Necessity, Universality, and the A Priori in Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-126
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
General Idea ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Moral Particularism ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This paper asks what form of moral epistemology is best fitted to the claims of moral particularism. It argues that moral truths can be known a priori even though moral truths about particular cases are context-sensitive and so contingent. The general idea is that although one needs empirical knowledge of the situation, one’s knowledge of how to respond is not thereby shown to be empirical. We emerge with synthetic a priori knowledge of a range of truths including among them the moral. Particular attention is paid to Kant’s claim that since moral truths apply to all rational beings, they must be universal in form

scholarly journals Transformations of Transcendental Philosophy: Wolff, Kant, and Hegel

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 50-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Common View ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
The One ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Kant's philosophy is generally known as transcendental philosophy or transcendental idealism, terms often thought to describe the inquiry into the subjective conditions of empirical knowledge carried out in theCritique of Pure Reason. On this conception of transcendental philosophy Kant is seen to pursue a project very different from both Wolffian metaphysics and Hegelian speculative science. This view is confirmed by scholars who compare Kant's conception of transcendental philosophy to the Scholastics' conception of ‘transcendentals’ such as unity, truth, and perfection. On their account, there remains a puzzling gap between, on the one hand, the scholastic conception of the most general determinations of all beings and, on the other hand, Kant's investigation into the conditions of possibility of experience.In this article I want to challenge this common view of Kant's transcendental philosophy for two reasons. The first reason concerns the question of how theCritique of Pure Reasonitself should be read. I take the view that in the firstCritiqueKant's primary aim is to determine the conditions of synthetic a priori knowledge rather than to identify the a priori conditions of empirical knowledge. Since metaphysics was traditionally considered to be the discipline that possessed a priori knowledge of things, this view makes good sense of Kant's presentation of theCritique of Pure Reasonas a work intended to transform metaphysics into a science. In this article I hope to clarify the nature of this transformation by determining the elements which Kant's transcendental philosophy has in common with Wolff's ontology, as well as the respects in which Kant turns against Wolff. I thus hope to solve some of the riddles posed by Kant's use of the term ‘transcendental philosophy’ in theCritique of Pure Reason.

A posteriori

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Moser
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Priori Knowledge

A prominent term in theory of knowledge since the seventeenth century, ‘a posteriori’ signifies a kind of knowledge or justification that depends on evidence, or warrant, from sensory experience. A posteriori truth is truth that cannot be known or justified independently of evidence from sensory experience, and a posteriori concepts are concepts that cannot be understood independently of reference to sensory experience. A posteriori knowledge contrasts with a priori knowledge, knowledge that does not require evidence from sensory experience. A posteriori knowledge is empirical, experience-based knowledge, whereas a priori knowledge is non-empirical knowledge. Standard examples of a posteriori truths are the truths of ordinary perceptual experience and the natural sciences; standard examples of a priori truths are the truths of logic and mathematics. The common understanding of the distinction between a posteriori and a priori knowledge as the distinction between empirical and non-empirical knowledge comes from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787).

scholarly journals Kant’s Response to Hume’s Critique of Pure Reason

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
General Question ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Abstract In this article I argue that Kant considered Hume’s account of causality in the Enquiry to be primarily relevant because it undermines proofs for the existence of God and, moreover, that this interpretation is plausible and text-based. What the Prolegomena calls ‘Hume’s problem’ is, I claim, the more general question as to whether metaphysics can achieve synthetic a priori knowledge of objects at all. Whereas Hume denied this possibility, I show how the solution Kant develops in the Critique of Pure Reason is in agreement with Hume’s critique of dogmatic metaphysics, but salvages the synthetic a priori principles he takes to be constitutive of empirical cognition.

Logic: An Empirical Study of A Priori Truths

1998 ◽  
pp. 92-97
Author(s):  
John Kearns
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Correct Reasoning ◽  
Priori Knowledge

I distinguish a priori knowledge from a priori truths or statements. A priori knowledge either is evident or is derived from evident premisses by means of correct reasoning. An a priori statement is one that reflects features of the conceptual framework within which it is placed. The statement either describes semantic relations between concepts of the framework or it characterizes the application of the framework to experience and the world. An a priori statement is not necessarily part of anyone’s a priori knowledge. I also distinguish empirical knowledge from empirical statements. Both statements and theories are empirical if they are designed to characterize features of experience and the world. Knowledge is empirical if it fits experience; thus, one must check to see whether it fits. We do not obtain knowledge of logical systems by rational insight of evident truths and careful deductions from evident truths. Adequate logical systems are developed by trial and error. Logical knowledge is empirical knowledge that is not generally a priori. It is empirical knowledge of (some) a priori truths and principles of our conceptual systems. Logical systems are empirical theories of these truths and principles.

Kreines on the Problem of Metaphysics in Kant and Hegel

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-120
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

AbstractThis article offers a discussion of James Kreines’s book Reason in the World: Hegel’s Metaphysics and Its Philosophical Appeal. While broadly sympathetic to Kreines’s ‘concept thesis’ as a conceptual realist account of Hegel, the article contrasts two Kantian arguments for transcendental idealism to which Hegel’s position may be seen as a response—the argument from synthetic a priori knowledge and the argument from the dialectic of reason—and explores the implications of Kreines’s commitment to the latter over the former.

‘With a Philosophical Eye’: the role of mathematical beauty in Kant’s intellectual development

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 759-788
Author(s):  
Courtney David Fugate
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Development ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Early Analysis ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Mathematical Beauty ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This paper shows that Kant’s investigation into mathematical purposiveness was central to the development of his understanding of synthetic a priori knowledge. Specifically, it provides a clear historical explanation as to why Kant points to mathematics as an exemplary case of the synthetic a priori, argues that his early analysis of mathematical purposiveness provides a clue to the metaphysical context and motives from which his understanding of synthetic a-priori knowledge emerged, and provides an analysis of the underlying structure of mathematical purposiveness itself, which can be described as unintentional, but also as objective and unlimited.

A priori

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

An important term in epistemology since the seventeenth century, ‘a priori’ typically connotes a kind of knowledge or justification that does not depend on evidence, or warrant, from sensory experience. Talk of a priori truth is ordinarily shorthand for talk of truth knowable or justifiable independently of evidence from sensory experience; and talk of a priori concepts is usually talk of concepts that can be understood independently of reference to sensory experience. A priori knowledge contrasts with a posteriori knowledge, knowledge requiring evidence from sensory experience. Broadly characterized, a posteriori knowledge is empirical, experience-based knowledge, and a priori knowledge is non-empirical knowledge. Standard examples of a priori truths are the truths of mathematics, whereas standard examples of a posteriori truths are the truths of the natural sciences.

Space in Kantian Idealism

Space ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 280-305
Author(s):  
Michael Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Action At A Distance ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Bodies ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Kant’s conception of space can be understood only against the background of the famous debate between Leibniz and Newton in the early eighteenth century. Throughout his life, Kant sought a middle path between the philosophical extremes represented by Leibniz and Newton, but he eventually concluded that only transcendental idealism is able to explain the knowledge of nature expressed in Newton’s theory of universal gravitation, whose postulation of action at a distance among material bodies Kant embraced. Kant’s argument for transcendental idealism involves both his conception of geometry as providing synthetic a priori knowledge, but also his contention that the pure concepts of the understanding, such as substance and community, must be “schematized” or infused with spatiotemporal content if Newton’s science of nature is to be explained.

A Neo-Kantian Critique of Von Mises's Epistemology

1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Barrotta
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

More than many other Austrians, Mises tried to found aprioristic methodology on a well defined and developed epistemology. Although references to Kant are scattered rather unsystematically throughout his works, he nevertheless used an unequivocal Kantian terminology. He explicitly defended the existence of ‘a priori knowledge’, ‘synthetic a priori propositions’, ‘the category of action’, and so forth.

Twelve Basic Philosophical Concepts in Kant and the Compound Yijing

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 143-162
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Palmquist
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
The Third ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
The University ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This is the third in a series of articles that correlates Kant’s architectonic with the Yijing’s sixty-four hexagrams (gua 卦). Previous articles explained “architectonic” reasoning, introduced four levels of the “Compound Yijing,” consisting of 0+4+12+(4 × 12=48) gua, and suggested correlating the fourth level’s four sets of twelve to the four “faculties” in Kant’s model of the university. This third paper examines the philosophy faculty, assessing whether the twelve proposed gua meaningfully correlate with twelve basic philosophical concepts that Kant introduces in his three Critiques. A key difference emerges: Kant’s architectonic method aims to produce synthetic a priori knowledge, while the Yijing’s architectonic method aims to produce analytic a posteriori belief.

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