/lit/ - Literature

>reading philosophy
pseud.

Don’t worry anon everyone is only pretending to understand books. I can’t even read

>>12278542
Isn't the example that gives something like
>a bachelor is a man who isn't married
>therefore I know all bachelors aren't married
This is something that you can know without experiencing it (a priori). You can know it as truth without having to go around and ask every bachelor if he is married or not. However, it was derived from the experience (aposteriori) of knowing what a bachelor is or a single instance of bachelorhood.
So "all bachelors are unmarried" is synthetic a prior knowledge.

>>12278558
It's similar to a metaphysical truth then, for example I don't need to examine every circle in existence to know that square circles do not exist.

all the answers are literally at your fingertips, you can look up anything online nowadays. no excuse, op

>>12278542
He's essentially asking how we can reach logical conclusions without any experience or 'data'. Why is mathematical knowledge possible? What makes it possible? That is generally what Kant is questioning.

>>12278557
based illiterateposter

>>12279383
Aren't mathematics generally regarded as true? In a convention sort of way. So the science of mathematics is kind of a fabricated a priori truth?

how are society, other people, and societal products like philosophy not beyond the transcendental cut for Kant? i never understood how for Kant we can have products or communication with other people that doesn't seem to be affected by the insolvable transcendental cut, but other minds and people are clearly on the realm of nounema for us, yet this seems to get ignored or side-stepped somehow in Kantian philosophy

>>12278558
I haven't read what Kant says about it so I can be wrong, but it appears to me that it's not synthetic since it's rather a tautological judgment (therefore analytic).

>>12279383
yeah this

In mathematics, you don't discover things (actual things), you don't need empirical experience. It's not like, say, looking at things with your eyes and drawing conclusions. Mathematics don't need experience - they're a priori. Of course when you learn mathematics as a child, you'll need some kind of experience (counting on your fingers, or adding 5 carrots to 7 of them) - but this is not actually needed.
So - mathematics are some kind of a priori knowledge.
And yet - mathematics judgments are not analytic judgments, but they're synthetic. It means that they're not strictly tautological, they don't just develop the definition of a concept. Like, if you say, 5=4+1, that's analytical, because that's the very definition of 5. But now let's say you actually calculate 7+5. What are you doing here ? the result (which happens to be 12) is not contained in the definition of any of these numbers. So what happens in your mind, how do you actually reach the 12 ? That's what Kant tries to explain. Addind 5 to 7 is not developing the definition of these 2 numbers, but it's building a new number, and doing it through time (because you gradually add units from one number to the other). So - it's synthetic because you discover something that was not primarily contained in the definition of your two concepts. It's something "new".
So - you can find "new" truths (synthetic) without experience (a priori).

>>12279636
>fabricated a priori truth
"fabricated" is literally the same as "synthetic", so yeah Kant is arguing that synthetic a priori knowledge exists

this >>12279679 was for >>12279658
sorrey

>>12279684
I tried reading Kant, but I lacked a solid starting point, since at the time I had not read the Greeks or pretty much any other European thinker. I couldn't understand jack shit and I was left with the bitter taste of thinking that I was a brainlet. I'm still working my way up to Kant.
Anyway, could you please explain the difference between syntethic and analytic knowledge? The first is the very meaning of the concept, while the latter is derived from a combination of terms and concepts?

>>12278558
>>12279718
A statement that's true by logical analysis of its meaning is an analytic truth.
The negation, a statement that's not true merely because of its meaning, is synthetic.
"All bachelors are unmarried" is an analytic a priori truth.
>>12279383
>>12279674
The history of math strikes me as very messy. It's a generalization of actual experience into the abstract. People start counting things and realize there are mathematical operations that apply to a lot of situations and are useful. Only when they start seeing that utility do they start seeing numbers as a noun instead of an adjective. That is, you talk about the number 4 instead of 4 apples.
Then you push the boundaries even further and you get axiomization, like say with the Peano axioms of natural numbers. Now the "truths" of math only seem to be true with respect to the axioms you've assumed and aren't attached to any reality at all.
You could bring up similar to geometry. It started with practical reality then got condensed into abstracter and abstracter axiomatic systems. Now we even recognize Euclidean geometry as false in reality and as only something that's true insofar as it's coherent within the axiomatic framework.

So things seem like this to me:
Math starts off as a pragmatic, generalized description of quantifiable reality. All of its truths are synthetic at this stage. Though the line starts to blur as things are increasingly abstracted.
Modern math meanwhile makes no pretensions that it's true. The primary concern is if it's coherent.

I am curious how Kant would have dealt with the theory of rvolution.
Generally what are most philosophers’ opinions on evolution.

>>12279718
Analytic is where the predicate is contained in the subject. All bachelors are unmarried is the classic example, where the truth of the judgement is in the concept itself. A synthetic judgement is the opposite, where you need to leave the concept and relate it to something to prove its validity, so, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line for example. Synthetic/analytic are judgements. A priori knowledge is true and universal. A posteriori knowledge is contingent and based on experience. A priori knowledge would be something like 5 + 5 = 10 or all bachelors are unmarried, which is apriori while being analytic. A posteriori knowledge is something like, in some location x, there is y, where you need to turn to experience to see whether or not it's true. Synthetic apriori knowledge is true by necessity but not self-explanatory. Analytic a posteriori knowledge, therefore, doesn't make much sense if you think about it, because it's in the nature of an analytic judgement to not be a posteriori. The trick is to take the two distinctions and think about combining them. This is how I understand it. I might add that I'm struggling with Kant myself at the moment.

>>12279788
useful to btfo religion, too scary to use it for anything else

>>12279816
doesn’t it literally go against a lot of philosophical concepts? Especially the most fundamental?

>>12280455
how does it go against philosophical concepts? unless it's philosophical concepts that talk about the origin of men, i think most concepts are valid irregardless of how men got here

>>12278558
Fucking retard. This is the classic example of an analytic statement.

>>12279673
been wondering the same thing. things like this seem obvious but I don't know of them being addressed. currently on the transcendental logic.

>>12278558
>>12279674
this, the example given wasn't synthetic. synthetic a priori would be 2+5=7, as there is nothing in two or five by which you get seven, unlike bachelors which contains in it the premise of unmarried man

>>12279674
>>12280994
Ah you're right I was thinking of ab analytic a prior judgment. Thanks for setting me straight.
At least I can embarrass myself here anonymously rather than in front of a classroom of qts.

>>12280994
>>12279803
If we have a set of axioms, aren't all conclusions derived from them analytic? Synthetic statements are those that must be verified by introducing new axioms or assumptions. What Kant says is that new axioms can be generated from a priori conceptions, i.e. space and time.

>>12278542
You've skipped the Introduction, right? Tell us the truth

>>12278558
Kant literally uses the bachelor/unmarried figure as an example for analytic judgements. You're 100% wrong on this one

>>12282185
anon fell for the “skip the introduction” meme

>>12280474
if our reason is just a slowly more refined result of evolution, that might imply for a lot for various philosophers’ concepts.

>>12280994
the status of arithmetic as synthetic is highly controversial and is in fact the starting point of the analytic tradition of philosophy with Frege's foundations of arithmetic

>>12278542
You are no brainlet, anon. You simply aren't yet familiar with the lingo these philosophers speak in. And the fact you even made a post like this, shows a level of humbleness which many who partake in philosophy do not possess, wherein they could not even admit to their ignorance of things. You are not a brainlet, anon, but a budding-philosopher.
:)

>>12283371
Kant thought arithmetic and geometry are only possible through intuition of space, therefore it is synthetic. the analytic tradition later disagreed

>>12282454
well i'd intuitively say that either our reason has some sort of access to truth, or we don't in which case we can't even rely on our knowledge of evolution

that being said i'm a brainlet and i remember a similar essay published under Nihil Unbound by Brassier, not so much about evolution itself but about the product of evolution, the brain, restricting the shape of our thought and maybe forbidding us access to truth

i haven't read this in a while so i don't remember exactly

>>12278542
Finally an Apu that fits the Santa hat.

Is Kant the first philosopher you are reading? Perhaps you should step down and read a general philosophy book to understand the lingo and the main ideas in philosophical branches. Philosophy is after all a gradual work across a millennia, reading philosophers chronologically might help more.

>>12283822
will check out. Hopefully it will provide satisfying answers

>>12278542
What should I read to understand this thread? I can't even understand the posts meant to explain the op. Please post a reading list of how to get into this stuff, starting with the basics

>>12284583
read descartes (which is easy to understand), read hume (which is really difficult despite how much the "i love science" love him but haven't actually read him) or some secondary literature about hume, then you can read kant

or start with the fucking greeks

>>12279771
>the history of math strikes me as very messy
Start with das Spengler.

>>12278542
Try re-reading what he wrote before, he defines his terms fairly clearly.
>>12283942
>>12284663
Not necessary. I read Kant with only a basic understanding of certain philosophical terms from a high school Catholic-based Thomist education and got along perfectly well.

>>12284931
yes, Kant is not so much "answering" as he is building his own thing, even though some people like to frame it as Kant """solving""" the empiricist vs rationalist debate
if you can't easily understand him just read some secondary literature on Kant, or wikipedia or Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (anglo garbage, but can be ok as a first summary on an author or idea)

>>12279679
Except Pi, e and other constants are present in nature.
The real question is how did we "fabricate" a priori Knowledge that actually describes reality?

The question is basically how we can derive predicates from analytic statements of identity. So a triangle is a shape with 3 sides (as analytic as it gets, a triangle is a triangle), and yet its angles also add up to 180 degrees, so the question is how it is that the latter is contained in the former, or, to be more precise, the ways that space and time produce these predicates (since it's only in space that a triangle can be both what it is and this other thing, too)

>>12284950
in what sense are they present in nature? you can have abstractions that allow you to predict things in nature, but abstractions don't exist in nature

what are Pi and e made of? not matter or energy

>>12278542
A priori knowledge or justification without expierence

Synthetic: a statement who’s truth is not self contained

This isn’t that hard OP

>>12284970
No, yet they exist because things follow them. The fact that something is metaphosical doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

>>12284979
so you are a platonist?

>>12284974
>Synthetic: a statement who’s truth is not self contained
name one example that's not just a posteriori, it's not so easy

>>12284985
No, I'm just Not a positivist.

>>12278542
there is no such thing as "a priori knowledge", a child born without being taught language turns into a feral child, essentially an animal

All knowledge is originally binary, a combination of complex systems all containing yes's and no's; even mathematical knowledge is only possible through assuming givens; there is no "knowledge-in-the-void".

this is a good thread

>>12285732
ultimately, the ones who possess most knowledge are the ones who experienced the most in life; this is what demarcates the difference between someone like Kant, and someone like Goethe and Guénon, the difference between sophical pseudo-knowledge and experiential knowledge of intersecting binary systems

>>12284988
Liking or disliking something at first glance?
I'm sincerely doing this as a game, I don't remember it at all.

>>12285732
a priori knowledge doesn't mean knowledge in the void, it means knowledge without experience, it just means minds have a structure, kant's project is not platonism

>>12285765
>a priori knowledge doesn't mean knowledge in the void, it means knowledge without experience
lol typical sophistry that essentially amounts to equivalence

>>12285765
>it just means minds have a structure,
And if that structure does not experience, like in a feral child, it essentially is incapable of knowledge. There is no such thing as knowledge without experience.

>>12285732
>a child born without being taught language turns into a feral child, essentially an animal
unscientific claims, the only example was a hoax
do you also believe that snow is artifical now because it doesn't melt with a lighter?

>>12285785
no, your argument is wrong.
the other anon was correct, the whole issue was whether our minds were blanks slates or not

>>12285785
he's not saying there is knowledge prior to or outside of experience, he's saying there's knowledge that doesn't DEPEND on experience because that knowledge is constitutive OF it - the knowledge that bodies are extended is not so much knowledge of this or that item of experience, but a knowledge of experientiality as such, ie there can be no bodies that are unextended, it's intrinsic to the structure of bodies/objects as such

>>12285785
>There is no such thing as knowledge without experience.

No, whether or not she experiences is not the issue, it's that there is a structure/structurating power to experience in the first place.

Basically, Kant's whole project is him trying to prove that there isn't just the knowledge of experience (empirical), there is a kind of knowledge (a priori knowledge) that applies to experientiality, experiencING, as such

I hope this helps

>>12285785
there's a ton of knowledge without experience.
We are used to highlighting the bad examples, for example lumping a group of people you don't like and assuming they all do some ass backwards thing no one would do (be it /pol/, feminists, blacks, rich people, whatever). This knowledge can be easily refuted with data, but it's not a data issue but a cathegorical one. You don't like them so they are different and that means they do wrong the things you care about.

If you extrapolate a flavor from a smell, you don't actually know the taste and you might be wrong once you test it. Extrapolating things isn't a posteriori knowledge.

All scientific hypothesis tend to start as a priorio knowledge, that you try to turn into a posteriori.

And as someone else said, there has been a single feral child case and it was a huge hoax, if you read about it it'd be super obvious, but you're just assuming, which is also a priori. It makes sense to you, so it must be true.

>>12285805
>he's saying there's knowledge that doesn't DEPEND on experience because that knowledge is constitutive OF it

Knowledge cannot be *solely* experience. You cannot equate two different terms on a whim and expect others to think of you as an enlightened individual.

>>12285805
>the knowledge that bodies are extended is not so much knowledge of this or that item of experience, but a knowledge of experientiality as such, ie there can be no bodies that are unextended, it's intrinsic to the structure of bodies/objects as such

what is an "extended body"?

>>12285824
>there is a kind of knowledge (a priori knowledge) that applies to experientiality, experiencING, as such
Yeah, that knowledge is called a posteriori knowledge.

>>12285833
You're simply wrong; those are called generalizations, not knowledge.

Wittgenstein already figured all your bullshit out; like I said, equating two different terms and expecting others to suddenly have a profound understanding of what is basically merely contradiction, is such a lazy and sophistic manner of exerting your humanity.

>>12285879
you're literally retarded m8

>>12285894
lol, at least I'm not a sophist

>>12285879
>Knowledge cannot be *solely* experience. You cannot equate two different terms on a whim and expect others to think of you as an enlightened individual.

I have no idea how you got this from the line you quoted.

>>12285879
>what is an "extended body"?

>he isn't familiar with the philosophical concept of extension even though he likes namedropping Wittgenstein


you outed yourself as a brainlet..

>Yeah, that knowledge is called a posteriori knowledge.

by definition, knowledge of the conditions of experience cannot themselves be experienced, rendered empirical.

you have no idea what you're talking about.

>>12285879
>Wittgenstein already figured
wittgenstein was answering to Kant, obviously he dealt with his concepts and the fact that they seem foreign to you means you were just looking at one word after the other, not even in the starting line.

>>12285879
the a priori relate to categories of experience. think about it this way: all "knowledge" corresponds to certain frameworks, for instance, you cannot experience something outside of time, and you cannot experience things outside of space. this means that "knowledge" is only possible within a certain set of contingencies which allows "knowledge" to become intelligible. there very well could be things outside of space and time, but by the nature of our cognition, we could never come to know them (think: of what we cannot speak we must be silent). this intuitive understanding of those frameworks is what Kant calls the synthetic a priori
it's ironic you using that picture and not being familiar with the term "extended body", read Descartes and Spinoza

>>12285919
>I have no idea how you got this from the line you quoted.
You literally said "knowledge" is "constitutive of experience" and there is knowledge that doesn't "depend on experience". That equates certain knowledge to experience, in your line of thinking. But experience is experience, and knowledge is being aware of that experience. You can't equate the two entirely different dimensional concepts.

>>12285919
>>he isn't familiar with the philosophical concept of extension even though he likes namedropping Wittgenstein
>
>
>you outed yourself as a brainlet..
I don't remember reading about "extension", sounds like a sophistic terminology designed to render reality as nonsensical


>>12285919
>by definition, knowledge of the conditions of experience cannot themselves be experienced, rendered empirical.

The "conditions of experience" are being able to hear, see, sense, smell, be capable of language and words, all things that required millions of years of evolution for you to be able to experience. Just because you have no memory of how these things came to be, doesn't mean that this knowledge is "solely dependent on experience". There's this thing called "science", and "biological systems", you should look it up some time.

>>12285962
>the a priori relate to categories of experience. think about it this way: all "knowledge" corresponds to certain frameworks, for instance, you cannot experience something outside of time, and you cannot experience things outside of space. this means that "knowledge" is only possible within a certain set of contingencies which allows "knowledge" to become intelligible. there very well could be things outside of space and time, but by the nature of our cognition, we could never come to know them (think: of what we cannot speak we must be silent). this intuitive understanding of those frameworks is what Kant calls the synthetic a priori

What may be "intuitive" to you, is mere obfuscation to me. You have yet to provide an example of this "a priori" knowledge that isn't mere gobbledygook

>>12286036
math, geometry, ect. is synthetic a priori, how is any of that "gobbledygook". you do understand that all phenomena happens within space and time right? Einstein confirms this by the way.

>>12283390
true

>>12286036
you fundamentally don't understand Kant, it might sound like a cop-out argument, but you don't, take it from someone whose done the work, I can tell just from the way you're thinking about him he hasn't clicked yet

>There's this thing called "science", and "biological systems", you should look it up some time.

you do not understand kant

>>12286036
>You literally said "knowledge" is "constitutive of experience"

Fair enough, I should have said knowledge OF WHAT constitutes experience.

>I don't remember reading about "extension", sounds like a sophistic terminology designed to render reality as nonsensical

Anon, I...

>The "conditions of experience" are being able to hear, see, sense, smell, be capable of language and words

which Kant does not doubt, but these depend on an a priori logicity/structure that is impossible without them, basically Kant's saying we could not be capable of these things if the mind was not always-already schematizing sense data in a certain way.
There's this thing called "science", and "biological systems", you should look it up some time.

part of the reason Kant wrote the Critique was to secure the legitimacy of physics as a science...

why don't you take a page from daddy childbeater and just stay silent?
>

I'm sorry for the people who got heated in this thread but it was really nice to work through some Kant stuff again and you might have fixed some stuff I had wrong. Thanks.

>>12286051
>math, geometry, ect. is synthetic a priori
Math is an extension of logic; because math is the set of "all possibilities" and not merely a "description of reality"; the math that describes reality is a-posteriori knowledge; the math that doesn't describe reality but is a logically consistent system despite that, does not mean that it is a "structure of pure experience", but merely a structure that has no WAY of being experienced...

Definition of math: "1. Pure Mathematics is the class of all propositions of the form “p implies q,” where p and q are propositions containing one or more variables, the same in the two propositions, and neither p nor q contains any constants except logical constants." from Principia Mathematica

To say that "logic" is the same thing as "knowledge" is, once again, a practice in false equivalence. One is a method of gaining knowledge; the other is, knowledge itself. Knowledge is a conclusion. One wouldn't say that "mathematics is a conclusion". No, mathematics is a method, a tool.


>>12286097
>Fair enough, I should have said knowledge OF WHAT constitutes experience.
Knowledge of that which constitutes experience can only be a-posteriori knowledge though...This is the entire thing you have trouble dealing with; you're incapable of logically bringing from out of the void this concept of "experiential knowledge" that doesn't necessarily contain the implicit quality of something that is a "work in progress", an "action". The world being the way it is is not evidence of "a priori" knowledge, but merely evidence that the certain conditions from the creation of the universe needed to create spherical, orbiting planets, were met. But that doesn't mean other types of universes with different conditions, producing wildly different results, aren't possible. We don't live in the "only possible existence", indicative of some larger objective truth that only we in the present moment are capable of. No, we are merely a product of conditions, contexts, and actions. Anything else is astrologizing.

"All bachelors are men" isn't a-priori because it requires knowledge of what a bachelor is, and it requires knowledge of what a man is. It isn't knowledge so much as it is a tautology, a man-made way of explaining the world, just like math/logic is.

>basically Kant's saying we could not be capable of these things if the mind was not always-already schematizing sense data in a certain way.

that's semantically meaningless reasoning. Perhaps the truth is that the only reason we are even capable of "schematizing sense data in this way" is because certain conditions were met, entirely arising due to chance?

Perhaps there are an infinite number of such events, creating an infinite number of universes, even those where humans are capable of multitasking, and not the reality we're in now where (some) people are under the delusion that this universe is special because we're capable of measuring (some) things about this reality?

>>12286281
>To say that "logic" is the same thing as "knowledge" is, once again, a practice in false equivalence
but you can have knowledge OF logic and how it operates as a structure. although this is derived through experience, it is not OF experience, but rather those underlying structures. I can't tell if you're being willfully ignorant or not. is this all just pedantry around the word knowledge? because Kant is using it in a very specific way here.

>and how it operates as a structure. although this is derived through experience, it is not OF experience, but rather those underlying structures.

what "underlying structures" do you keep referring to? As I already said, the only "structure" that purely defines the simplest system is, yes and no, 0 and 1. Every other system is an advanced combination of smaller binary systems.

You can't make reference to "underlying structures" without actually defining what you're referring to. To do so is a practice in astrologizing and is gobbledygook.

>although this is derived through experience, it is not OF experience

It IS of experience though, because as I said, there is no OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE that isn't a result of MULTIPLE, COUNTLESS combinations of DIFFERENT PROPERTIES that also include PURE RANDOM CHANCE. The illusion that the world you are inhabiting is a logical pure expression of "a-priori logic" is, once again, astrologizing.

>>12286313
>because Kant is using it in a very specific way here.
I know precisely in which way he's using it; he's using it in the "trying to define reality by using contradictory/foggy/nonexistent terminology" way

>>12286281
>"All bachelors are men" isn't a-priori because it requires knowledge of what a bachelor is, and it requires knowledge of what a man is. It isn't knowledge so much as it is a tautology, a man-made way of explaining the world, just like math/logic is.

no, because it's a statement of identity, A = A, and identity is a priori because you can't have an experience of anything without it also being the thing that it is: the formal continuity of experience is a NECESSARY and UNIVERSAL feature of experience, because there couldn't be experience otherwise.

>>12286377
>It IS of experience though, because as I said, there is no OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE that isn't a result of MULTIPLE, COUNTLESS combinations of DIFFERENT PROPERTIES that also include PURE RANDOM CHANCE. The illusion that the world you are inhabiting is a logical pure expression of "a-priori logic" is, once again, astrologizing.

nothing can be made intelligible without corresponding to conditions of intelligibility in the first place.

>>12286391
>no, because it's a statement of identity
All "identities" are probability functions. To even have understanding of the sentence "all men are bachelors" one must have an implicit understanding of what constitutes "marriage", but "marriage" is subjective terminology. So once again we are left with the statement being an expression of every individual's "a-posteriori" preconception of what "marriagehood" or "bachelorhood" entails.

>>12286391
>the formal continuity of experience is a NECESSARY and UNIVERSAL feature of experience
How would you know such a thing if you had not "a-posteriori" knowledge of what happened to you 1 second prior to the moment you're experiencing now?

>>12286401
>nothing can be made intelligible without corresponding to conditions of intelligibility in the first place.
To be TRULY perceptive of "conditions of intelligibility" one must have knowledge of all the conditions in the first place; just because you're under the illusion that this reality is not fully understandable, does not mean one requires "a-priori" knowledge to understand it

>>12286439
once again, and for like the 5th time, just because Kant uncovered the transcendental conditions of experience "a posteriori" (in time, in his Critique of Pure Reason, etc.) does not mean these conditions cease to STRUCTURATE experience the way they do. you do NOT understand Kant

a priori statements depend on the FORMAL consistency of identity: A = A, not on their CONTENT

>>12286452
>transcendental conditions of experience
>>12286452
>STRUCTURATE
>>12286452
>FORMAL consistency of identity

much gobbledygook

such wow

>>12286461
sorry you don't understand words in your mother tongue grognard

>>12278558
The absolute state of lit.

>>12286464
>sorry you don't understand words in your mother tongue grognard
sorry you don't understand the idea that "a circle=a circle" is not knowledge, nor mathematics, nor a-priori, nor anything useful actually

Have fun with your eternal autism sophists XD

>>12286485
for someone that claims to love knowledge so much, Kant possessed very little of it, and seemed content just to resign his life to tautologies

>>12286461
How is it possible to be this unbelievably retarded?

>>12286485
retard

>>12286492
>>12286496
it's apt that you use that insult, because retards are incapable of a-posteriori knowledge (i.e. knowledge) XD

reminds me of someone I know

on this site

on this board

on this very thread even

XDD

>>12286504
cringe

>>12285833
racism is NOT a priori knowledge, like wtf

>>12286439
>probability functions
probability math is a priori too

>>12278542
If have two options OP:
(1) Read an introductory work to learn the terminology. aka the brainlet strategem (the chapter on Kant in one the many "history of philosophy" books around)
(2) Just read it once through without stopping for more than a couple seconds when bemused, aka power through it. If you still feel lost after putting the entire work in context, read it again (esp the important parts, flipping between key sections out of order) while making notes/highlights.

(1) cursory knowledge
(2) consequential understanding

>mfw /lit/ can’t get passed the introduction when i’m already in the transcendental analytic

>>12286485
okay, what about "the sum of the interior angles of a triangle will always equal 180 degrees". that is a statement which is NOT proven through experience (you can know this is true without seeking examples of triangles to prove it) and yet is a knowledge claim.

>>12286730
thats a “synthetische Erkenntnis a priori”

>>12286730
>"the sum of the interior angles of a triangle will always equal 180 degrees".
A triangle is defined by its angles equaling 180 degrees so your statement is a tautology. Humans also defined "degrees" such that a complete circle is 360 degrees.

Defining something and then claiming that you came to it through a-priori knowledge is contradictory.

>>12286643
That's like 50 pages into it, good job brainlet hehe
Probably gonna quit at Schematismus....

>>12286768
The question is how is knowledge of triangles possible, or of any geometric figure. According to Kant you don't make up a definition of a triangle or learn it but have access to it a priori which enables you to make a bunch of statements relating to it synthetically.
Your idea of analytic a priori isn't the Kantian but that of the logical positivists.

>>12286768
lmao. straight lines, defined angles are not analytical to the ‘begriff’ Triangle.
If shortest distance between two points doeant analytical have straight line as a prädikat then what you believe with 180^ being analytical for teiangles is wrong. It is still correct but we come to that conclusion only through ‘anschauung’ and that alone is proof of it being synthetic a priori Erkenntnis

>>12286768
right, but you understand that it is a geometric fact that the interior angles of a triangle add up to (the angle of a circle / 2). We didn't invent that, it's a truism that existed long before humans were around to define it. a triangle is a defined that way because IT MUST EXISTS IN THAT FORM. there is no way it could be any different. Now contrast that with another claim, "all cows are black and white". that statement, although also a definition invented by humans, it can be DISPROVEN through experience (e.g. finding a brown cow). there is NO WAY TO PROVE THE DEFINITION OF A TRIANGLE WRONG THROUGH EXPERIENCE.

>>12286768
>A triangle is defined by its angles equaling 180 degrees so your statement is a tautology.
No it's not you absolute mongoloid.

>>12286769
79 pages faggot and i have no where close come to an IQ wall yet. This is the most fun i have had reading anything. if it werent so late i would be reading it or reflecting on it than be here with you losers

>>12286792
>right, but you understand that it is a geometric fact that the interior angles of a triangle add up to (the angle of a circle / 2). We didn't invent that, it's a truism that existed long before humans were around to define it. a triangle is a defined that way because IT MUST EXISTS IN THAT FORM. there is no way it could be any different.

I agree that it's a truism (because the concepts are defined that way), but that doesn't make them knowledge.

We have come no closer to defining "a-priori knowledge" other than defining it as "self-evident truisms that bring us no closer to experiential knowledge", which is not knowledge at all, but merely tautology

>>12286798
Don't think Kant's philosophy is too taxxing on the mind... Considering most people nowadays live on an implicitly post-Kantian metaphysical framework. Past chapter 22 it gets tricky.

>>12286854
There's a difference between tautology and synthetic a priori statements. There's nothing inherent in the meaning of 1 and the meaning of addition that would lead us to the number twelve. AFAIK modern mathematical philosophers agree baby arithmetic isn't founded upon logic but we need something extra. Frege tried to reduce mathematics to logic but failed miserably.

The point is that it isn't self-evident that triangles have certain properties in the way a = a is self-evident, for Kant you had to come to these conclusions through investigations of pure intuition which are given a priori, not that this knowledge is given to you in the way logical truths are given to you.

>>12286873
>There's a difference between tautology and synthetic a priori statements.
To your puny human mind, of course there would be a difference. But mathematics as a whole is just one giant series of self-evident statements, like "the sky is blue at certain times".

>>12286903
No one is claiming they aren't self-evident you brainlet. That's the whole point of a priori, they're necessary, self-evident, objective truths. The opposite of any contingent synthetic a posteriori truth. It could have been that the sky was never blue at any point of time. On the other hand it seems wrong that it could have been true that 3 plus 3 equals 5. Just read Kant dummy.

>>12286854
I still think you are missing the point. Motoko just gave a better rundown than I could though: >>12286873
rather than simply object that we define geometry tautologically, ask: "why does it feel like a tautology that all triangles add up to 180 degrees?". and the answer isn't simply that we gave it a circular definition, but rather that there is something inherent to the nature of triangles (and geometry writ large) which does not belong simply to experience, but rather something deeper and more necessary; something structural. For instance, 1 + 4 = 5, this is a priori, but there is no tautology here -- 2 + 3 = 5 as well. all those numbers (1, 2, 3, and 4) do not contain the term 5, so obviously 1 + 4 = 5 cannot cannot be circular or tautological, and yet it is NECESSARY.

>>12286918
>That's the whole point of a priori, they're necessary, self-evident, objective truths.

>>12286929
>but rather something deeper and more necessary; something structural.

These are non-sequitors; just because something is structural does not make it a *necessary* truth

>>12286992
so you think math is contingent? if these truths are not necessary, then why doesn't 1 + 4 = 6 sometimes? why don't you find circles with flat sides? why don't you find triangles with interior angles which sum to something other than 180? unless you want to go full Hume and deny causation, you need to assert that the proofs of geometry are necessary.

>>12287006
They've not been proven to be "necessary" for an existence such as the one we're in, no. Physics shows that such conclusions are beyond the scope of our knowledge (for now, at least).

But yeah, there really is no point in drawing conclusions through sophistry about "structures of reality"

>>12287012
you're insufferably retarded, when people take the time to communicate difficult philosophical terminology to you, meet them halfway.

>>12287012
You are fucking ridiculous, you're hypothesizing any and every truth away. What if in some realm of existence a does not equal a HURR DURRR?
The point of a priori truths is that they can't be proven through conventional means, physics has nothing to say about a priori mathematical truths.

You almost made a good point there but I don't think you had intentions of doing so. There is a sense in which any a priori truth is contingent and actually relies on a conditional rather than being an unconditional truth. Once you've started reading philosophy remember my words and try reading Quine.

>>12287068
>>12287078
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQVv44SlUXM&t=18s

>>12287092
Fuck im so angry

>>12287012
>structures of reality
not what Kant was talking about. he was concerned about the structures which allow human cognition to be possible. "reality" (as I think you want to speak about it) is the-thing-in-itself which is outside of human comprehension. humans interact with the phenomenal world, not the noumenal one.

>>12287097
XDd

there there, you'll grow up yet

(but no sooner than you give up those silly terminological inexactitudes)

>>12287116
>the-thing-in-itself
>>12287116
>the phenomenal world, not the noumenal one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB5Z3WSID1g

>>12285790
>the only example was a hoax

Please give your sources for this. To my knowledge, this is taken entirely seriously by the linguistics and psychology communities.

>>12287120
if you don't give a shit about Kant, why did you waste so much of your time talking about him?

>>12287120
praise Kek

>>12287132
I really don't have time for your petty distinctions and sophistry that hasn't done anything for the world

>>12287130
Either way one could make the case that on a phenomenological level the feral child would have access to synthetic intuitions or we could make the case that he disqualifies as being a human being and thus doesn't share our canon of knowledge.
Both cases seem very reasonable to me. Kant is best understood as making very modest claims.

>>12287161
That's not my petty distinctions, this is Kant 101. Hell, this is epistemology 101.

>>12287161
you don't even know what extension is, you're a fucking clown

>>12287173
>would have access to synthetic intuitions or we could make the case that he disqualifies as being a human being

What? This is a bizarrely unscientific way of approaching the problem. We have specific examples of people who have failed to be exposed to certain input and can see how the the development of their faculties are affected. We also have examples of people who have either developed specific faculties later in life, or otherwise realized that they lacked a specific faculty that they didn't know they 'ought to' have had.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis

These things can inform our understanding of 'a priori' knowledge and its relation to biology. You might take, say, Chomsky's Universal grammar as a hypothetical example of innate knowledge of how language 'ought' to be learnt that isn't explicitly taught, but such that also that failing to be exposed to certain input will result in this potential 'knowledge' atrophying and failing to explicitly manifest.

>>12287261
not him but wouldn't extension just be that which is extended? Something with depth, width, etc

if it's something else, then holy shit no wonder philosophy has collapsed into utter impotence and physics and the natural sciences are leading the charge towards progress. what sophistry.

>>12287351
>You might take, say, Chomsky's Universal grammar as a hypothetical example of innate knowledge of how language 'ought' to be learnt
except Chomsky's theory has been discredited which is why he's now a glorified political pundit

>>12287674
>except Chomsky's theory has been discredited

Only naive cognitiveists think this.

https://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/10310/article.pdf

For the most part, the claims that generative grammar has been 'refuted' rests on other linguist's misunderstanding of what it even is and what it aims to explain. They erroneously hold it to be some kind of rigid, dogmatic approach that assumes some kind of logical atomism is the basis of actual thought, such this it is somehow incompatible with more 'worldly' understandings of how language arises, ignoring that it is a paradigm which exists to explain specific phenomena which still lack any other, better explanation that could viably substitute for it.

>>12278558
>be maried bachelor of arts
>dab on definitions

>>12287458
yeah that's what it is, but he admits to being ignorant of the philosophical lineage of the word, especially when kant's argument for space being an a priori intuition is the impossibility of conceiving an unextended object, by kinding turning descartes' concept of matter on its head, anyways don't namedrop witty if you don't know what extension is

>>12286768
>A triangle is defined by its angles equaling 180 degrees
it's not, it's defined as having 3 sides, the 180º thing just happens

>>12288577
why dint you just use the proper terminology with synthetic and anlutic?
>Fuck the guy for talking about something he doesn’t know about but what you wrote should at best be in brackets for the retards like him who don’t understand what the proper terms one should use already mean.

>>12278558
What a train wreck of a post. This is like chapter one of the Prolegomena, how could you have gotten it so wrong?

>>12279658
All math is analytical. Math is generally a priori although it could be a posteriori depending on the complexity (I can divide 2530 by two in my head without experiencing 2530 of something; I can't necessarily calculate the tenth digit of an irrational cube root in my head).

All math being analytical is important, since the goal of Pure Reason is to seek out synthetic a priori knowledge. If math were synthetic, then it's easy to find synthetic a priori knowledge and the whole project becomes trivial.

>>12288949
>Math is generally a priori although it could be a posteriori depending on the complexity
stop butchering Kant please, you are talking about analytic and synthetic, not a priori and a posteriori

some have argued that all math is analytical, yes, but that's not Kant's position at all

>>12278558
Dude, give up on philosophy, its simply not for you

There's no such thing as prior synthetic knowledge.
It's a meme.
>m-muh mathematics!!!
Yeah, tell us how euclidean geometry is working out for you, buddy.
Kant is a brainlet who thought he could deduce newtonian mechanics prior to experience despite it being falsified now.
If he was alive today he'd be a blogger claiming to have thought of quantum mechanics in his sleep.

>>12288577
>it's not, it's defined as having 3 sides, the 180º thing just happens
that's like saying "the 3 sides thing just happens"

>>12287794
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flBqojLpAnI

>>12288949
Kant argues arithmetic and geometry are synthetic a priori.

>>12290354
>If he was alive today he'd be a blogger claiming to have thought of quantum mechanics in his sleep.
yikes

>>12290631
>that's like saying "the 3 sides thing just happens"
that's the point of synthetic a priori knowledge, that it can be constructed from definitions but it's not contained in the definitions themselves

>>12288965
>>Math is generally a priori although it could be a posteriori depending on the complexity
>stop butchering Kant please, you are talking about analytic and synthetic, not a priori and a posteriori
You're wrong. He explicitly lays this out.Typing a complex expression into Wolfram Alpha and getting an answer back is a posteriori. It's an answer I got from the real world. Even if I could have done the calculation on my own (a priori), it's not a priori unless I actually did that. I'm not doing octernion math in my head.

>>12291019
that's not what a posteriori means for Kant, it doesn't mean literally later in time, as in it takes time to calculate, a posteriori means dependent on experience, which math is not

>>12290659
He's that cringe inducing, yes.
It's laughter inducing to think of rationalists who thought they could deduce the scientific conclusions of their time in a vacuum.

>>12291325
>that's not what a posteriori means for Kant

>let's just change the commonly held definitions of ancient terms because that's what superior philosophers do

>problem?

>>12291344
>doesn't realize I was yikesing his grade school understanding of Kant
double yikes

>>12284988
Nigger that's literally the point of CoPR, read the book to find out

>>12278542
Synthetic a priori knowledge is impossible.

Still not one single legitimate example of it itt.

Never felt better to be a STEMfag

>>12291840
Kant was a STEMfag and his idea of synthetic a priori was in part motivated in order to defend STEMfaggotry from the likes of Hume (who by the way has arguments that would still BTFO most ideas of science that don't take post-Kantian developments into account, or that aren't the analytic "lol truth? that's a language game m8" non-approach)

>>12280994
Except of course the fact that math is a learned discpline; nobody knows that 2+5=7 innately, hence it doesn't even qualify as synthetic.

>>12291952
>nobody knows that 2+5=7 innately, hence it doesn't even qualify as synthetic

>>12291972
Is this supposed to be an answer to my post?

>>12292035
it's supposed to be an expression of incredulity at how confused your post is. in order for me to "answer" your post, i would first have to "teach" you about the subject, and at that point we should stop calling it an answer shouldn't we?

>>12292068
How about explaining how I'm wrong instead of being a smug cunt?

But you're not going to do that because I'm not wrong at all.

>>12291936
>hume
>being at all relevant in 2018
lmao. you're an *nglo, aren't you?

>>12292099
a priori doesn't mean something known innately, it doesn't mean knowledge you attain right as you're pushed out of the womb

>>12292166
A priori in this context means prior to experience, and mathematics certainly does require experience because it is a language. Nobody knows languages innately.

>>12290631
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flBqojLpAnI

Yeah, this doens't surprise me. All you anti-Chomsky faggots act like you're hot shit until you're actually forced to engage with his work in it actual nuance, at which point you throw your hands up and dance around in order to excuse yourself.

>>12292180
you intuit space, that's the a priori basis of math. arithmatic and geometry are simply descriptions of the intuition of space. you can be taught those discriptions, but space will act the same regardless of whether you know those descriptions or not.

>>12292180
>A priori in this context means prior to experience
in the context of kant, or the shitposting here? because kant does not think a priori is synonymous with innate, and neither do many pre-kantian philosophers.

im not that last guy though, i'm the first guy, and your problem is that you even confused a priori with synthetic. it'd be one thing if you mixed up analytic and synthetic, but you are conflating completely different things, which leads me to think that you haven't thought about the subject enough and are going off based on "common sense" and other 15 year old philosophy techniques. why don't you read the entry on kant in the SEP and then come back and talk about what you didn't get, instead of thinking you know something

>>12292263
>because kant does not think a priori is synonymous with innate, and neither do many pre-kantian philosophers.


>"A priori knowledge or justification is independent of experience, as with mathematics (3 + 2 = 5), tautologies ("All bachelors are unmarried"), and deduction from pure reason (e.g., ontological proofs).[3]"

In my world "independent of experience" means innate. Unless you or Kant were operating with some esoteric definition of "innate", I don't see how I am wrong.

>>12292300
>In my world "independent of experience" means innate
your world is of no concern here.

'independent' in this context means without needing to turn to evidence. it doesn't mean you literally know it ex nihilio. please think about this for 15 seconds. "all bachelors are unmarried" is a priori not by virtue of the category of bachelor being an eternal platonic form which we keep forgetting everytime we reincarnate; of course we first have to understand that "bachelor" means "unmarried man". but the proposition itself, "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three sides" is true by virtue of the definition of the terms used. compare with propositions like "the above post has three paragraphs", which can only be evaluated in virtue of experience, ie actually checking. the conundrum is precisely that a priori propositions naturally seem like analytic propositions, and a posteriori propositions seem like synthetic ones. yet nevertheless there exist propositions that seem to be both synthetic and a priori, the example given being 5+7=12. now you could try to dispute that 5+7=12 is synthetic, but you sure as hell will not be able to dispute it being a priori. needing to learn what numbers are does not affect the aprioricity of mathematical judgements.

>>12292300
this guy gets it >>12292326

once again, they are identity statements, kant is saying there are statements that are BOTH apodictic ("a thing is a thing") and seemingly synthetic ("x has predicate y because it is contained in experience z"), Kant's saying there are identities that contains predicates INDEPENDENT of their experientiality

>>12292326
Except you could've literally just said this:

>"The justification of these propositions does not depend upon experience: one need not consult experience to determine whether all bachelors are unmarried, nor whether 7 + 5 = 12. (Of course, as Kant would grant, experience is required to understand the concepts "bachelor", "unmarried", "7", "+" and so forth. However, the a priori / a posteriori distinction as employed here by Kant refers not to the origins of the concepts but to the justification of the propositions. Once we have the concepts, experience is no longer necessary.) "

So Kant actually agrees with my critique himself. I guess I should've just googled this instead of asking armchair philosophers here.

>>12292393
your "critique" was:
>Except of course the fact that math is a learned discpline; nobody knows that 2+5=7 innately
so you are literally saying that what is in dispute is the origin of the concepts, which the quote you provided says kant precisely negates was his contention.

of course, that's assuming the quote i pulled from your post actually finishes in some sort of coherent way that would be something like "therefore math is a posteriori". your ACTUAL post is not even a sentence, it's straight gibberish.

>>12292406
No, I actually legitimately thought that a priori and a posteriori was meant as a general rules of knowledge, and not as semantic games in an autistic closed logical system.

If I had known it was, I wouldn't have said anything, retards in ivory towers are more than welcome to have fun playing games like the rest of us.

>>12292422
why are you so sad. you say something outrageously wrong, get corrected, and double down on your smug self-righteousness. i'm starting to think you are genuinely 15 years old.

>>12292435
But I wasn't wrong at all, I was right. Kant himself even agreed with me.

So suck a dick fagtron.

What do people here think of Quine's Two Dogma's of Empiricism?

>>12292580
It certainly btfo'd the logical positivists.

>>12292468
Holy shit lol this may actually be the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen on /lit/ and I’ve seen people claim that Hegel is legitimately a reasonable philosopher with logical conclusions. Either that, or this is the best troll of 2018

>>12292422
>autistic closed logical system
don't be so mean to STEM nerds they have it hard enough already