Talk:A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)

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Contents 1 Grammar 2 Mergers 3 Clean up 4 Expansion 5 More stuff about empirical knowledge, citation 6 Copyright issues 7 Miscellaneous 8 Citations 9 Suggested revision of the second half of the article 10 definition 11 Pronounciation 12 Hyphen? 13 Capitalization 14 What a big painting! 15 Spelling 16 Confusion 17 two plus two = 4 18 Synthetic Apriori 19 Statements that are a priori true are WHAT? 20 David Hume 21 Opening sentence

[edit] Grammar

Changed "she would not experience the world as an orderly rule governed place" to "she would not experience the world as an orderly, rule-governed place." The phrase was annoying to read as it was unclear as well as grammatically incorrect. I also added a hyphen to "rule governed place" because the phrase "rule-governed" is describing "place" and reads a bit better.

Agreed; thanks. –Pomte 03:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mergers

I created this article to merge the a priori entry (at least the philosophical part) and the a posteriori entry (that is, the empirical knowledge entry). I hope no one minds. I checked the talk pages and people seemed to want to disambiguate the philosophical use of the term "a priori" from the non-philosophical uses. Furthermore, the a priori and a posteriori entries were both slim and the two are best presented together. There wasn't much talk going on those talk pages either. - Jaymay 07:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

User Ajo Mama has suggested some sort of merger. I'm not sure exactly what he wants merged and why. It would be nice if Ajo Mama would clarify here on the talk page. - Jaymay 23:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Since User Ajo Mama hasn't provided any discussion here regarding his suggestion, I'm just going to take off the merge banner. But, by all means, discuss it here if you'd like. -- Jaymay 22:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up

Lots of this entry needs cleaning up (and expansion--see below). The notion of the a priori and related issues is a huge area of philosophy and even affects metaphilosophical issues. Hopefully it can be made up to be a great article, since it's so central to the discipline. - Jaymay 07:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I recently reverted some changes that Prokaryote made, only because they seem pretty important:

1. In the intro paragraph, the explanation of the generally meanings of the terms should be left open. Thus, I figured (a) that it should say "dependent" instead of "based" (that's irrespective of Prokaryote's changes) and (b) that it should be left open what "experience" means. Anyhow, experience in this sense is not normally limited by "sensory input" or "introspective consciousness". I think that, in the intro, it should be fairly general and unspecified.
2. In the Intuitive Distinction section, it seems clear that a priori does not have anything to do with being learned. It has to do with an epistemological notion of knowledge, not a psychological one of learning. Also, it's important to keep in mind that the thing that one is said to know (the proposition) must be knowledge. That's why I put the qualification on there that "George V reigned from 1910-1936" must be assumed to be knowledge; it may not even be true.
3. Similarly, in the section on Kripke, it is important to note that "Water = H₂O" may not be true. What Kripke really argued was that what is necessary a posteriori is the proposition that if water is H₂O, then it is so necessarily. So, that's why I put in the qualification that it's only that way if the identity is true.
4. I changed the style back to having the punctuation outside of quotation marks as it is in the Wikipedia Manual of Style, under the section on punctuation. I know that the normal U.S. English style is to do it the other way, but the U.K. English style makes much more sense and it's the way that Wikipedian's want it per the MOS.

- Jaymay 19:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Man, I have a lot of punctuation (of mine) to clean up, then. To note: the Wikipedia manual of style still recommends writing full sentences with the periods, etc. within the quotation marks (except for questions about statements). As for the learning thing: I've been under the impression (right or wrong) that "learning" is synonymous (on some level) with "acquiring knowledge." I'll leave it the way you put it, though, since I'm not altogether familiar with acadamic usage of the word "learning." Prokaryote 19:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Updating the learning thing: the SEP article on belief includes the following sentence: "When someone learns a particular fact, for example, when Kai reads that some astronomers no longer classify Pluto as a planet, he acquires a new belief (in this case, the belief that some astronomers no longer classify Pluto as a planet)." Right, wrong, colloquial, ??? use of the word "learns"? Prokaryote 04:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

There are certainly lots of ways to use "learn". This SEP entry seems to claim that learning involves acquiring beliefs. That seems intuitive and uncontroversial, although it's still not using them interchangeably. Anyhow, what I was worrying about before, though, was using "learn" and "knowledge" interchangebly. Belief is, presumably, only part of knowledge. When you learn something, such as there are 550 continents on Earth, you may acquire a belief, but you surely don't acquire knowledge, namely because it's false. - Jaymay 23:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Something to think about re: my use of the word "learning" and epistemology: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/learning-formal/ Prokaryote 04:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

The article now has a lot of section, but very little in each. Hopefully people can expand the section and provide sources for claims, quotes, etc. - Jaymay 07:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More stuff about empirical knowledge, citation

Right now, the article is focused on aprior[ic]ity. That's... problematic. Also, I'm (right now) not so hot when it comes to citation. I mean, I want to do it, and do it right, but I don't have the much in the way of resources (aside from secondhanding the SEP/IEP, but I want to ask the relevant authors for permission first, or whatever, when it comes to that). Prokaryote 02:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright issues

How can I incorporate the info on apriority that I've located in the S.E.P. and the I.E.P. without violating copyright? HAVE I violated copyright? Prokaryote 04:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It should be easy to figure out whether you are violating copyright. Just don't copy anything out of there without quoting it and providing a proper citation. Even if you paraphrase something from it or got an idea from it, you should cite it and the relevant section. - Jaymay 07:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay. That isn't liable to be difficult. Prokaryote 21:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Miscellaneous

Should some of the phenomenological philosophers such a Drs. Josef Siefert or Dietrich von Hildebrand be mentioned? Von Hildebrand has given one of the best definitions of a priori vis a vis a whole person experience in his book "What is Philosophy."

Siefert gives a wonderful example of using a priori in his work "Back to Things in Themselves." http://www.iap.li/oldversion/site/research/Back_to_Things_Themeselves/Back_to_Things_In_Themeselves.pdf --user:Ginot 00:01, Oct 01, 2005 (EDT)

I think some facts need to be checked. Quine accepts that there is a priori knowledge? He demolished the analytic/synthetic distinction!

[edit] Citations

Prokaryote recently added a reference note/citation to Quine. I modified the format just a bit to accord with the majority of the other philosophy articles on Wikipeida: I added a "Notes" section, for the citations to go under. Preferably we can have all the references (the books and articles) in the "References and further reading" section, and then just refer to those in the endnotes of the "Notes" section. Hope that sounds good. A quetsion for Prokaryote though: Why did you make the Quine citation under some info about Leibniz? Maybe it should be more clear why you're citing Quine there. - Jaymay 23:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I wish I had Leibniz himself on this... All I've got is Quine's statement that Leibniz regarded truths as divided into the two categories listed. Maybe the note could read something like, "Quine, 1951, §1. In his paper, Quine referred to theories of Hume and Leibniz regarding what he took to be pre-Kantian examples of a distinction between analysis and synthesis." Prokaryote 00:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

That made me curious too. So, I searched the online text of the Monadology and there it was, plain and simple. I put the quote in this entry, since it had some relevant info in it. I also tried to find references to some of the other things discussed in the article. Glad to see some positive collaboration going on. - Jaymay 07:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

This is starting to look great. However, the stuff about Kant could do with some reconfiguration—I'm not sure that, for example, "In this way, Kant considered... all synthetic propositions to be contingent propositions," is the best way to put that. Part of Kant's theory of aprioricity was that there are synthetic a priori truths, which are (supposedly) necessarily true. But, maybe it's a matter of what kind of necessity is being talked about—logical (in which case, yeah, even synthetic a priori truths aren't necessary), or, uh, I've said "cognitive", but "metaphysical" might be more accurate (in which case, synthetic a priori truths are still supposed to be necessary). Here's my suggestion for rewriting it: "In this way, Kant considered all analytic a priori propositions to be necessary propositions and all synthetic a posteriori propositions to be contingent ones."

Additionally, I'm thinking of changing "according to which a priori knowledge is based on the structure or form of experience" into "according to which a priori knowledge is based on the structure or form of experience, which is innate", or something like that. Better yet, I might do like you did with Leibniz and directly quote the man on the subject. But I'll start work on that when it's not so late where I am, maybe. Prokaryote 10:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested revision of the second half of the article

So, how's it look? Definitely not perfect. But, hopefully, better. Prokaryote 07:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I didn't see this until late. Gotta sleep. I'll definitely take a look soon though. -- Jaymay 07:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I made some changes to your suggested revision. I mostly tried to organize, add some things, and remove some things in order to tie all of it together into the relation to the a priori and a posteriori (such as relating it all to Kant's theory of pure intuition). I like the idea of going back to having a section on its own regarding Kant's theory, and then having a different section on the whole relation to analyticity and necessity. I also think that the "Aprioricity, analyticity, and necessity" section should be a sub heading instead of a sub-sub heading. I would motion to have this stuff put in the article (just below the "Rationalism and empiricism" section, of course). What do you think? -- Jaymay 20:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Not bad, but the "According to Kant, a priori knowledge is conceptual, in that it is based on the form of all possible experience, while a posteriori knowledge is empirical, in that it is based on the content of experience." sentence doesn't exactly fit with the stuff about pure intuition. Kant's theory distinguishes (accurately or not) between concepts and intuitions. But, I'm having a hard time rewording the sentence so that it stays as simple as it is and yet accounts for the concept/intuition distinction. I thought of "rational" and "transcendental" in place of "conceptual", but the first still maybe doesn't reflect Kant's position (I think he regarded "rational" theories as examples of transcendental dialectic or something) while the second is odd-sounding (outside of the context of Kant's usage).

I also edited the suggested revision otherwise in a few places. Prokaryote 22:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe "transcendental" should replace "conceptual". It is a special use of the term for Kant, but it would then be explained after it was used ("...knowledge is transcendental, in that it is based on the form of all possible experience..."). Watcha think? -- Jaymay 04:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

How about, "According to Kant, a priori knowledge is transcendental, or based on the form of all possible experience..."? If you don't want that, then I say: just go with what you suggested.Prokaryote 01:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll put the changes in the article. I'll move them from here to there. (So, the text will no longer be on this talk page, taking up space.) -- Jaymay 08:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] definition

the "before experience" & "after experience" definition doesn't follow the whole gamut of the possible philosophic interpretation of thr word. Dictionary.com defines it fairly well under 'A Priori' as "from a general law to a particular instance; valid independently of observation." and 'A Posteriori' as "from particular instances to a general principle or law; based upon actual observation or upon experimental data". It doesn't necessarily have to, however, imply 'experience' but rather before or after being posited. Such as a dialectical 'a priori synthesis' in an idealistic dialectic; i.e. a synthesis having always been there and only separated by abstraction. Nagelfar 21:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation

Is it pronounced: ah-pree-ori, or ay-pry-oriy? 128.6.175.30 14:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Either way, I think. I have heard professionals pronounce it each way pretty much 50/50. I don't think there's a way to tell how it is "truly" pronounced, since it is Latin. - Jaymay 04:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure there is: ask a classicist. My one quarter of college Latin hardly qualifies me as such, but I believe the first pronunciation above is the "correct" one. But then, "alumni" would be pronounced ah-loom-nee, yet most people (including me) say uh-lum-nye. I think both of the above, and any other permutations of those syllables, are probably fine outside of an ancient Latin context. Super Aardvark 08:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hyphen?

Is a priori ever hyphenated? It seems like it should be, but I almost never see it. —Ben FrantzDale 13:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen it hyphened, at least in philosophy. Sometimes professional philosophers write it together as one word, especially when used as a noun, e.g. "aprioricity". I think it's just an attempt to make it a term of art in philosophy, which, by now, it is. - Jaymay 04:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

Can you use "a priori" capitalized? I've changed put up the lowercase template to show that it shouldn't. --165.230.46.142 19:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that it should follow the capitalization rules of any other pair of words, i.e. "A priori" at the beginning of a sentence, "A Priori" in a title, etc. It is, though, as someone said, a term of art in Philosophy, so maybe different rules could apply. Super Aardvark 08:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

"Philosophy" is not capitalized either (as it is not a Proper Noun). We do not typically capitalize "cheese" either. Yet the Wikipedia article on cheese doesn't include the {{lowercase}} template. :) Nor should this one. A priori knowledge is a priori knowledge. --Quuxplusone 04:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What a big painting!

Can someone figure out what a large copy of Courbet's L'Origine du Monde is doing over the article? I can't seem to spot what's causing it in the article source. ink_13 04:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

Is there any objection to spell the term 'a-priori' to avoid confusion with the English article 'a', especially in situation where the term is broken into two lines? --Sascha.leib 11:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The italics should help avoid confusion. I doubt using a hyphen is proper. –Pomte 15:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion

Am I the only one that feels this article is especially confusing? Surely the concept of a priori can be summed up succinctly for people that do not already understand the concept. If you have no prior knowledge of the term, this article is very much unhelpful. I can assure you of this, as I stumbled across the page without knowing of this term. In the end, I checked other resources for a definition of the terms.

I understand (as stated in the article) that the meaning is up for debate, but this doesn't seem to me a good excuse for avoiding an attempt at defining it. Nearly every sentence in the opening pages of the article is apologetic rather than informative. 198.144.206.231 07:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The article needs to be more clear. utcursch | talk 14:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Me too. Also it doesn't even mention its scientific use (see Bayes theorem) 155.198.65.29 09:17, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] two plus two = 4

The example put by the definition of a priori knowledge is argued to be a posteriori as well, since a human being to the base needs some sort of language to even think about certain things. So therefore, a human being also needs language to think about 2 + 2 = 4, so, a posteriori, since a languaged is only mastered through experience. I have added a piece about posteriori and priori in the knowledge article. See there for more examples. I am not saying I know better, but I heard some good arguments. I know if you think about language being a requisite, you must eliminate a lot in the article. Mallerd 21:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Synthetic Apriori

Suggest a seperate section on the highly controvertial area of the synthetic apriori. I searched wiki, expecting to find a seperate article on the subject but was re-directed to the synthetic/analytic distinction, an awful article, so came here, a little better, but dont you think the synthetic apriori needs to be clearly delineated as there will be people searching for it specifically. Wireless99 11:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statements that are a priori true are WHAT?

In other words, statements that are a priori true are tautologies.

This sentence doesn't even make sense. It does not use "other words," it uses only an "other word." English is a contextual and descriptive language. One-word definitions are rarely enough to convey anything of meaningful value.

Granted, if a reader wanted to know more about tautologies, he/she could follow the link, however, a general definition with a link for further study is far more useful in providing understanding, context, and meaning.

In other words, this sentence does not explain why a priori statements, which are true, are tautologies, and why a priori statements which are false, are not.

Tanstaafl28 11:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] David Hume

I take issue with the presentation of Hume's beliefs. From my reading, I understand Hume to believe that all knowledge is a posteriori. The section in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding preceding the one mentioned that delineates "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact" explains his belief that all ideas are derived from impressions. This would support my belief that Hume thinks that all knowledge is a posteriori. Indeed, the article on this piece describes him as an empiricist. I grant that I haven't been reading Hume for long, but it seems to me there's a contradiction. The Fwanksta 03:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opening sentence

The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used in philosophy to distinguish between deductive and inductive reasoning, respectively.

Eh?--Philogo 20:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)