No such thing as A Priori Truth: Empiricism Conquers

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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This is precisely what i said. Kant treats all three as synthetically a priori. You excluded ontology and metaphysics. but here lies the error. Ontology per se, is the foundation a priori of all three. This is the general theory of the critique of reason, that he tries
to incoporate and synthesize as a general theory. Your authorities are correct, but Your interpretation again fails the test of why, is being treated here by
Kant, as he is synthesizing a priori as a general
theory, qua ontology, to cover both science and mathematics. This is what Your quotes re-affirm, and not otherwise. So where is the problem? I think
Your interpretation needs to be looked at, and
perhaps re-interpreted by a more careful reading of the direct quote, as it relates to our discussion here. It is not that You are wrong, but You are

misinterpreting what Kant is trying to do versus what he has achieved a posteriori. Your confidence in Kant’s achievement is not warranted at this time, at
least from my reading of it.

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Note the original question (A) was;

Orb: That is why Kant posed the question, 'Are synthetic a priori judgements possible?
The answer is no, …

I countered “Yes” but only in line with Mathematics and Science.
In this case, my counter to your ‘no’ is valid.

Now you changed subject to,
Orb: Kant treats all three as synthetically a priori.

This is obvious a differently consideration from the first issue (A).
Kant’s point is one can forced the synthetically a priori into Metaphysics but the resultant are dialectical illusions.
Even then the illusions may be useful if one understands its limits.
For example if a thirsty person see a mirage of an oasis in the desert, he would take it as if it is real which raises his hope and make him feel good [these are real feelings] but the fact remains, the mirage is an illusion.

Similarly, a person who delve into metaphysics ‘rationally’ as proposed by Kant, an illusion of god is perceived which raises one’s hope, make him feel good and secure [these are real feelings] but the fact remains, that inferred God is an illusion.

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= Your illusion.

…that is kind of a ridiculous thing to say.

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Prismatics: The fact is, Kant failed to make the claim of differentiating metaphysics and ontology from science and mathematics from an a priori synthetic mode of apprehension, because a posteriori, it has been shown that the claim was invalid entirely. Not that he didn’t make the claim, but it has been shown to be invalid. The good corresponding to the illusionary aspect , in Your example is , as he describes it, and that is why on basis of his moral tenacity, he came up with the idea of the categorical imperative. That stands, but again can not stand on principle, his use of noumena, in stead, becomes the principle based on the idea, that well, i know it can not be derived, however it should be. The illusion has to be sustained for the sake of morality as a whole. The same can be said for his a-priori application toward science and mathematics. That he treats ontology differently, has future implications, that he did not see at the time. These implications are basically posed in the question, ‘Are a-priori synthetic truths possible?’ Can a sphere be red and green all over? I think this was the basic counter argument posed, to desribe the logical inconsistency.
So it is not that he tried to exclude ontology from epistomology, he did, and his asseetion to this effect is desribed well, but the fact that after the fact, his effot failed to make his case. Therefore, he really did sew up ontology as an inaccessible truth, however he had to reduce it to noumena and that test became known as the categorical imperative. That failed, it has been shown to be a fallacy, a fallacy figurativaly desribed as the illusion analogy.The good cannot be derived for Kant, on that ground. There ought to be a basic unity between the ground (the good) and the a-priori synthetic, and he can not demonstrate it. The whole idea of a synthesis, then is groundless. This is the charge against Hegel, and consequently
Marx. The synthesis has no ground. This seed was planted by Kant.

Kant did sew up metaphysics, and metaphysics became devoid of it’s reason, (hence his critique against it), but to most thinkers, his attempt failed.

You equivicate what Kant states as Your view. There is nothing wrong with that, except, as relates to the forum’s claim, that there are no a priori truths, You are actually sayng, there are not, because Kant said so. The question really is, is there any way the naturalistic fallacy may become an overstatement, where the is-ought controversy may be settled?
(Where the existence before essence problem can be in part settled?) And i think so. Will have to look to G.E. Moore’s original comment on the naturalistic fallacy it’s self to see, whether extreme moral ‘oughts’ can override the facts of the logical inconsistency.

If so, then Kant’s moral judgements of the illusionary good, may carry over to, and synthesize some claims toward some aspects that show utility in assigning an a-priori synthetic truth to science and math.

For instance, Eintein sent a letter to Franklin Roosevelt, signed by several researchers into the question of the advisability to develop the atomic bomb. Here, the extreme nature of the immediate good, (of ending the war, and cutting down on allied casualties) would not be trumped by the long term value of it). Here the long term goal , of securing a long term world peace, credible and predictable enough, based on enough facts, to synthesize a well predicted outcome, based on an a-priori presentation? Can this presentation be re-presented in that future date as credible a posteriori? Will posterity be able to come up with a likewise agreement? Here the ramifications are still being debated, therefore the answer is yet not yet available. This is why i interpret Your stance, as not wrong, but from my point of view, insufficient, because of it’s interpretation, at least from the way i understand it, using Kant, as it was the last word on the question, : Is there such a thing as a-priori truth:
The implication of Your stand,(remeber You said Your and Kant’s) is not yet a forseeable conclusion. It is not wrong, but it is not yet true, even in the illusion of the good in the desert analogy.

I do not think that Kant was justified in sewing up metaphysics, and then declaring the a priori synthetic as justified in terms of math and science, a priori, and that issue is still on the table. Logically, it doesent work, and a look into G.E. Moore will help to clear up the matter.

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Just as the squares of negative numbers (“imaginary numbers”) are nounena in mathematics, multi-dimensional space beyond 3 is strictly (“positive”) noumenon in ontology (metaphysics). Neither are constructed from phenomenology.

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John Mc’Murray, in Global Research, in ref to the Utalitarians and Geromy Bentham in particular, says that there is scientific distortion present, if we are not to bring back rationality to science. The links to G.E. Moore’s total and absolute adherence to the naturalistic fallacy, is, seems as if, applicable in the sense, that, the naturalistic fallacy is not absolutely invalidated, however, it is short sighted. The claim here, is the economic reality, both in figurative(psychic) and literal(material) terms, does not invalidate the principle, but distorts it’s effects.
Haberman, seems to go along with this.
So in effect, returning to the question of a-priori truths and their rejection, the above titled paper cries out for a return to a new rationality based on these newly fromed claims.

It’s odd, i admit, but my initial a-priori feeling was that i can dig up the rationale (a posteriori) that i will find conclusive authority to back up my intuition, for lack of a better word, and it truly amazed me, to find that modern thinking is preoccupied with this very issue. The prisoner’s dilemma weighs heavily on the argument, and a final imprimatur can be found in Polanyi’s work, especially in the context of ‘tacit-knowledge’.

It has become obvious to me, that primary a-priori truths are discoverable via a-posteriori methods, at least within the confines of epistemology, as a way of accessing prior, established information, within alternate frameworks of inquiery. I base this on muy own ventures with the emerging synthesis which can be established between traditional and non traditional venues, as a consequence of the continuuong development of virtual memory storing systems. That this was un anticipated in Kant’s time, is no measure of wonderment, as to his very strong sense of the priori, predictive insight he was able to muster.
But had not the idea of limits and functions had been developed by Leibnitz earlier, this realization could not have become possible.

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That is a threshold it seems, which is almost entirely
convincing.
(multi dimensional space from leibnitz to Riemann.)

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The point is there are a lot of criticisms of the various aspects of Kant’s philosophy by various philosophers, but most are straw man[s]. Allison and Guyer each has almost 40 years each of sustained involvement as Kant scholars, but yet they disagree on many main principles of Kant’s philosophy. Who is right or wrong?

This is why I decided to read Kant directly myself instead of relying on secondary sources. Kant’s philosophy is not perfect and thus has holes but they can be patched by other rational approaches.

Kant did not fail to differentiate Metaphysics from Science and Mathematics based on synthetic a priori knowledge.

As I mentioned he differentiated [roughly] them on the following;

  1. Science produced theories that can be verified empirically.
  2. Mathematics - produced theorems (albeit not all) that can be verified empirically.
  3. Metaphysics - produced illusions that cannot be realistically verified at all.

If you think Metaphysics is the same as Science or Mathematics in all senses, then prove the existence and reality of the metaphysical objects, e.g. God, Soul, Immortality, absolute freedom.

Because Metaphysical objects cannot be proven as in Science and Mathematics, then Metaphysical cannot be the same as Science and Mathematics in that sense.

All three are involve in speculations, but Science and Mathematics [not all] rely on existing provable theories. Metaphysical objects are plucked from the air and are groundless.
Therefore Metaphysics is differentiated from Science an Mathematics on this sense.

The bottom line of Kant’s use of synthetic a priori is the final results must be realistically justified, e.g. empirical testing via the Scientific Framework for science.

There is the critique of Kant’s synthetic versus analytic division by Quine and others. The problem here is they are out of context. They are trying to play table tennis on a WTA tennis court.

I note the various points you make above but you have not presented them in a proper organized way that is easy for me to grasp.
I tried but I am unable to organize them into an argument to counter them as there are no proper reference point for me to start with.

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Good point, but even then, knowledge is still based in sensory experience.

Usually, rationalists will cite mathematics as proof of a priori truths, but mathematics is founded on differentiation, and differentiation is a product of sensory experience. I have yet to see a " truth ", which is free of empirical roots.

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The Naturalistic Fallacy, is at the bottom of this, and i hate to take this non proof proof way of dealing with the critiques of the critique, however, the answer seems simple enough. Consciousness is a defensive reaction for the sake of existence, and Hobbs was right. Rationalism is a device, with which to assure the continuation of existence. The existential nihilism is a reaction to gods’ death, but god does not die. God and existence are intertwined, if God dies, consciousness dies, and we become fodder to the jungle. A priori truth is a rational foundation to existential truths. It preceeds consciousness, because the jungle did. Animals have developed pre conscious forms of behavior, and anyone who can communicate with animals may tell you that. John Lily was an example. Consciousness as the word is looked back as a singular event, however it’s probably some kind of entanglement (but this is simply a wild guess-omit this) where the rules change, perhaps as a result of a violent event-unverifiable, nevertheless.

The a priori argument, is in line with the -A, of the A=-A logical fallacy in this regard, and the +A, becomes compensatory. Reason is a process based on repeated sets of compensatory choices, as in the Prisoners Dilemma. Boxes to be filled in, where eventually prisoners can communicate, upon complete fill in of the boxes, with the arrival of consensus of a probabilistic majority.

Reason becomes a fom of Hobbsian social contract, of protection agains existential issues, and the death of the gods, ushered in the renewed angst, which such suspension (rather than death), of god’s protection could have meant.

It is necessary, a fact, that Man has to be protected, from the jungle, the real and the one in his mind, because, he is a child, of Nature, and Nature Herself has thoughtnhim how to protect Himself. The death of God , signaled Man’s decompensation, resulting from his realization that the ontological argument has become vacuous as seen from the emergence of ultimate wars. these wars were the sign of God’s abandonment, or man’s abandonment of God?

The a-priori, is the unknown, the noumena, the preconscious , which is at once both: kind and terrible. The a priori is that which has had millions of years to develop prior to the ‘known’, and that knowledge has grown to disclaim that heretige, because of the denial of anything but a rosy picture of the Heglelian sort, a bubble, which, in his case has turned into foam. Therefore, the ‘should’ of Kant, as illusiory as it is, does have avery good foundation, and the positivist attack fails, by way of repeted absurd reduction, into the realm of a language analysis, which has become trite, on basis of it’s total imminence. It has destroyed it’s own self understanding. Kant tried to show, this, therefore the a-priori should not be destructured ad absurdum.
At the very least, a synthesis of a kind needs to be established.

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Your (3) is your own personal delusion.

Oh really. Prove to us that the square root of “-1” exists … empirically.
Or the fourth spatial dimension, as pseudo-science advocates propose.

To an idiot, the Earth being spherical was groundless. Flying was groundless. Relativity was groundless. None of those became empirically true until long after the metaphysics proclaimed them. And as it turns out, Relativity, although seemingly empirically true, actually wasn’t. Perceptions are very easily fooled.

Metaphysics is merely the logic and reasoning behind the physics. To say that there is no logic or reasoning behind physics entirely destroys all mathematics and science. Such a claim stems from complete ignorance.

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 Why is differentiation a product of sensory experience, necessarily?  Sure, a lot of it is, but mathematics actually seems to be the primary counter example. I think it makes more sense to say "Some differentiation isn't based on sensory experience; for example, math." than to say "All differentiation is based on sensory experience, and this includes math despite appearances (lol) to the contrary."

  You're never going to see a truth that is free from empirical roots because it's just a matter of biology that we can sense before we can think clearly.   Do we relate to mathematical truths through things we see? Sure- we learn math as children by being shown patterns of dots or apples or whatever.  But that's like saying I have empirical proof of God because I read about him in a book, and I used my eyes to read the pages.