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Single Idea 9332

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

Full Idea

Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning.

Gist of Idea

Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around

Source

Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8)

Book Ref

'New Essays on the A Priori', ed/tr. Boghossian,P /Peacocke,C [OUP 2000], p.162


A Reaction

This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it.


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

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