Volume 11, 1985
Peter Nicholls, Dan Passell
Pages 481-489
Kripke’s Contingent A Priori and Necessary A Posteriori
We think that Kripke’s arguments that there are contingent a priori truths and that there are necessary a posteriori truths about named and essentially described entities fail. They fail for the reasons that there are ambiguities in each of the three eases. In the first ease, what is known a
priori is not what is contingent. In the latter two cases, what is necessary or essential is not what is known a posteriori.