accepts Quine's attack on the unrevisability of analytic truths. His point here is that defenders of analytic truths are probably desperate to preserve basic truths, but it won't work.

The 20 ideas with the same theme [a priori knowledge comes from the meanings of words]:

21250 A proposition is self-evident if the predicate is included in the essence of the subject [Aquinas]
5525 No analysis of the sum of seven and five will in itself reveal twelve [Kant]
2514 Frege tried to explain synthetic a priori truths by expanding the concept of analyticity [Frege, by Katz]
7088 Logic and maths can't say anything about the world, since, as tautologies, they are consistent with all realities [Wittgenstein, by Grayling]
5204 To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer]
9383 Metaphysical analyticity (and linguistic necessity) are hopeless, but epistemic analyticity is a priori [Boghossian on Quine]
12424 Quine challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori [Quine, by Kitcher]
6284 If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true? [Putnam]
13975 Kripke was more successful in illuminating necessity than a priority (and their relations to analyticity) [Kripke, by Soames]
17048 Analytic judgements are a priori, even when their content is empirical [Kripke]
17052 The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke]
3089 Only lack of imagination makes us think that 'cats are animals' is analytic [Harman]
3088 Analyticity is postulated because we can't imagine some things being true, but we may just lack imagination [Harman]
18263 The semantic tradition aimed to explain the a priori semantically, not by Kantian intuition [Coffa]
9332 Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich]
9367 The a priori is explained as analytic to avoid a dubious faculty of intuition [Boghossian]
9373 That logic is a priori because it is analytic resulted from explaining the meaning of logical constants [Boghossian]
9380 We can't hold a sentence true without evidence if we can't agree which sentence is definitive of it [Boghossian]
15165 A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle]
14704 2D semantics gives us apriori knowledge of our own meanings [Schroeter]