Resumo

PEREZ OTERO, Manuel. An Evaluation of Kripke's Account of the Illusion of Contingency. Crítica (Méx., D.F.) [online]. 2007, vol.39, n.117, pp.19-44. ISSN 0011-1503.

Kripke argued for the existence of necessary a posteriori truths and offered different accounts of why certain necessary truths seem to be contingent. One of these accounts was used by Kripke in an argument against the psychophysical identity thesis. I defend the claim that the explanatory force of Kripke's standard account of the appearance of contingency (the account used to argue for psychophysical dualism) relies on the explanatory force of one of the more general accounts he also offers. But the more general account cannot be used to undermine the psychophysical identity thesis. Specifically, a crucial feature in Kripke's standard account, which is needed to argue for dualism, is explanatorily superfluous. Alternative accounts that are similar to Kripke's original one but lack that trait would also explain the phenomenon. Consequently, the Kripkean dualist argument is blocked.

Palavras-chave : explanatory relevance; rigidity; metaphysical necessity; aprioricity; psychophysical identity.