Abstract

In a recent paper Horsten embarked on a journey along the limits of the domain of the unknowable. Rather than knowability simpliciter, he considered a priori knowability, and by the latter he meant absolute provability, i.e. provability that is not relativized to a formal system. He presented an argument for the conclusion that it is not absolutely provable that there is a natural number of which it is true but absolutely unprovable that it has a certain property. The argument depends on a description principle. I will argue that the latter principle implies the knowability of all arithmetical truths. Therefore, Horsten's argument is either sound but its conclusion is trivial, or his argument is unsound.