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.

A priori

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
A Priori 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 justification, 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 nonempirical 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.

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).

A posteriori

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
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 justification, 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 nonempirical 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 nonempirical knowledge comes from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason1781/1787.

Inferential Anti-skepticism about Perception

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-56
Author(s):  
Michael Bergmann
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Skeptical Hypothesis ◽  
The World ◽  
Sensory Evidence ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This chapter examines multiple kinds of deductive and nondeductive anti-skeptical arguments from our sensory experience to the likely truth of our perceptual beliefs based on that evidence and finds them all wanting. In the first two sections, it briefly considers deductive anti-skeptical arguments (of the theological and transcendental variety), inductive anti-skeptical arguments from past correlations of sensory experience with true perceptual beliefs based on it, and anti-skeptical arguments based on a priori knowledge of probabilistic principles saying that our sensory evidence for our perceptual beliefs makes probable the truth of those beliefs. In the final three sections, the focus turns to abductive or inference to the best explanation (IBE) arguments, which are currently the most popular anti-skeptical arguments. IBE anti-skeptical arguments conclude that our sensory experience, or some feature of it, is best explained by the truth of our perceptual beliefs. These three sections argue that we lack good reasons for thinking that our sensory experience is better explained by a Standard Hypothesis (saying that the world is approximately as it seems) than by a skeptical hypothesis, such as the hypothesis that a deceptive demon wants to mislead us into falsely believing the world is as it seems.

Necessary truth and convention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Sidelle
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Necessary Truth ◽  
Necessary Truths ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Necessary truths have always seemed problematic, particularly to empiricists and other naturalistically-minded philosophers. Our knowledge here is a priori - grounded in appeals to what we can imagine or conceive (or can prove on that basis) - which seems hard to reconcile with such truths being factual, short of appealing to some peculiar faculty of a priori intuition. And what mysterious extra feature do necessary truths possess which makes their falsity impossible? Conventionalism about necessity claims that necessary truths obtain by virtue of rules of language, such as that ‘vixen’ means the same as ‘female fox’. Because such rules govern our descriptions of all cases - including counterfactual or imagined ones - they generate necessary truths (‘All vixens are foxes’), and our a priori knowledge is just knowledge of word meaning. Opponents of conventionalism argue that conventions cannot ground necessary truths, particularly in logic, and have also challenged the notion of analyticity (truth by virtue of meaning). More recent claims that some necessary truths are a posteriori have also fuelled opposition to conventionalism.

Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin McGinn
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
External World ◽  
The Other ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Knowledge Tradition ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This chapter focuses on philosophical issues in knowledge. Tradition insists that knowledge falls into two broad classes: a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. These categories are conceived as exclusive and exhaustive: no piece of knowledge is both a priori and a posteriori, and any piece of knowledge is one or the other. One can characterize a posteriori knowledge as knowledge acquired by means of the senses (“by experience”) and a priori knowledge as knowledge not so acquired, but rather acquired “by reason alone” or “intuitively.” The chapter then addresses the proof or evidence of the existence of an external world, and looks deeper into what knowledge is and whether knowledge implies truth.

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.

scholarly journals The subject and competences of the methaphysics of law

2000 ◽  
Vol 72 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 131-141
Author(s):  
Janko Kubinjec
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
Priori Knowledge

The subjective and objective spirit do not differ by the degree of their authenticity, but only by different spheres to which they extend. The law reaches both the subjective sphere and the objective sphere of the spirit, but the laws on which it is based belong exclusively to the sphere of the subjective spirit. The laws on which the law is based are imanent to man as a spiritual being and they are transcendental to man as the subject of knowledge. They are the object of an a priori knowledge, in contrast to the law itself which is the object of an a posteriori knowledge. The subject of methaphysics is a priori knowledge of the laws on which the law is based and this is. at the same time, the limit of its competences.

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

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