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Full Idea
Why should we accept that necessities can only be known a priori? Prima facie, some necessities are known empirically; for example, that water is necessarily H2O, and that Hesperus is necessarily Phosphorus.
Clarification
'Prima facie' means at first glance. See Idea 4972 for Hesperus/Phosphorus.
Gist of Idea
Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically
Source
Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §2)
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology', ed/tr. Steup,M/Sosa,E [Blackwell 2005], p.107
A Reaction
An important question, whatever your view. If the only thing we can know a priori is necessities, it doesn't follow that necessities can only be known a priori. It gets interesting if we say that some necessities can never be known a priori.
| 17371 | Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt] |
| 17372 | The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt] |
| 17373 | Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt] |
| 8501 | Quineans take predication about objects as basic, not reference to properties they may have [Devitt] |
| 8502 | Realism doesn't explain 'a is F' any further by saying it is 'a has F-ness' [Devitt] |
| 8503 | The particular/universal distinction is unhelpful clutter; we should accept 'a is F' as basic [Devitt] |
| 17369 | We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt] |
| 17370 | Things that gradually change, like species, can still have essences [Devitt] |
| 17367 | Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG] |
| 17368 | Essentialism concerns the nature of a group, not its category [Devitt] |
| 9354 | Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt] |
| 9353 | We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt] |
| 9356 | The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt] |
| 19564 | Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt] |
| 19565 | How could the mind have a link to the necessary character of reality? [Devitt] |