No such thing as A Priori Truth: Empiricism Conquers

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Rationalists believe that some truths can merely be derived from reason, as opposed to the senses/experience; I beg to differ.
The problem here lies in the false dichotomy between reason and experience. Reason IS a form of experience, that is to say, a noetic one. To experience thoughts in one’s mind, reasoning, is NOT a non-experience, hence the " experience of thoughts ". In regards to geometry, it is based in experience, indeed. How could one possibly envisage, say, a triangle, if one has never seen a triangle? And even if one had never seen a triangle with one’s own eyes and somehow managed to mathematically induce an imaginary-conceptual image of it, imagination IS still a kind of experience, e.g., a noetic one. Differentiation is a product of the senses.

Thoughts?

2

The point, Eric, is not that the principles of geometer, and math can somehow miraculously appear in the mind’s eye, but, that they can be derived without reference to experience. This has been demonstrated by Plato, in Socrates dialogue with a young man. The reasoning process entails the philosophical argument, where derivation toward the source of that knowledge becomes paramont, over the immediate, or transcendent sources of that knowledge. The shortcut of the reasonong process, like when the quadratic formula is derived, is seen by some as a transcendent phenomena if this can be understood as a useful analogy.

3

The empiricist position, the one I’m arguing from, posits that all knowledge emanates from experience. And unless I’m straw-manning, the contrary position of the rationalists posits that knowledge is before experience ( A Priori ). My contention is with this: how can knowledge be " before experience ", if experience is inextricable in all aspects of our being?

4

Your use of the word, Eric, of ‘enamation’, is indicative of the crux of the problem. Enamation is a theroy which suscribes to the notion of the a-priori, in a sense oof teleology, vis. a sort of machina ex deus sort of way, where the derivation is not explained as process. The explanation, is what makes the difference. It has been demonstrated since classical times, that derivation can rationally be explained, and this turned into the a=priori modes of apprehending reality. The question is, not that there are or not such things as a-priori truths, but can they be derived other than emirically. Tradition shows that the use of a-priori truths have never been completely ruled out, because the question has never been success fully been resolved. The way of apprehension , a-priori, is a way, where the sources do originally begin with basic experience, however, the given is, modes of original apprehension do confirm in ways which are a-priori, namely subscribe to certain prescribed forms. That they exist or not is not the question, Liebnitz showed, that they do function in ways which ar demonstrable in mathematics, confirming the classical formal way mathematics is inerpreted.
Exitence in a priori modes of apprehending then, are not a predicate, as mathematics are not predicated on experience. Formal systems do not exist, other than in the mind, and the mind can not be said to exist, prior to the process of consciousness. There is no existence before there is consciousness, because the term enamation and existence are only ways to interpret a pre existing notion. That is the way i see it.

5

Nevermind the semantic trifle, though it does conjure up images of neoplatonic emanationism and anamnesis . I didn’t mean emanation in that sense.

Can you give me an example?

6

Existence IS a predicate in existentialism, and my argument does not invalidate Your argument, since it does stand on this firm tradition, but only shows that even as we speak, there are existentialists and nihilists living in despair, with no exit, other than total transvaluation, or drastic existential leaps into the new god: an aesthetic appreciation into the most mundane aspects of perceived reality. In other words, acceptance of the things , as they are, and taking a turn to try interpret them in different and maybe higher types, or forms of perception. This works for me.

7 
Now we are going somewhere, as very difficult this is to express. But wait a minute.  I have to think about it. Time out. I hope You do not knock me out in the next round.
8

You have your time out, but once the game re-commences, well…

Be forewarned…

9

Just a short break to check the way things are going,
i got the warning, and am factoring it in. Mind You the difference, therefore i shall sorrily remind You, this differnce has benifits as also, disadvantages.

10

I can only give You an example from my own experience(s), since i do not consider a desription of another’s sufficiently exhaustive. I am exhausted, even at the thought od re-presenting myself, but there is some kind of method to the cubistic multiform representations of a self description, ad nauseum.

However, that is, really, what i or anyone else for that matter can truly know, (of).

ai have and still have a bad time of, relieveing myself of the ideal, as a way of seeing things, people, events and situations i find myself in, and i went through my own existential despair upon reading the now cliche shtick, 'Portrait of Dorian Grey.

I thought of the wider ramifications of this popularized theme, and need not necessarily focus on the ideal’s most obvious relevance.

At the time of my existential meltdown, i was studyng philosophy with an Indian professor, who thought at the time i was an ideal candidate for Neitzche study. This was 1969, where my angst, strangely coincided with the exact social architypes, which were the movers and shakers of the founders of what became known as the New Left.

Portrait of Dorian Grey, stuck on my mind as a time piece apropo for the times;, and i was partly right in this assesment. The ideal image, became fixed, in my mind as Valery would have it, a Fixed Idea. This fixation, was a period piece, an extension from a romantic extended era

i have to take another break here, my grandson needs feeding. a minute, Eric …thtat’s the best i can do today, by taking breaks.

11

Probably just be better to read the 100+ year old resolutions to this debate and memorize them than to try and figure it out on your own. Kant settled this stuff a while back.

12

This was a lost time, a time of transition from naivete to it’s exact opposite, complexity and/of the abstract.
I had my panic, and didn’t know what, or how tomanage it. I became a slave, a slave to the subtle difference, between the obvious and the subtle intricacies of the width of the grey area,within which i found myself dead center, and it marked me, for ever, at a time where reality and illusion were
contesting more and more of visual re presentations. At the time this was, at least for me, a Tv series, ‘Twilight Zone’.; The black and white either/or, of visual clues, led me to the either/or problem, either this, or there. It literally took the advent of color to come to terms with the true natureof the zone, into which i settled in, albeit with much lck of comfort.

The ideal became a form of representation, which translated over to the moral sphere, with which i was very strictly brought up and adhered to even to the present time, shades of grey come up as stearn reminders, of the inadequate and unwarranted use of this translated or transvalued. Then the beats settled it for me, for a time with Gysin’s cut up method, and could not get enough of Becket, in plays such as “How It Is”. In essence i had a though time with the translation, and nothing liberated me morethan Dali’s painting, ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus’.

Now i know well, from reading You over these years, that you’r style may be in sync with mine, You being much more focused, for instance Your Goethe essay kind of corresponds to my favorite idiom to , but unlike You, i had my aesthetic liberation from the slumbers in classic aesthetics. So, i experimented along with the so called advances in aesthetic rules.
Many ways of looking at blackbirds, as Wallace Stevens would say ’

Deborrah Kerr said in ‘Night of the Iguana’ that she accepts all forms of human behavior’. Pirandello dealt wth loneliness and so did Chirico. in his seemingly vast piazzas, upon 1 single firgure seemed
lost.

These visuals helped me to transcend a literally impossible gap, a gap which took Hart Crane ino the literal abyss of the Atlanytic Ocean. So, visual helped to the extent, to offset, a lack of understanding.
My cues and signs became totally visual, and the ideal became stung with these cues froming a grid of like minded signs. Cut them up, apart, flagallate the fetish of the parts over and above those of the whole, as a solution. Every day different and complete within it’s own grid.

But, how this lead to nihilism and despair i could not see it singularly, because it became a movement, where each drowned their own sense into the sensibiliy of the mass. And then there was dancing in the street, and everybody became everybody’s brother. Brothers were easy to find, and then i got a job in the post office, and all my co workers were black, and i understood for the first time of my life the meaning of soul. That soul gave me life.

That the should could connect the formalisms to which i since, slavishly conformed, toward the existential aesthetic leap, made me instantly into a Kierkegaard fan, for ever and ever. I became fixed into that leap, without which i would have crashed, just as Hart Crane.

My luck consisted of being able to bi laterally not burn the bridge behind me, and sustain the ideal of the beuty of aesthetes.

The read, Sartre, and became a self thought man just like the character in ‘Nausea’. Dropped philosophy, and started to go back to the source, the source wherefrom i jumped, to avoid a crashing disillusioned nihilism. I reasoned this out, drived it’s source, and gave new meaning to the idea of rational.

The transvaluation meant for me meant the eternal re currance of traspass of the bridge from one to the other side, without guilt or shame. I was playing chess with You at a time where it appeared i cheated twice. And then You and someone else, i thinkm it was Jesus, who changed my logo to shameful chess player. Well i changed that to shameless, since i knew, i had made an honest attempt to tell You Eric, that if it wasnt for a reasonable way to arrive to this position, (and anybody can )without recourse to a misinerpretation nof the a-priori as some kind of enamation. No, it is not, it is a reasonable recourse to a time when people did not burn bridges, can synthesize opposites, and clear the way for returns’
That only a minority can do this, was no hindrance at the time, because Nietzhes case of duplicity bothered me, and i really, really wanted to keep a grip on my sanity, for all the gods i heaven.
The ideal, is suspected now to be only the remanats of a passed era, but the suerralism of Dali, declaring strength to resist this reification, and even styalize it in terms of the classical mode, inspired me to be able to deal with any and most put downs.

This is the best i can do fo the moment, and i consider You a brother. As Always,Orbie.

13

Reasonable: It’s sometimes more fun to try to figure things on on Your own, then check out the original and see, how far the course have diverged. Otherwise there may be, that some ‘original stuff’ be dropped in accord with the sometimes undo respect we have retained to the authority. Sometimes it’s good to do stuff like that, because sometimes they will intimidate.

14

Not really, but I will.

Erik,

It doesn’t take experience to know certain things, for example I know that I don’t care about anything that certainly doesn’t affect anything. I don’t have to empirically test that theory with repeated experiments. And how could I test that anyway? Can you test to see if something that has no affect upon anything at all is something that you actually care about even though you already decided that it isn’t? How could you ever even find anything that has absolutely no affect upon anything (except maybe your presidential vote).

I can know that I don’t care because to care requires affect. And I don’t need to empirically determine that either. It is true by definition. If anything causes a caring in me, then it affected me. Its simple logic.

Definitional Logic supersedes empirical perception.

Definitions are a priori declarations in an ontology and supersede any experience with reality because they are entirely mental constructs in the same way that letters and words are merely constructs to help represent other things. One cannot empirically verify that the letter “d” really does belong to the animal that we call “dog”. It is not up to reality to dictate the validity of what letters and words we use to describe reality, nor is it up to reality to dictate the validity of declared definitions of ontological elements. Reality can only tell us if our choices are useful/rational.

15

Here’s a basic presentation of a priori and a posteriori knowledge/justification from wiki.

From the above the basic point is, all analytic knowledge are a priori.

Kant refined the basic concept of a priori for his philosophy.

The ultimate truth is there are no such thing an absolutely-absolute a priori knowledge as all knowledge is dependent on experience ultimately, i.e. either current and future experiences or past experiences of our human and non-humans ancestors.

The concept of a priori is significant to counter the claim of Tabula Rasa by Locke and others.

Thus is why it is critical we must qualify the contexts and perspectives of the topic discussed and applied.

16

Yes, all analytic knowedge is a priori. However not all apriori knowledge is analytic. That is why Kant posed the question, 'Are synthetic a priori judgements possible? The answer is no, which means the proposition that 'all analytic knowledge is
apriori, becomes a tautology, proving nothin, and so
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, reduces a priori propositions to numena. that does not close the fact
of their existence, but closes their availability to

reasonable inquiry analytically. However a-posteriori their contingent use is re-affirmed by moral principles
of the categorical imperative.

Examples are, that there are certain morally
reprehensible actgs, irrespetive of whether they can
be arrived at by analysis.(or by way of the a-priori analytic.) Other less extreme examples , although logically fallacious, need an a priori analytic
approach. here, the naturalistic fallact does not
validate the proposition that , since a priori synthetic propositions do not apply, therefore …anything goes. Again, there are certain die hard nihilists who
will apply the principle even in these most extreme
situations.(G.E. Moore coined the phrase, but i do not think he meant to include the etreme situations considered here.)

17

Kant demonstrated synthetic a priori judgments are possible in

  1. Mathematics
  2. Science
    but impossible in Metaphysics/Ontology.

Kant acknowledged the natural inclinations [almost as necessary as breathing] of Metaphysics in humans but they cannot claim synthetic a priori knowledge from it.

18

Kant tried to demonstrate synthetic a-priori propositions irrespective by way of application, and failed. There are no ifs or buts, the Critique was a general theory, of course Kant’s attempt was to synthesize math and science, exactly for the opposite
reason, therefore he could not differentiate the a-priori from the a-posteriori in the rational process of deduction, therefore he used the synthetic a priori as
a way out, but failed.

19

Empiricism is not the idea that knowledge comes from experience, it is the idea that knowledge comes from sensory experience. If you want to say that reason is a sort of sense, then I guess that’s fine, but that’s clearly not what empiricists mean by ‘sense’ when they argue to distinguish themselves from rationalists.

20

Note the original question was as follows;

Your answer is ‘no’ while I as per Kant said ‘yes’ in the following;

The above is common knowledge to those who are familiar with Kantian philosophy and the affirmative in Mathematics and Science is critical to Kant’s philosophy.
It is very time consuming to trace to Kant’s word for a direct answer, but here is what he concluded after a lengthy justification in the Prolegomena, First Part and Section 11;

In the Critique of Pure Reason, in the Introduction, note,

The proofs of the above within Mathematics and Science are their empirical proofs.

Do you have any reliable source to show otherwise or justify your point?