Whether true or not, can you judge the philosopher/mathematician without judging the anatomist?

Ok; all good….

With Kant's categories he is so certain that we know what he's talking about that he says we already know what he's saying. — Moliere

….except for that. He was pretty certain we commoners hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, even though he says every one of us is doing what his theory suggests. But I see what you mean: after his explanation, we can say…oh hell yeah, that’s right!!!!

I think I'd say logic has changed considerably since Kant, and I'd say that it's for the better too. — Moliere

You wouldn’t be alone.

Modal logic is more specific than Kant's. — Moliere

Maybe; dunno. Specific in what way? As I said in another thread… one division containing two books containing five chapters containing eight sections containing 179 pages…..and an appendix. All as only one of two divisions in an rather thorough exposition of a very specific human logical functionality.

Can’t help but think the moderns have that exposition, as the ground of their own presuppositions. Likely, since Kripke actually begins this article with a reference to it.

But this isn’t the place for Kant himself, so…..

all of these things might have happened. They didn't, but they may have. — Banno

Nobody cares about what might have happened, when they are only affected by what does.

Recent modal logic gives us a way to deal with such suppositions. What you have proposed, does not. — Banno

Correct. Not much need to deal with might-have-beens. Psychologists excepted, but (sorry, Isaac) no proper philosopher cares about them anyway.

Logic has advanced somewhat since Kant. — Banno

Logic has changed. Whether it has advanced, is questionable. All the basic conceptions of modern modal logic are already contained in Kantian metaphysics, and have been classified as such since Aristotle.

Admit it, Good Sir: you’re grasping at straws. All the cool stuff has already been done, and you missed the boat.

Sure, it's actually in this room. But it might possibly have been in the other. — Banno

On logic…..

“…. Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this (…) any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy…”

It is possible for there to be a lectern in another room. It is possible for a lectern to be anywhere. According to the example in question, “this very object, in the room it is in fact in, even at this very time” cannot possibly be in any other room.

Try as I might, some folks I just can’t help. Horse/water kinda thing, I guess.

Here he’s saying this lectern cannot have any material property other than the essential one it does
— Mww

I don't agree. (…) he might equally have used a material example such as that the lectern might have been painted pink or had his name engraved on it. — Banno

Of course, but these are not properties the lectern cannot have. They do not represent the properties the lectern must have such that to not have them the lectern wouldn’t be “this very object”. You’re talking about what it can have; he’s talking about what it cannot have. If space is a property it cannot have, THIS lectern cannot be in THAT room, for then it would be in two spaces simultaneously.

These are ways in which the properties of that very lectern may have been otherwise. — Banno

These are ways that very lectern’s properties are cumulative without contradiction. Add all the properties you like, but it’s still going to be made of wood, it’s still going to be in this room. As long as the subject making the statements is as well, which is tacitly understood to be the case.

Again, this odd interpretation has the result that when one says the lectern might have been in the other room, one is talking about a different lectern. — Banno

Actually, it’s a demonstration of the different “categories of truth”, and how it is his “wish to distinguish them”, beginning at the bottom of pg176. It isn’t about different lecterns; it’s about different ways of knowing about one lectern.

He says, “We can certainly talk about this very lectern and whether it can have certain properties which in fact it does not have. For example, it could have been in another room from the one it was in fact in, even at this very time, but it could not have been made from the very beginning from water frozen into ice”.

Here he’s saying this lectern cannot have any material property other than the essential one it does, but we can still talk about it as if space were one of its properties. Which is what we do when we say this lectern could have been in another room, but it couldn’t be made of ice.

One of the properties “which in fact it does not have”, regarding the lectern in particular and objects in general, is, of course, space. And, as hinted, so too is time a property objects in general cannot have.

Thus is the conflict incurred between Kripke’s “categories of truth” and Russell’s so-called “scope of description”, re: this/that modal distinctions, whereby a necessary identity statement regarding THIS thing, that THIS thing cannot be in THAT place on the one hand, in juxtaposition to the contradictory attribution of space and time as properties, on the other.

Logical statements are validated by themselves, but their proofs are in experience alone. It is far easier to prove THIS thing can be in THAT place and remain THIS thing, then to prove THIS thing in THAT place is not THIS thing.

Ahhh…ok.

Are you supposing that combining them has been attempted?

Yeah, I can see that. Change some terms here and there, but the basics would be pretty similar. Matter belongs to the object, form belongs to the subject, kinda thing, maybe?

Oh. Cool.

…what I think the traditional meaning of 'noumenal' refers to- (…). (I'm still investigating what becomes of 'form and substance' in Kant.) — Wayfarer

Are you attempting to relate the traditional meanings to form/substance in Kant? Connect them somehow? See how an investigation of the one would get you to the other?

As you said….no entrapment. Just curious.

Making my way (slowly) through the online editions — Wayfarer

FYI….the online Guyer/Wood has a fabulous 90-odd page translator introduction, also has standard pagination, but…..sadly….isn’t searchable. If some secondary literature references a A/B number, you can scroll to it, but with 700 pages…that’s potentially a lot of scrolling.

But the intro is worth the time, I think, even if it is technically a second-party interpretation.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/25851/files/2017/09/kant-first-critique-cambridge-1m89prv.pdf

My notes on this: 'abstract' and 'intuitive' seems a very odd translation. I would have thought the distinction was between 'sensible' and 'rational' cognition, but I can't find the passage in Schopenhauer (if anyone has a precise reference I'd appreciate it.) — Wayfarer

Dunno about precise, but this contains the beginning notations referring to the words in your notes:

“…. But thus Kant brings thinking into the perception, and lays the foundation for the inextricable confusion of intuitive and abstract knowledge which I am now engaged in condemning. He allows the perception, taken by itself, to be without understanding, purely sensuous, and thus quite passive, and only through thinking (category of the understanding) does he allow an object to be apprehended: thus he brings thought into the perception. But then, again, the object of thinking is an individual real object; and in this way thinking loses its essential character of universality and abstraction, and instead of general conceptions receives individual things as its object: thus again he brings perception into thinking. From this springs the inextricable confusion referred to, and the consequences of this first false step extend over his whole theory of knowledge….”
(WWR, 2, App., pg 35, 1844, in Haldane/Kemp, 1909)

And I’m not eccentric. I got the proper stamped, signed, coffee-stained release papers to prove it.

So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong — Wayfarer

I’m hardly qualified to criticize the contributors to an encyclopedia. I can say, without equivocation, that entry doesn’t reflect any of my understandings.

…..the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.

Those are the three fundamental problems of pure reason, boiled down to the conceptions of the unconditioned, which pure reason seeks as its own nature demands, and never attains. There’s no need of a noumena world in which they abide, insofar as they already abide, at least as conceptions, in this world of human reason.
———-

Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena

“…. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which warns us of our unavoidable ignorance with regard to things in themselves, and establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phenomena.…”

“…. We come now to metaphysics, a purely speculative science, which occupies a completely isolated position and is entirely independent of the teachings of experience. It deals with mere conceptions—not, like mathematics, with conceptions applied to intuition—and in it, reason is the pupil of itself alone.…”

You be the judge.

I favor the B edition as well. I mean…spend a few years re-thinking something, best just go with that one. No sense in using what he thought better of, when talking about what he ended up thinking.

Guess that makes us a couple stubborn ol’ peas on either end of an overextended virtual pod, donnit?

The rest of your post seems to be a move from looking at the logic to demeaning the logician. — Banno

I’ll own that. I looked at the logic, found it wanting, so tacitly disparage the logician positing the very thing I found wanting. And while I acknowledge my wanting means nothing in The Grand Scheme of Things, it arrives honestly, with due diligence, hence there’s as yet no reason to rethink it.

I hope Mww joins in. — Jamal

Yikes!!!

Understanding. Faculty of. Faculty of thought; faculty of judgement; faculty of synthesis of conceptions; faculty of pure a priori cognitions. All listed, as such, verbatim.

One division containing two books containing five chapters containing eight sections containing 179 pages. Oh….and an appendix. Depending on translation.

No wonder there’s mass confusion over just how this thing goes about its business. After 20 years of working on it, two somewhat differing renditions, copious margin jottings, a plethora of peer correspondence….hell, by the time he got done, he might have confused himself.
————

Kant does overlook the difference between S’s abstract and intuitive cognitions, but S overlooks Kant’s difference between discursive and intuitive cognitions. If it is discoverable that Kant’s discursive is not that different than S’s abstract…..S’s criticism is pretty weak.
————

There is a distinction between Kantian and ancient notions of noumena, following from a distinction between Kantian and ancient philosophy. Whether subversion or progress, it is the way of human intelligence generally: build on or tear down whatever some predecessor said.

…..didn’t S do the same thing with respect to Buddhist notions, as S accused Kant of doing with respect to the Greeks? You know….change meanings, relations and whatnot? I dunno myself, although I am aware he associated himself with Buddhist thought in some ways. Just asking.
————-

Kant defines noumena. He stipulates exactly how he intends the conception to be understood in relation to transcendental philosophy in general and the faculty of understanding in particular. Nowhere in the definition is there a clue, an implication, or even a vague hint, of a relation to the ding an sich. It’s in the text, black and white, done deal. Take it to the bank.

The misuse of the conception, in opposition to its definition…..that’s not on him.

That he elaborates on his intended use of the conception in such a way as to confuse the use with the definition….(sigh)…..that is on him, but only because he’s writing for academics, who are supposed to grasp the subtleties on their own, unlike me and those like me, who wouldn’t normally even know there is such a thing to begin with, much less a proper/improper use for it.
(Hume and S call us “vulgar”. At least Kant wasn’t so mean, only referring to us as “common”. Actually, they mean the vulgar or common capacity of our understanding, not us personally.)
————

Universal is listed in the table of judgements, it is an a priori conception, but it is not a pure conception of the understanding, so named in the text, which are the categories, in which universal is not listed. The conceptions in the table of judgements are thought, are put there….arrived at…..as a part of the process of reason; the conceptions in the table of categories are contained in understanding without being thought, insofar as they are “true pure, primitive”, “original”, they’re just there naturally, as integral to our kind of intelligence. Although, there is a bit about the introduction of “transcendental content”…..whatever that entails isn’t given much explanation.

Metaphysical reductionism covering ubiquitous Kantian dualism writ large, for better or worse.

Anyway…. I joined. Whether contributing anything beyond mere opinion, that’s another matter.

….things known empirically that he claims are necessary truths. — Banno

I think this is a misunderstanding…..literally. Things that are known empirically is one thing; that there are necessary truths is quite another.

It cannot be an absolute necessary truth that H is P, if there was a time when they were known with apodeitic certainty to be different things. The Greeks were quite aware it is absurd to name one thing differently, which makes explicit it was necessarily true for them there were two things, and H was not P. It is only now necessarily true that H/P/V are all one and the same object, which makes the truth of the relation between H and P such that H is P, contingent on the time of its being understood.

Funny thing about that…..to be consistent with the Greeks, one must have a congruent experience of this particular celestial object, which is merely a bright spot in the sky in the morning and a bright spot in the sky at night, and nothing else whatsoever. Now we arrive at the real necessary truth, and that resides in the quality of whatever experience it is from which the knowledge is given. It never was necessarily true H was P, but it is certainly necessarily true whoever thinks they are, must have the exact same understanding of their experiences. Necessary truth isn’t inferred from what is known, but deduced from the understanding of what may or may not eventually be known.

If you understand it is necessarily true an object made of wood cannot be made of ice, you must have already understood how an object made of wood manifests as an object of your experience. If you didn’t already understand how a thing is, you couldn’t say how it isn’t. To say a thing known as being made of wood can’t be made of ice, is merely an exercise in cognitive redundancy, which doesn’t tell of anything not already understood. Whether one realizes it or not, is irrelevant; it still happens just like that, with no more or less theoretical speculative authority than Kripke himself posits in his thesis.

Actually…I take that back. Kripke demeans his speculative authority but asking it repeatedly to be imagined, then informing that to imagine is itself flawed. Why imagine something, only to find out you had no warrant to imagine it? Or that you were doing it all wrong? It surprises me to no end Kripke thinks it even possible to imagine incorrectly, when the very conception of imagination as a human cognitive faculty or capability, precludes it as such, from ever being a source of truth.

That being said, I don’t want to be told what I shouldn’t do to arrive at something; I want to be told how to get there.

he gives a variety of examples of what he says are necessary a posteriori facts... — Banno

Yes, he does. But he neglects to mention how, and certainly doesn’t inform as to the possibility that, the examples get to be facts.

“…. For explanations and examples, and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in the comprehension of parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the mental power of the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear conception of the whole…”
————

Disclaimer: I understand this article is a transcript from an oral lecture. I also understand the audience more than likely has some philosophical background, which means they should have a clue about the subtleties not addressed in the lecture itself.

As well, being of analytic persuasion, Kripke has no inclination to metanarratives regarding human intelligence. So saying, a proper critique of the article as it stands on its own, confined as it is to language use and intentionality towards it, finds little support for the procedure by which the content of the article comes to be, and non-analytic philosophers will find little agreement with it for that very reason. The best to be said herein, then, is that Kripke is right in his own way but his own way isn’t right.

Any empirical knowledge is contingent
— Mww

(…) hard to see why Kripke denies it. — Banno

Reference? Page number?

"Heat is necessarily the motion of molecules" cannot literally be true
— RussellA
I don't agree. — Banno

Heat is the motion of molecules…..as far as our experience informs us. Any empirical knowledge is contingent, therefore heat is necessarily the motion of molecules cannot be literally true. It is only as true as we know as of this point in our experience. Will it always be the motion of molecules? Probably, but we are still not logically justified in saying it is necessarily so. Hume’s problem of induction, T.H.N., 1.,3.,6., 1739. You know……more of that old stuff.

What will probably be argued by Mww is that, if heat is the movement of molecules, then while we learned this, it is an a priori fact deriving from the definition of heat. — Banno

Not quite. After we learn this, it resides in experience, such that we can say we know a priori heat is the motion of molecules without immediate testing or experience to prove it. Besides, if I read you right, if it is an a priori fact given from definitions, we wouldn’t need experience to prove it.
———-

we know stuff only by induction or by deduction? — Banno

We know empirical stuff by experience, we know possible empirical stuff, or empirical stuff possibly, by induction; we know a priori stuff only by deduction because there is no need for immediate experience on the one hand, and indeed there may not even be any on the other, for that kind.
————

What's puzzling Kripke is what it might mean to call such truths a priori. — Banno

Dunno why it should be puzzling. For that which is true a priori just means there’s no immediate proof from experience, or no proof from experience possible at all. Whatever makes something true in such case, is merely logical.

Maybe he shouldn’t confuse truth with that which is true. There are no empirical truths; there are only relations between things that do not contradict each other, which makes the relation true under the conditions from which the relation is given.

I’m not a fan of true/truths as such. Far too ambiguous and subject to the inclinations of whomsoever is professing it. Plus, we gotta keep in mind just what kind of intellect is doing all this knowing and truthing and whatnot.

Then comes:"But, all we need to talk about here is this: Is everything that is necessary knowable a priori or known a priori?" — Banno

…..and in the talking about, is the very containment of epistemological within metaphysical statements he denies.

Since it is a mathematical statement, if it is true, then it is true in any possible world - it is necessarily true. — Banno

….which is a metaphysical statement regarding knowledge. From a few instances of a posteriori proofs is developed a principle. For any instance other than from experience, in which the principle is the ground, the proof must hold as it did a posteriori. Otherwise, it is impossible to deduce how the principle could be thought in the first place.

Since we do not have a proof, we do not know if the conjecture is true. Hence we do not know a priori that the conjecture is true. — Banno

It is already given no proof from experience is possible, in that the iterations of the statement are infinite. We have nothing with which to judge infinite conditions, except the logical validity of the principles by which the iterations stand as proven a posteriori, which is of course, the epitome of knowledge a priori.

It becomes unclear what it might be to claim it is true a priori. — Banno

We don’t care if the conjecture is true, we can’t ever arrive at its finality anyway; we only care that the principles which ground the conjecture, work together and do not contradict themselves. We know a priori the principles of universality and absolute necessity, from which is given the LNC. From the LNC is given validity of the conjecture, even without the possibility of empirical proof for it.

What it might be to claim it is true a priori, then, is just to show that if it isn’t, the entire base of human intelligence, re: logic, is junk, insofar as if we cannot use the LNC to validate the conjecture, the use of it to validate anything at all becomes questionable, which is itself a contradiction.

We can reduce ambiguity and increase certainty by employing axioms which leave no room for ambiguity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed. Which returns to I think a major bone of contention in Kripke’s thesis, with respect to classes of statements of knowledge and of metaphysics, where he says, pg 177, “Now I hold that neither class of statements is contained in the other”.

This is to categorically deny the validity of a priori knowledge, the statements of which are always metaphysical, and by such denial the very possibility of purely logical truth disappears. And if that is the case, then purely logical conceptions, in particular, the modal relations under which this entire thesis is constructed, are empty.

Your “leave no room for ambiguity” is the very same thing as the validity of principles, and the “increased certainty” arises from the subsequent employment of them in deductive inferences, which are only and always from pure thought, a quite metaphysical enterprise, I must say.

Just in passing…..rhetorically speaking.

Ok. Thanks.

What do you make of this, pg 177-8:

“One could not say that though in fact every even number is the sum of two primes, there could not have been some extra number which was even and not the sum of two primes. So we certainly do not know, a priori or even posteriori, that every even number is the sum of two primes”.

But does temperature equate to (the sensation of) heat? — Banno

For a thermometer, or some sort of mechanical probe, seems so. For the human skin, its sensation is of more or less heat, or heat or no heat, temperature, as representation of a specific degree of heat relative to a standard, being irrelevant.

Pass. MU’s mindset is closer to mine than Kripke’s.

Still, Kripke does say he’s not considering the ontological side of existences in possible worlds. Which, to me, just says a possible world is this one under a completely different set of conditions. But then, the setters of those designators wouldn’t be here to set them, and there’s no warrant to say that possible world would have the means to set its own designators, so…..vicious circle.

But, I’ve recently discovered…there’s a logic for that.

Ahhh…another one of the cool kids.

Best I could do was a Beavis and Butthead reference.

Sorry, Frank. Dunno what that means.

I’m a virgoyankeebabyboomer with no sense of humor.

Oooo…always wanted to be in a unit.

Would it help you….. — Banno

Not particularly. I’ll just do my own thing, try to keep up.

I’m not even going to ask how you did that.

Must suck to have to stop and teach the preliminaries before you can get to what you want to talk about.

I find your puzzlement, puzzling. — Banno

My fault; I’m not up on the subtleties.

I mean….what’s the point in having identity, giving it absolute power as an irreducible necessity, then say it can have substitutivity attributable to it? Makes no friggin’ sense to me. From which follows, of course, x = y becomes a metaphysical abomination.

Seems it would be worthwhile going over some of the "oddball symbology". — Banno

Cool. Interesting. Thanks.
————

Question: why drop out the part known to be true?

Say there is a law. To remove something that makes it a law, is it legitimate to still call it a law?

If there is a certain undeniable truth already given, and it is deleted….dropped out…..how does that not go to great length to falsify the product of whatever formally contained it?

The whole thing begins with…..for any two objects x and y, if x has these properties and y has these same properties, then x is the same as y. Sounds rather obvious, at first, and just the words themselves are sufficient to call it a true statement, insofar as these words, taken by themselves, don’t contradict themselves.

This must be why Kripke dropped out the F, insofar as it is impossible for every property F to belong to both x and y simultaneously such that x = y. If it were possible, then x =x is false, but it is already an established necessary truth that x = x and cannot be both true and false.

I think one needs be no more than a low-level logician to understand that dropping out both a logical necessary truth and an empirical impossibility, are both required in order to sustain the ideas behind the article.

So….ok, two questions….can the article still have any meaning if those two dropped-out conditions are left in?
————

quote="Banno;767932"]Those diamonds and boxes and other oddball symbology serve us well in avoiding such misunderstandings.[/quote]

….or creating them?

Thanks for the clarification for is and =‘s.

……that water boils at 100℃ is known a priori. I gather that you are thinking something like that 100℃ just is the boiling point of water, by definition? — Banno

It is now, after the discovery of it. That water boils at 100C is known a priori only by those after having immediate experience, re: those that test for it, or mediate experience, re: those that learn of the test for it. It’s irrelevant that water always had a specific boiling point, as long as no one knew what it was.

“…. Mathematics and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects à priori. The former is purely à priori, the latter is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of cognition….”

With respect to the theoretical science of the boiling point of water, the aspect partially a priori, to “determine their objects a priori” is to think how to find out the boiling point of water, to ask oneself, when does water boil, how do I find out, and herein “dependent on other sources of cognition” refers to the observation, hence the phenomenon, that water does in fact behave in a certain way given certain conditions. Somebody, somewhere sometime saw water boiling and wondered how hot it had to be to act like that, all a priori, even if under empirical conditions.

As I mentioned, this is one of the things in Kripke I took exception to, in that he said the astronomers that figured out P and H were “one and the same” couldn’t have done it by means of “a priori ratiocination”, when in fact, it was the only way they could have done it. No different than finding out water boils at 100C.

….some may suppose that all statements of the form x=y are necessary, and hence a priori (Is this Mww's view?) — Banno

Whole bunch of caveats before this is Mww’s view, first being, even assuming linguistic liberties in the original, no statement in itself is ever necessary in the domain of pure logic, to which the very idea of necessity solely belongs.

Second being, only x = x is necessarily true under any possible conditions, and that because the god Aristotle said so, and proved it in his way in his time.

Third, that x = x is necessarily true under any conditions because Aristotle said so, yet that truth is an a priori judgement, or cognition, is because the god Kant said so and proved it in his way in his time, as an extension of Aristotle’s law not addressed by him.

OK, so we got x = y. X is a dog, y is a mammal. It turns out it is necessarily true a dog is a mammal, even though a mammal is not necessarily a dog which an equality implies, so the formula holds in one direction but not in the other.

Staying with x = y, but this time x is a dog but y is a can of green beans. Here, it is absurd that a dog is a can of green beans. Why put rational trust in a logical construct that doesn’t hold under any conditions, which must include its own inversion? If it depends exclusively on what x and y are, such that x and y are somehow predetermined as connected to each other, how can a universal logical truth such as x = y be built on it?

And to cap it all off….that a series of square, diamond and oddball symbology will make it so, where a series of words won’t?

Way past my bedtime……

Length is fine, but you lost me early on. — Banno

Yeah, I feel ya, bruh. When I see “∀F(Fx ↔ Fy) → x=y.” my eyes just sorta glaze over, mind goes blank, reason goes…..say what????

At its initial inception, and the ground of all others, A = A is one of Aristotle’s three logical laws of rational thought, this particular one found in “Prior Analytics”, 2, 22, 68. Whatever Leibniz or any others did with it, follows from that.

For what it’s worth….

If we are given two analytic propositions "Hesperus is Phosphorus" and "Hesperus is not Phosphorus"….. — RussellA

What if we are given one proposition, and its negation?

….how do we know which is true…. — RussellA

Does it matter which, if there can be only one?

….if the truth of an analytic proposition is independent of any empirical knowledge ? — RussellA

The analycity resides in the relation of the conceptions. Doesn’t matter if the conceptions are empirical. It is only after experience informs that P and H are in fact V, is it the case that all the conceptions which comprise V are found in both P and H, and it is necessarily true that either P or H represent V without any possible contradiction. The next step, then, says that there is nothing contained in the conception of P that does not belong to the conception of H, therefore, P and H are the same thing, or, that P is H is a necessarily true statement. We don’t need the experience those conceptions represent, only that all of them are thought to co-exist equally in one object.

And here is the support for the claim that time is not a property of objects, which just might be the reason the whole shebang rears its head in the first place.

Tangled web and all, doncha know.

But we are substituting this into an opaque context - whether they are empirical facts. — Banno

If you want to use logical shorthand, we have P = V, H = V, therefore P = H. Regardless, there was a time when it was a fact this thing in the sky was called P, and there was a time when it was a fact this thing in the sky was called H, and in these times, P was not known to be H. At some later time, experience informed that P, H and V were all the same thing in the sky, P = V at one time, H = V at a certain other time relative to the first time. After that, after the facts changed due to new experience, the thing in the sky was just V.

P never was equal to H, the proposition P is H never occurred to the Greeks, as Kripke said of something else and thus misspoke**, “surely no amount of a priori ratiocination on their part could have conceivably made it possible for them to deduce P is H”, so why are we belaboring the nonsense of it now?
** He said it of astronomers who discovered the distinction, when he should have said it of those who never considered there was one. Besides, one needs no a priori ratiocination when he’s got a telescope and a camera.

So it seems we are left with empirically discovered necessities. — Banno

Ehhhh…..maybe. I’d say we have empirically discovered relations, the relations we understand as being so because they necessarily conform to the laws we invent to describe them.
—————-

WHere's the argument? — Banno

In the text, which as you must well know, is a convoluted mess, requiring some presuppositions, and wouldn’t benefit this discussion.
—————-

Knowledge is experience, experience is always changing with time, so knowledge is always changing with time, therefore knowledge is contingent on time.
— Mww

Well, we know 4=2+2, but that doesn't change over time... an we know water boils at 100℃, at any given time; that doesn't change. So that doesn't work. — Banno

By “knowledge is experience”, the term knowledge is tacitly understood to be empirical knowledge. Mathematical propositions are not empirical knowledge in their construction, but only in their proofs. Mathematical propositions change over time only insofar as the system that constructs them changes; the human cognitive system that constructs mathematical propositions hasn’t changed so the propositions won’t change.

We knew once a liquid substance; we knew later a liquid substance we deemed to label water; we knew later the liquid substance we deemed to label water, boiled; we knew later water boiled at 100C, we knew later water boiled at different temps relative to pressure. Hell, we knew later, not only do things float in water, but water itself floats!!! How cool is that?? Knowledge changed over time.

We didn’t know water boils at 100C at any given time, as you say, until we learned at one time water boils at 100C. We know post hoc and a priori, as mere inference, water under a certain set of conditions will always boil at 100C. Just like, because you put it there at one time, you know a priori that stupid cup is still in the stupid cupboard at any other time, as long as nothing happened to alter the initial conditions.

It is possible the set of conditions under which water boils at 100C changes, such that water no longer boils at 100C. Some would like to proffer that this is sufficient reason to claim physical law is tentative, and in so doing, imply human intelligence is schetchy at best, insofar as it is human intelligence alone which determines physical law. Which is tantamount to those some slapping themselves in the face, getting nothing from it but a ruddy cheek.
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Kant and Kripke. There is obvious disagreement, but they are doing different philosophies, so no big surprise there. The idea was probably, if Kant was brought into this era would he find current philosophy noteworthy. While it is patently unjustified to speak for him, personally I think he would find it unapologetically superficial, there isn’t a particular philosophical doctrine these days a majority of thinkers support, and, there’s a conspicuous dearth of cognitive metatheories.

Nowadays, people who philosophize at all are apt do so regarding what’s said and its communal effect, rather than what is thought and its private effect, and his magnum opus concerned the rational subject over the empirical object, and even with the spectacular advances in physical science, the rational subject is still pretty much just as he was in the 18th century, so I think CPR would be written pretty much as it was. His other sciency stuff would probably be different, and there’s reason to suppose he might have come up with stuff that set the tone for other scientists, just as he did on the 1700’s.
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might be of further interest to Mww.

That this table is not made of ice is known a posteriori - by examining the table. Yet that this table is not made of ice is a necessary fact about this table - if it were made of ice, it would not be this table. — Banno

All that’s fine, but what’s the point? That this table is made of this substance immediately precludes it being made of any other substance. I rather think that if this table is made of, say, wood, wood isn’t so much an essential property, as being a given property. It would seem the essential property of a table is merely is spatial extension, its shape, without regard to the substance of its construction.

Of more import, methinks: Kripke says, “…this table, if it exists at all…”. If he talks of a table, isn’t its existence given? Otherwise, shouldn’t he be talking of a possible table? Minor quibble, one of many, and overall, irrelevant, other than to exemplify differences in philosophical ground.

Then he says, “this table if it exists art all was not made of ice is necessary…”. Taken as a complete sentence, shouldn’t that have been “…was not made of ice is necessarily true”? Continuing, and under the assumption he means necessarily true, he says, “was not made of ice is necessarily true, it is certainly not something we know a priori”.

Hmmmm…..I don’t think that’s quite right. He’s asking about what we know. So we have a thing we know, a table, made of something we know, say, wood, so we can say with certainty it is not made from anything else, but the ask concerns only what we know, not what we can say.
(Recall the quote, “ Experience no doubt teaches us that this or that object is constituted in such and such a manner, but not that it could not possibly exist otherwise…”)

Experience cannot tell us the table could not have been made of something else, but if it is necessarily true it couldn’t have been made of anything else, because it isn’t, we must have known that necessity a priori.

It isn’t that we know it isn’t made of ice, it’s that we know it is necessarily true it isn’t made of ice. Given that there are only two ways for a human to know anything at all, experience and reason, and the former is from experience but the latter is not, therefore the knowledge in question must be from reason alone, which is, of course, a priori.

I’m not going to apologize for the length of the post. Peruse or not as you wish.