The classical view of the relationship between necessity and apriority, defended by Leibniz and Kant, is that all necessary truths are known a priori. The classical view is now almost universally rejected, ever since Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam discovered that there are necessary truths that are known only a posteriori. However, in recent years a new debate has emerged over the epistemology of these necessary a posteriori truths. According to one view – call it the neo-classical view – knowledge (...) of a necessary truth always depends on at least one item of a priori knowledge. According to the rival view – call it the neoempiricist view – our knowledge of necessity is sometimes broadly empirical. In this paper I present and defend an argument against the neo-empiricist view. I argue that knowledge of the necessity of a necessary truth could not be broadly empirical. (shrink)

Of course, as scholars have long known, this example has serious limitations. For one thing, a substantial form, as the scholastics understood it, is much more dynamic than a mere shape. For example, the substantial form of an oak tree somehow explains how and why an oak tree can do everything that it does. So the substantial form of an oak tree could not be something as simple or crude as its shape. Nevertheless, the example of the bronze statue does (...) have the virtue of illustrating one of the chief advantages of hylomorphism as a philosophy of the human person. Although we can talk about the bronze and the shape of the statue, respectively, it still seems correct to say that the statue is exactly one thing, not two things. Likewise, although we can talk about the matter and the form of a human being, the hylomorphist insists that a human being is exactly one thing, not two things accidentally conjoined. (shrink)

The first horn of the Responsibilism Dilemma turns on the fact that the concept of responsibility is neutral between positive appraisal and negative appraisal. To say that someone is responsible is not ipso facto to say whether she is praiseworthy or blameworthy. Being responsible for something is simply a matter of having the appropriate sort of control over it, regardless of whether that control is exercised well or badly. So responsibility is, at most, a necessary, but not a sufficient condition (...) for positive appraisal. Now, the concept of epistemic justification obviously entails a positive appraisal. So if responsibility, as such, is neutral between positive and negative appraisal, whereas epistemic justification entails a positive appraisal, then obviously there is a conceptual gap between mere responsibility and epistemic justification. It seems obvious to me that Hetherington is right about this. However, it seems just as obvious that it is innocuous to the responsibilist to concede that responsibility is only a necessary, and not a sufficient condition for justification. That is because responsibility, thus understood, is simply a matter of having control, regardless of whether that control is exercised well or badly. Only control that is exercised properly could be sufficient for a positive epistemic status. All of this seems rather mundane. (shrink)