pp22-70:: A Priori, Necessary, Analytic. Rigid Designators, Transworld Identity, Stipulation. Names, Descriptions and Rigid Designation.

pp71-105:: Identities Between Names

pp106-155:: True Identities Between Names are Necessary

My comments initially are on the parts which were selected for publication in a collection called "A Priori knowledge" edited by Paul K.Moser. These are: pp34-39, 48-60, 53-58, 99-105 and 108-109. They are clearly identified below, in the context of the lecture of which they are a part.

Here Kripke discusses philosophical theories in which names are held to behave like descriptions or clusters of descriptions, and the contrary idea that names are "rigid designators", referring to the same thing in every possible world.

Kripke devotes one paragraph to explaining the concept of the a priori and ends with the view that it might be best: ".. to stick to the question of whether a particular person or knower knows something a priori or believes it true on the basis of a priori evidence." He has abandoned, ab inito any attempt to make sense of the a priori as an objective classification of propositions. So we might wonder what relevance the sequel might have to anyone whose interest is confined to these concepts as classifications for propositions, and wonder what is the point in comparing these concepts with that of necessity if they do not classify propositions.

Not content with failing to provide an account of a priori as a classifier of propositions he then devotes one paragraph to arguing, in effect that this cannot be done. i.e. he rejects the idea that if something can be known a priori then it cannot be known a posteriori.

In arguing the case his examples glide effortlessly between observations about a priori belief and a priori knowledge in such a way as to make me suspect that he considers the epistemic status of knowledge to be the same as the epistemic status of the belief.

He does not appear to consider the possibility that the justification which may be thought necessary for the belief to be considered knowledge might have a role to play in determining epistemic status.

By contast, I believe that for the concept of the a priori to work best it should not be used at all as a qualifier of beliefs, and its use in relation to knowledge should be to qualify the justification on the basis of which the knowledge is supposed to have been established. Finally, we might add, that knowledge is only true knowledge if its supposed justification does in fact justify, and that this will only be the case if the justification offered is appropriate to the subject matter of the proposition in question. If the proposition makes a substantive claim about the world, then an a posteriori justification might be expected, otherwise only an a priori justification is required if the necessity or analyticity of the claim is to be established (though an a posteriori justification might possibly suffice to demonstrate its truth). Thus, for a belief to be knowledge, its justification must be epistemically appropriate, and the kind of justification involved has little to do with how anyone may have come to believe the proposition.

54-56

Meter rod (S at time t₀) used to define the rigid designation of "Meter".

Status of propositon "S is one meter in length at time t₀".

The proposition is contingent. Kripke does not say whether it is synthetic, my guess is that he would say it is. The person who makes the definition knows the propositon a priori. He doesn't say this but it follows that others know it a posteriori, so it is both an a priori truth and an a posteriori truth.

On the hypothesis that meter is a rigid designator, the statement is contingent, synthetic and a posteriori. The rationale for considering it a posteriori is that any justification of the claim depends

28-29, 57-58,

Hesperus = Phosphorous

93

A man might know Aristotle has some disjuncion of properties a priori in some sense if he fixes the reference of 'Aristotle` as the man who did one of those things, even though his posession of the property is not necessary.

Kripke thinks perhaps the notion of a priori needs to be reformulated to avoid such cases, but does not offer a reformulation.

Carnap, I suggest, would not regard a sentence as a priori unless its truth could be justified without reference to empirical observations, except such observations as may contribute to establishing the meaning of the sentence. In this case the meaning would have to be (or include) the constant function delivering the individual in fact satisfying the disjunction of properties, which does not justify the claim that Aristotle does satisfy that disjunction, the need for observation makes the result a posteriori whether or not the person making the definition had prior knowledge of that fact.