GREG RAY

KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT*

(Received 28 January 1993)

INTRODUCTORY

Famously, Saul Kripke (1980) proposes that there are contingent a

priori truths, and offers a number of examples to illustrate his claim.
The most well-known example involves the standard meter bar in Paris.
Let me briefly rehearse the example. We are to suppose that an agent
fixes the referent of 'one meter' by stipulating that 'one meter' shall be
whatever is the length of stick S (at time t). As the story goes, such an
agent now "knows automatically, without further investigation, that S is
one meter long" (p. 56). Such knowledge is to be reckoned a priori.
Yet, "Stick S is one meter long" certainly expresses a contingent truth.
Thus we appear to have a truth which is both contingent and a priori.
The following discussion centers on a long-standing objection to such
examples. This objection, which I dub "the existential complaint", has
been given considerable credence in the literature. In response to this
complaint, a modified kind of example, which employs conditionals, is
now standardly discussed. Gareth Evans (1979) argues that these
conditionals must be understood free-logically, and on this basis argues
against Keith Donnellan's (1977) analysis of the contingent a priori. I
will show Evans' argument mistaken. I will also take issue with the
existential complaint, and suggest a way of understanding Kripke's
original examples that is not subject to it. My approach focuses the
debate in its right place, and allows us to take Kripke's original
examples seriously, as well.

THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT

One of the first and most persistent complaints to be raised against

Kripke's purported examples of contingent a priori truths was ex-
pressed by W. R. Carter (1976) as follows.

PhilosophicalStudies 74: 121--135, 1994.

© 1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed & the Netherlands.
122 GREG RAY

One of the things that must be true if it is to be true that S has the property of being
one meter long is that there exists such an object as S. Thus before we can know that it
is true that S has the property of being one meter long, or has any other property, we
must know that there is such an object as S. But our knowledge that there is such an
objectis clearly not a priori. (p. 105)

At best, according to Carter, the Kripkean agent can first observe the
stick S, then go through a dubbing ceremony to introduce the term 'one
meter'. But this process will vouchsafe them no a priori knowledge. The
agent has been allowed recourse to experience in observing the stick.
So, according to Carter, "we might as well say that the statement that
my fountain pen is on my desk is for me an a priori statement, this on
the grounds that once I have observed the location of the pen I do not
then have to rely upon sense experience to know that my pen is on my
desk." (p. 106) 1
Of course, to be truly telling, Carter's complaint ought to apply to
the other proposed examples of contingent a priori truths. Another that
Kripke suggested is the case of 'Neptune'. Leverrier hypothesized that a
yet undiscovered planet was responsible for certain unexplained per-
turbations in the orbit of Uranus. He is supposed to have introduced
'Neptune' as a name for whatever planet this was. Could Leverrier
know apriori that [1]?
[1] Neptune is the cause of the perturbations in the orbit of
Uranus
No, according to Carter the agent would first have to know that
Neptune exists. 2 This Leverrier did not know, nor could any agent a
priori. In light of this, it is interesting to observe that Kripke is more
circumspect in his discussion of this example than he was about the
meter bar. Kripke does not claim that [1] is known a priori, but only
that
At this stage, an a priori material equivalence held between the statements 'Neptune
exists' and 'some one planet perturbing the orbit of such and such other planets exists
in such and such position', and also such statements as 'if such and such perturbations
are caused by a planet, they are caused by Neptune' had the status of a priori truths.
(I 980, p. 79)

It seems that Kripke has here anticipated Carter's existential worry. The
proposed a priori truth has a conditional form which seems designed to
circumvent just such a worry.
 KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT 123

I21 If the perturbations of Uranus are caused by a planet, they

are caused by Neptune.

The idea is that, unlike in the case of [1], we need not know that there is
a planetary perturber of Uranus in order to know [2]. The subsequent
literature has, by and large, taken a lesson from the existential com-
plaint and considered examples of the contingent a priori that have this
conditional form? In 1979, Evans blithely refers to the conditionalized
form as the "usual formulation" of the puzzle.

THE INCURSION OF FREE LOGIC

So, the general discussion has avoided the existential complaint by

conditionalizing the statement of what is claimed to be k n o w n a priori.
Gareth Evans pointed out that this way of rescuing the examples can
only be effective if the conditional statements are understood free-
logically.4

Unless a sentence containing the name 'Julius' can be formulated which is free of
existential commitment, there is not even a candidate for the status of the contingent a
priori, but ~ithin a classical framework, there are no such sentences. No matter how a
name may be embedded in a sentence, in a classical language that name is accessible to
existential quantification, and the truth of the whole sentence required that the name
refer. Since it is quite pointless, within a classical framework, to make the problematical
sentence conditional in form, it must be presumed to be the intention of anyone
offering these conditional sentences that they be taken to be sentences governed by a
free logic in which the names take narrow scope. (Evans 1979, p. 172)

The opening line of this bit of reasoning clearly relies on (the success
of) the existential complaint. Evans has two reasons for being interested
in the incursion of free logic to which he argues here. In the first
instance, he uses it to promulgate an ad hominem argument against
Donnellan's treatment of the contingent a priori. In the second instance,
he believes that the resort to free logic supports his own account, which
employs what he calls descriptive or Fregean namesP

It is a presupposition of the use of a free logic that there exist Fregean names, and
hence a presupposition of the usual [conditional] formulation of the puzzAe, that names
like 'Julius' be Fregean names. But Dormellan is prepared to impose upon under-
standing the name 'Julius' conditions which preclude it from being Fregean -- the
knowledge which Donnellan requires for really understanding the name cannot be in
anyone's possession if the name is empty. (p. 173)
124 G R E G RAY

Thus, Donnellan may either eschew free logic, in which case the
existential complaint solves the puzzle, or he may lift his restrictions.
However, the restrictions in question are needed for Donnellan's
current account. So, either way it looks like DonneUan ought to
abandon his current account. In fact, I think this line of criticism does
not withstand scrutiny. First, let me set down a portion of Evans'
argument in schematic fashion:
(a) There is no puzzle unless the use of free logic is accepted.
On particular, 'If someone invented the zipper, then Julius
did' must be understood free-logically.)
Co) It is presupposition of the use of free logic that there exist
descriptive names.
(c) Thus, it is a presupposition of the conditional formulation of
the puzzle, that names like 'Julius' are descriptive.

The first premise of this argument is just supposed to be the upshot of

the existential complaint, which we saw Evans rehearse above. I think
that complaint is intuitively compelling and we have seen no reason as
yet to question it. Nonetheless, I think [a] is false. However, before
tackling the broader issues which lead me to this conclusion, I wish to
concentrate on the second premise of Evans' argument, because I think
that that premise too is false, and perhaps less controversially so. So let
us suppose, for the moment, that the first premise is unproblematic. 6 It
should be noted that Nathan Salmon has also taken issue with premise
[b]. He asserts that, "contra Evans", the use of free logic involves no
presupposition which opposes the doctrine that proper names are not
descriptive. H e also charges that "the implicit argument for the pre-
supposition . . . is unsound" (Salmon 1988, p. 198, footnote 7). How-
ever, Salmon does not offer an argument for the first claim, and it is
hard to evaluate the second, since he does not tell us what he takes
Evans' implicit argument to be. 7
I propose to argue against premise [b] in the following way. Let us
first observe that, free logics do admit vacuous names. 8 Let us also
grant that a standardly applied free logic will actually count certain
names as vacuous. If it is right that such an applied free logic actually
presupposes that at least some of these names also have descriptive
content, then we would expect this descriptive content to play some
 KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT 125

role in determining the truth conditions the logic ascribes to sentences

in which such n a m e s o c c u r . 9 In particular, it ought to be possible to
effect the truth value of some sentences by substituting one vacuous
name for another with a different descriptive content. Evans' claim [b]
admits, then, of a simple test. We may say that an applied free logic is
free of the presupposition that vacuous names have descriptive content,
if it bears out the following principle.
[FP] Sentences which differ only by the occurrence of vacuous
singular terms always have the same truth value.
As it happens, there are ready examples of such free logics. One might
subscribe to a negative free logic such as that developed by Tyler Burge
(1974). Vacuous singular terms are countenanced in Burge's logic, but
all simple sentences with vacuous singular terms come out false. For
this reason, Burge's logic is classified as negativeJ ° Moreover, vacuous
singular terms may be substituted salva veritate in his logic, al Tiffs free
logic satisfies [FP], and so does not presuppose that empty names have
descriptive content.
In fact, when Evans introduces free logic to develop his own treat-
ment of the contingent a priori (p. 166), he cites (Schock 1968), which
is a detailed presentation of another logic satisfying [FP].12 In that work,
Schock gives the following argument

The application of a predicate to various terms holds just when the denotations of the
terms stand in the relation denoted by the predicate; if not all of the terms denote, then
their denotations cannot stand in the relation and the application does not hold. (10.21)

Accordingly, the free logic Schock develops is negative, and, by satisfy-

ing [FP], is also one which is free of any presupposition that vacuous
names have descriptive content.
It might be charged that the sorts of free logic that I have citeA here
will ultimately not be adequate for application to natural language) 3 In
particular, getting the truth conditions of attitude-ascribing sentences
might be thought to put certain pressures on any adequate logic --
pressures that will force ~P] to be violated. Thus, the sort of logic I put
forth as an example satisfies [FP] but is only applicable to some small
fragment of natural language, and any adequate logic will be forced to
violate [FP]. At the heart of this objection is the demand that some
126 GREG RAY

attitude-ascribing sentences differing only in vacuous names should be

given different truth values, e.g. 'John believes that Vulcan is a planet'
and 'John believes that Santa Claus is a planet'. Surely, on any reason-
able account 'John believes that Santa Claus is a planet' may be false
(John being such a reasonable fellow). If vacuous names can be freely
substituted, then 'John believes that Vulcan is a planet' must also be
false, and yet this seems counterintuitive. Granted, but there are prin-
cipled ways to explain our intuitions in such cases, that yet allow both
claims to be false. 14 For example, I do not see why Gricean considera-
tions could not be used to explain our intuitions in the case, as well as
the useful role that such literally false claims play in communication. So,
pending some additional argument on Evans behalf that such accounts
must be inadequate, it can be nothing but question-begging to suppose
that someone who employs free logic must also fix truth values of
attitude-ascribing sentences in a way favorable to Evans' argument, t5 In
any case, the textual evidence suggests that Evans thought that there
was a direct line of argument from free logic to descriptive names, in
fact, so direct that he did not feel the need to do more than state the
connection. He was wrong.
I see no good reason why, if free logic must be used, someone like
Donnellan could not appeal to a negative free logic of the sort I have
described. The citation of Schock's work suggests that Evans may be
working with such a logic. And if a negative logic will not do, some
super-valuational free logic may be made to serve. In fact, an appro-
priate super-valuational free logic may be an especially natural choice
for Donnellan, and would likewise undercut Evans' argument. 16 I
conclude that, contrary to Evans' argument, we should not infer from
the incursion of free logic that (some) names have descriptive content.
Premise [b] of Evans' argument is false. As a result, Evans does not
have an argument which shows that Donnellan must give up his
account. Moreover, Evans' own view is not bolstered in a way that it
would have been otherwise. Even though ordinary names be purely
referential, this portion of Evans' argument seemed to lend credence to
the idea that there are yet some descriptive names. What support this
idea might have gained from the argument is likewise lost by its failure.
 KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT 127

REASSESSING KRIPKE'S PUZZLE

I think the existential complaint against Kripke is well-placed criticism.

I also think that Evans is right that avoiding the criticism by condi-
tionalizing requires a free logical understanding of the target sentences.
Yet, earlier I claimed that it would be a mistake for Evans to suppose
that there is no puzzle unless the use of free logic is accepted, though
this last may seem to follow from what I have otherwise agreed to. I
would now like to explain my claim.
Let's consider an example in non-conditional form. Let 'Julius' name
whoever invented the zipper, and consider
[3] Julius invented the zipper.

Now, the existential complaint points out that, in this non-conditional

form, [3] is no way a priori. This falls somewhat short, however, of
showing that there is no puzzle revealed by such examples. I think that
the existential complaint, correct so far as it goes, does not get at the
heart of Kripke's puzzle. The puzzle has been understood as being just
this: how could it be that an agent with only a priori knowledge is in a
position to know that [3], a contingent truth. However, I think what is
really puzzling in these cases is how it could be that an agent with such
limited knowledge could be in a position to know, without further
experience, that [3].17 It is not hard to uncover this as the core concern
underlying Donnellan's discussion. For Donnellan, what is confounding
about the examples is that the agent does not seem to be in a position
to have the de re knowledge required to know that [3]. But this need
have little to do with apriority. The agent might have knowledge of any
number of empirical truths, without it ceasing to be a serious question
how she could also have the de re knowledge required by the example.
Having such knowledge requires the agent to have knowledge of a
particular. This will be puzzling, even if the agent is in possession of
some general empirical knowledge.
So, I say, let us grant the reference-fixer the general existential
knowledge required in the meter bar case, the Julius case, and cases
like them. I maintain that there remains a clearly identifiable gulf
between what is granted and what Kripke claims the agent knows. Thus
there is something to be explained here, even after the existential
128 G R E G RAY

knowledge is granted. H o w might we show this? To demonstrate what

the agent is in a position to know in such cases, we can observe what
can and cannot be inferred from things the agent is already understood
to know. To establish the connection between what can be so inferred
and the question of the agent's knowledge, we need the following
principles:
i) If there is a deductive argument, from premises meeting the
condition that
[K] the agent knows the truth that each of the premises
expresses (not just that those premises express truths),
to a conclusion, p, then we may infer that rThe agent is in a
position to know that p~ is true.
ii) For the cases at hand, if there is not a deductive argument
from premises satisfying [K] to a conclusion, p, then we
should want some independent reason for thinking that rThe
agent is in a position to know that p" is true. 18

These two together ensure that the presence (absence) of such deduc-
tive relations will be telling. In particular, we will see the puzzle
reemerge, if it turns out there is no deductive relation between premises
which clearly satisfy [K], and the conclusion 'Julius invented the zipper',
even though our intuitions favor the claim 'The agent is in a position to
know (without further looking) that Julius invented the zipper'. 19
Our current aim is to show that there remains a clearly identifiable
gulf between what is granted and what Kripke claims the agent knows,
even after certain existential knowledge is granted. We may demon-
strate this now as follows. I take it that we have already granted that the
agent has the semantic knowledge that

[4] 'Julius' refers to the inventor of the zipper, if there is one.

This is something the agent made true via the stipulation that intro-
duced 'Julius'. I suppose our agent has already been granted, too,
semantic knowledge about the general terms involved in [3], i.e. she
knows that
[5] For all names, a, in the language, ~a invented the zipper" is
true if and only if the referent of a invented the zipper.
 KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT 129

Note that this is a sort of clause that could be derived from a standard
Tarskian truth theory. This is in keeping with a useful theoretical fiction
which I will maintain according to which the agent's semantic under-
standing of the language takes the form of knowledge of the axioms of a
suitable truth theory.
Now, however, let us also grant -- what the existential complaint
takes issue with -- that the agent knows (perhaps by authority) that
[6] There is a unique inventor of the zipper.
Notice that it is easily proved from [4]--[6] that 2°
[7] 'Julius invented the zipper' is true,
and this is surely sufficient to show that the agent could come to know
[7] without further experience. Donnellan's diagnosis of the contingent
a priori makes much of the fact that the agent can come to know,
without further experience, that 'Julius invented the zipper' expresses a
truth. We see that confirmed here in the derivability of [7]. However,
[3] Julius invented the zipper
itself cannot be derived from [4]--[6]. So, it is still puzzling at this point,
how the agent could come to know that [3], just on the basis of these
facts. In other words, even after granting the agent certain general
existential knowledge, [6], there is still a divide between given knowl-
edge and the contingent truth [3]. It is incumbent on anyone who wants
to claim that the agent knows such a contingent truth to explain how
the divide is bridged. 21 This is the challenge that these examples pose,
and it has little enough to do with apriority. When Carter made his
existential complaint, he assumed that granting existential knowledge
would trivialize the examples. While his own pen-on-the-desk example
is a triviatizing case, what Carter failed to appreciate is that not all
existential knowledge one might grant is of this trivializing sort. In
particular, the requisite existential knowledge in the Julius case, and in
the meter bar case as well (see below), is not of the trivializing sort.
Granting existential knowledge is just not the give-away Carter sup-
posed it to be.
I have tried to demonstrate the difference between claims to knowl-
edge of [3] and [7] via their deductive relations to a certain set of
premises. There is an obvious objection to be considered. It might be
130 GREG RAY

charged that I have not granted all the premises that should be granted.
Indeed, a crucial premise which would allow us to derive [3] is given by
the appropriate reference clause standardly found in a truth theory,
namely
[8] 'Julius' refers to Julius.

However, including this among the premises would defeat the intended
demonstration, because [8] has precisely the same troublesome status as
[3]. If we want to construct an argument which shows that the agent is
in a position to know that [3], we cannot simply presuppose that the
agent knows the equally controversial [8]. The agent's epistemic relation
to the proposition expressed by [8] is, indeed, a point of contention
between Evans and Donnellan. In fact, their general disagreement can
in large part be localized to this one point. According to Donnellan's
diagnosis, the agent knows that [8] is true. She does not, however, know
the truth that [8] expresses owing to the fact that she does not know to
what the last word in [8] refers. According to Evans, on the other hand,
it must be allowed that the agent "understands" the name, and hence
knows that [8]. Right now, it is not my aim to settle this issue, but to
suggest a different way of understanding the original problem. What we
see here is that, depending on your analysis of [8], it may or may not be
granted as knowledge belonging to the agent. So, I hold that, with [4]--
[6] above, I did include all the premises that can be uncontroversially
granted. To reiterate my main point, by displaying the deductive differ-
ence between [3] and [7], we see clearly that some explanation is
needed even after the existential knowledge is granted. If it also
happens that, when presented this way, we see what the focus of the
explanation should be, namely [8], that is a further virtue of the
approachY
To apply what we have considered to the case of the meter bar, let
us grant that the agent knows that

[4*] 'One meter' refers to the length of S, if there is such a length.

and that 23

[5"1 For all names, a, in the language, ~The length of S is ~ is

true if and only if the referent of a is the length of S.
 KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT 131

Furthermore, let us grant the agent the general existential knowledge

needed to get the example off the ground, namely that
[6*] There is a unique length of S.
Once again, it is easy to see how the agent could then be in a position
to know that
[7*] 'The length of S is one meter' is true

since this follows from [*4]--[6*] .24 However, it does not follow that:
[3*] The length of S is one meter.
Again, this deductive difference throws into relief the difference
between a knowledge claim to [7*] and a knowledge claim to [3*] -- a
difference that persists even after we grant the agent knowledge of
certain existential (and hence, a posteriori) premises. It is important to
notice that this way of presenting the puzzle does not require condi-
tionalizing the target sentence or the use of free logic.
I wish to draw three main conclusions from this discussion. First,
Evans' argument from free logic fails, and so provides no impetus away
from an account like Donnellan's. Second, the underlying puzzle can be
formulated without conditionalizing or using free logic, the existential
complaint notwithstanding. 25 Third, this is not because that complaint is
not well-taken, so far as it goes, but because the heart of Kripke's
puzzle need not be so closely tied to the notion of (absolute) apriolity. 26.
This also shows that the puzzle cannot be successfully laid to rest by
impugning apriority for the murky notion that it is. The issue is not
primarily one about the a priori.
I close with a bit of speculative diagnosis. My re-characterization of
the puzzle allows us to take the original meter bar example seriously.
Insofar as the trend in the literature has been toward the conditional
form, there has been an implicit rejection of Kripke's meter bar
example. Moreover, the characterization I offer allows us to give an
account of something that is otherwise a bit mysterious. If Kripke was
sensitive to the existential worry, as suggested by the Neptune case, why
did he not use the conditional form in the meter bar case also? z7 Here
is a suggestion. Kripke used the conditional form in the Neptune case
only because he was working with a historical example in which the
132 GREG RAY

agent, Leverrier, did not in fact have the needed background existential
knowledge. While concerns about the a priori generally have to do with
what is knowable, not what is known, we should bear in mind Kripke's
state preference for dealing with this epistemological area in terms of
"whether a particular person or knower knows something" (p. 35).
Leverrier did not know something. It was this, I conjecture, that
prompted Kripke to use the conditional form, not any existential worry.

NOTES

* I would like to thank W. R. Carter, Charles Chihara, Karel J. Lambert, Kirk Ludwig,
Stephen Neale, Herman Cappelan, and an anonymous referee for this Journal, for
helpful discussion on this topic, as well as for their comments on earlier drafts of this
paper. A version of the paper was read at the 1993 Pacific Division meeting of the
A P A in San Francisco. I wish to thank especially David CoMes and Mark Richard for
their thoughtful contributions in that session.
For a recent discussion which takes issue with Carter on this point, see (Geirsson
1991).
2 Note that it would be as well if Leverrier knew that 'Neptune' refers, or that there
exists a planetary perturber of Uranus.
3 Some examples have now been put for~vard in the literature which do not involve
names at all, and so world not seem to be subject to the same complaint, nor in need of
conditionalization. Such examples are offered, for example, in (Evans 1979) and
(Bostock 1988). These examples are all interesting and controversial in one way or
another, but I will not discuss them here.
4 Evans is considering the example: "If anyone invented the zipper, then Julius did",
where 'Julius' has been introduced as a name for whoever invented the zipper.
s I use these terms interchangeably here to mean names with descriptive content.
Moreover, I suppose it to be part of Evans' notion that the association between the
name and the description is properly located at the semantic level. Note that at some
points in Evans it looks as though the notion of "descriptive name" is exhausted by the
idea of a name introduced by description. Cf. (Evans 1982, p. 31). Tiffs would make
the existence of descriptive names trivial. I choose to use the term in its fuller and more
contentious .sense, that of a name which has the sort of semantic relation to a descrip-
tion that Evans claims for 'Julius'. It is also this fuller notion which seems presupposed
in Evans argument.
6 Clearly, more would need to be said to get from the existence of descriptive names in
[b], to the conclusion that 'Julius' is one of them in [c], but let us also suppose that this
could be filled in.
7 It is worth noting also that Salmon thinks that Evans' claim that names may have
descriptive content "conflicts with one of the main premises of the argument" which
sets up the puzzle. I see two reasons why Salmon might think that Evans' challenge
could be dealt with in this way. First, Salmon treats "having descriptive content" and
"being a shorthand description" as synonymous, an identification Evans would surely
have denied, and one which would put Evans more at odds with Kripke than he is. I
think this explains Salmon's curious claim that Evans' 'Julius' is not introduced in the
way that Kripke proposed. Second, Salmon understands the puzzle as one that begins
by stipulating that the 'Julius' sentence has as its "cognitive information content a
 KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT 133

Russellian singular proposition in which [the object to which 'one meter' has reference]
occurs directly as a constituent" (p. 197). But I think we can uncover no such strong
assumption from Kripke's own presentation of the puzzle. The puzzle is set up when we
once agree that, whatever the name is doing in the target sentence, it is not acting like a
(narrow scope) description and rendering the sentence necessary. So, what is needed to
get the puzzle going is an agreement about the contingency of the statement, not the
more controversial premise about direct reference and propositions that Salmon begins
with. This point is succinctly made by Evans (1979, p. 175).
s As I understand Evans' thinking, it is in its treatment of vacuous names that free
logic reveals a commitment to descriptive names. Hence, the concentration in what
follows on the specifically vacuous names, though 'Julius' and its cohorts are not
themselves vacuous.
9 Applying logic commits us at most to certain statements having such and such truth
conditions. It is hard to see how this could entail a commitment to the existence of
descriptive names, unless somehow the truth conditions of those statements were
effected, i.e. unless a difference in descriptive content sometimes made a difference in
truth conditions.
10 For this terminology as well as a general discussion of free logic, see (Lambert
1981).
11 This is made explicit in Burge's axiom (AS). Negativity is ensured by axiom (A9).
lz Just possibly Evans cites that "excellent text" only because of its survey of the
literature in the introduction.
13 We are not concerned here with difficulties and inadequacies that all proposals
share.
14 It should be noted that Burge never intended his logic to apply to languages which
featured propositional attitude contexts. Burge's intentions aside, however, let us boldly
extend the application of the logic so that vacuous names are substitutible salva veritate
even in propositional attitude contexts.
15 Even if some additional argument can be mounted, it seems fairly clear that it would
not be the use of free logic which would be committing us to descriptive names, but
some other, as yet unspecified, constraints employed in the additional argument.
16 This suggestion was made to me by Karel Lambert. For a general discussion of
super-valuational free logics, see (Bencivenga 1986).
17 Geirsson makes a suggestion in this spirit, when he suggests that the central question
should be: "given the a posteriori knowledge that S exists, can we know a prion! that it
is one meter long?" (1991, p. 200). However, it is not S's existence that is germane, but
the existence of a length of S. Geirsson is elsewhere more careful on this point. Note
Geirsson's central question retains its association with the a priori, but this must be
understood in some relativized sense. Cf. footnote 26.
18 It might be charged that the lack of a deductive connection from premises which
satisfy [K] to the target sentence, 'Julius invented the zipper', is inconclusive. Strict
deduction does not exhaust our ways of reasoning. I happily grant this, and if there
is a demonstration forthcoming that uses (what?) some kind of inductive reasoning, I
am ready to consider it. This just doesn't look like a likely case for induction. Nor are
these cases ones where we are content to simply take the knowledge claim as an
unexplained datum. For these reasons, I think that [ii] is not an inappropriate principle
to appeal to.
19 There is some danger in thinking that what is at issue in the following demonstration
is whether the agent is or is not in a position to make certain inferences. Understood in
the f o r m a l m o d e , there is no question that the agent could deduce the conclusion
'Julius invented the zipper'. By deduction in the formal mode, I mean the construction
of a correct proof, i.e. a series of well-formed formulas conforming to a set of purely
formal rules of inference. In fact, the agent could certainly carry out such a deduction
134 GREG RAY

while only taking as premises sentences which the agent knows to be true. To "make the
inference" in this sense, however, only guarantees that the agent is in a position to know
that the conclusion 'Julius invented the zipper' is true. So, if we wish to talk about the
agent reasoning to a conclusion from premises, we should impose additional constraints
on the premises. It is easy to see what the additional constraint should be. A delivation
which shows anything about what the agent is in a position to know must be one
wherein the premises satisfy [K]. This is just the application of Donnellan's key distinc-
tion to the case of derivation.
z0 Some uncontroversial additional assumptions are actually needed, e.g. we need that
'Julius' does not have more than one referent.
zl If this divide should happen to correspond with the distinction between a priori and
a posteriori, then we would have a convenient label for the explanatory challenge just
laid down: the contingent a priori! If it should not, the challenge and the puzzle would
not be lessened, though it would be harder to label.
z2 Nathan Salmon (1988, p. 200) stresses the point that the status of [8] is crucial to
the puzzle. However, Salmon ultimately decides the case on the ground that what
knowledge the agent has could not truly be a priori. This, I am at pains to argue, is
unsatisfactory.
23 I am as uncomfortable as anyone with the objectual treatment of lengths to which we
are forced here, but that is, ineluctably, the nature of the example.
24 Again, with the help of a few uncontroversial auxiliary assumptions.
z5 There may be other good reasons for using free logic, but we do not have one here.
z6 If I am right, then Kripke might still be faulted for his free use of the term 'a priori'.
However, even on this point, one does not have to look far to find authority for a
notion of relative apriority that would comport well with Kripke's usage. A discussion
of such a notion can be found in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy under the heading 'A
Priori'.
27 It might be thought that we cannot provide an analysis of the conditionalized
Neptune example similar to those offered for the Julius and meter bar cases without (a)
granting existential knowledge, as was done in [6] and [6*], and thereby failing to
respect the historical fact just noted, or perhaps (b) resorting to free logic after all. In
fact, however, the requisite analysis can be shown to proceed from assumptions
analogous to [4] and [5] only. Roughly, the analysis goes as follows. Let [4n] be:
'Neptune' refers to the planetary perturber of Uranus, if there is such a perturber. Let
[5n] be: For all names, a, in the language, rlf the perturbations of Uranus are caused by
a planet, they are caused by a 7 is true if and only if: if the perturbations of Uranus are
caused by a planet, they are caused by the referent of a. From these we can infer: 'If the
perturbations of Uranus are caused by a planet, they are caused by Neptune' is true.
But, as in the previous analyses, one cannot from these derive: If the perturbations of
Uranus are caused by a planet, they are caused by Neptune.

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 KRIPKE & THE EXISTENTIAL COMPLAINT 135

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Department of Philosophy
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611
USA