ABSTRACT
The related problem of the contingent a priori can be illustrated using the following example:
(8) Julius invented the zip (if someone did) If ‘Julius’ is a genuine proper name introduced via the description ‘the
inventor of the zip’, then (8) is a priori. If, on the other hand, the ‘Julius’ is acquired in a standard causal-historical way, then (8) is a posteriori. However, on most traditional views of propositions, (8) expresses the same proposition regardless of how the name is acquired. The problem is to explain how we can stand in different epistemic relations to one and the same proposition.
