/lit/ - Literature

just fucking think about them nigger ffs

>>14017791
There's no such thing as a priori.

Everything is a posteriori. An experience precedes everything, no exceptions. All things are derived from experience.

Metaphysicfags still can't cope.

>>14017814
But your intuition to assign truth to this fact is a priori

>>14017791
Because of the determinability of space and time.

>>14017814
Then nothing could be established with apodictic certainty.

>>14017791
For example, we can deduce the following,
https://youtu.be/QcAnOlPh7Yo

>>14017814
Exactly. The fact that Kant had to qualify the distinction with 'synthetic' really just shows what a dubious distinction it is. How is sensible to divorce the form and content of experience when both are always required? It's just an attempt to justify idealism.

>>14017850
>Then nothing could be established with apodictic certainty.
Of course it can. You still need to have the experience of existing to know you exist, or the experience of performing an abstract equation (in a self-referential system) to arrive at the solution. What makes such conclusions apodictic is that they are necessarily certain.

>>14018034

Okay, but that point was what Kant was trying to get at with his critique of Descartes. Is the certainty that I exist something given in experience, or presupposed by it?

And I don't think Kant would disagree that form and content are inseparable, he's trying to argue that experience has a form in the first place (which is the condition of synthetic a priori judgments)

>>14017814
>>14018034
There are things inherent in the structure of your mind and senses, and under that your biology, this doesn't have to mean anything metaphysically though. Every judgement is built atop this structure and includes it implicitly.

So how are synthetic a priori judgments possible?

how are synthetic a priori judgments possible?

how are we able to have synthetic a priori judgments?

So how is it that synthetic a priori judgments are possible?

>>14018091
I have to experience to have the certainty. To suggest that the certainty of existence is instead grounded in a logical operation -- which also relies upon experinece -- seems disingenuous.

So where do we reliably draw the line between form and content such that we can definitively categorize knowledge as a priori? Wouldn't it be prudent to simply limit ourselves to classifying some truths as apodictic (self-evidently or self-referentially), instead of adding assumption and blurry distinctions?

>>14018422
If all judgements are built atop that structure, and all judgements require experience, then what is the point of the distinction?

>>14017829
>But your intuition to assign truth to this fact is a priori
Of course it isn't, you bumbling idiot.

>>14017814
Based retard.
A priori is just the law of non-contradiction applied to concept that are created by understanding + experience.

>>14017814
This anon personally examined every triangle in the universe to determine they all add up to 180 degrees, bless him

>>14017814
Based.

>>14019307
>a posteriori generalization is a priori knowledge

>>14019307
kek
>>14019338
dumbo

>>14019307
not all triangles in the universe do though

>>14019287
So basically you are saying that I can't be certain about the fulfillent of a potentiality before it actualizes.
You are denying metaphysics, because you have self-inflicted tunnel vision. Nice.

>>14019360
How?

>>14019307
top kek

>>14019338
>a posteriori generalization
nice move, brainlet.

>>14017829
>But your intuition to assign truth to this fact is a priori

>>14019360
explain

>>14019433
a triangle can exist on a curved plane. for example, a triangle with a vertex at the north pole and two vertices on the equator, would have internal angulature of 270deg

>>14019561
Trust me, this doesn't really affect Kant's argument. In fact, it would support it. Without getting into it, you could just modify the statement to be "all triangles on a flat plane"

>>14019576
I never said it would affect kant's argument. I was just (you)ing

>>14018034
>What makes such conclusions apodictic is that they are necessarily certain.
you cannot argue that knowledge is based only on synthetic a posteriori experiences and then drop this claim, read Hume

>>14019349
>>14019460

>>14019588
Oh ok fair enough

>>14017791
By means of a faculty

>>14017814
>Everything is a posteriori

Isn't this tautological?

>>14019361
I'm saying that it isn't sensible to treat the concrete fact of experience and the logical abstractions which follow it as truly discrete forms of knowledge.

Metaphysics is a useless category though -- the term doesn't confer any additional specificty beyond that of Ontology.

>>14019604
Sure you can, things are apodictically true because they are either self-evident (no alternate possible conclusions) or self-referential (the terms involved are symbolic and excactly defined). Both kinds of knowledge rely upon experienced relations.

>>14019954
Are identity (analytic) statements like A = A based on experience, or constitutive of it?

>>14019954
You can't determine something is self-evident from experience, how can you possibly know that there are no other conclusions? There is always the possibility that there is some unknown condition under which the assumed conclusions wouldn't follow. I also don't see how self-referential knowledge isn't analytic

So can someone explain to a brainlet why Kant thought that mathmatical statements were synthetic? It seems to me that 1 + 1 = 2 is only true because of the relative definitions of each part, meaning that 2's meaning is completely contained in the 1 + 1 part. I feel like this would be true for any mathematical statement too, since if the answer wasn't contained in the initial statement of the problem it would be impossible to solve.

>>14020084
Let's take 7+5=12 for example. The concept of 12 is nowhere in the concept of 7+5. If you think this is true analytically however, then you would have to claim every sum that makes up 12 is within the definition of 12. This would mean that in understanding 12, you understand 5+7, 6+6, 10+2, 4.5+7.5, 4.0007+7.9993, and so on to infinity, that you understand every infinite equation that equals 12. However you still have the concept of 12 without having all of these equations.

>>14020084
What this guy said >>14020154

It's somewhat counterintuitive but I think Kant was on to something, 12 just isn't contained in the concepts of 7 and 5, and you might think it is only because mathematics occupies the weird limbo that it does

>>14019960
There is no analytic truth, all such statements require synthetic knowledge such as shared definitions and experienced relations. Agreeing upon definitions and concepts that were determined via experience, and then arbitrarily deciding that conclusions subsequent to those are meaninginfully independent of experience is cheating.

As for based upon vs. constitutive of, you'll have to be more explicit about the distinction you're trying to make.

>>14020066
That is indeed the case for almost all knowledge, yet there is the rare instance of the certainty of your existence (and of existence in general). In this case, the fact of experiencing alone negates any antithesis.

Self-referential systems aren't truly analytic because they ultimately stem from synthetically experienced relations. Once you define all the terms and close off your system, it can function abstractly and self-referentially, but the system itself (in arriving at symbolism/definition) refers to the synthetic and concrete.

>>14020304
>As for based upon vs. constitutive of, you'll have to be more explicit about the distinction you're trying to make.

What I'm saying is, don't we derive the validity of analytic judgments from experience's formal identity with itself? In that sense, it is pre-experiential. If experience were not unified in the first place, we could not acquire knowledge of things that ARE identical with themselves

>>14020304
>there is no analytic truth
When is this statement true?

>>14017791
Who cares?

>>14020352
No. That's just abstractly defined reflexivity, which is subsequent to synthetically derived knowledge.

Again, saying that some knowledge is pre-experiential after you've defined it via experiential means is cheating.

>>14020484
When there is no possible knowledge that isn't derived synthetically.

>>14020596
But Kant isn't saying our concept of reflexivity is itself constitutive of experience, just like we can represent time as an arrow even if it is still a pure form of intuition

>>14020710
You misunderstand, I meant that the act of formalizing identity is reflexivity, which is a process of abstractly defining concepts which we have synthetically apprehended. There is no hard boundary between 'pure intuition' and the rest of our synthetically derived knowledge.

>>14020759
But from what is this knowledge synthetically derived when it isn't derived from experience? What about the triangle? Aren't there intrinsic determinations of space that experience merely confirms (and inductively at that), and cannot discover?

>>14020607
How the fuck is "a bachelor is an unmarried man" not an analytic truth

>>14020905
I suppose his point is that even that statement depends on experience

>>14020946
>his

>>14020607
Kant writes into his definitions that synthetic propositions are enabled by experience, he acknowledges this. it doesn’t invalidate the distinction.

OP’s answer is “by virtue of a faculty”

>>14019134
>>14019128
>>14019121
>>14019110

instinct. Priori knowledge.

>>14020946
I fail to see how it does though, it's just a definition, and can exist prior to any men or bachelors existing or being experienced

Photons have pre-determined path through space.

>>14020790
It is dervied from experience. An abstract triangle is just that -- an abstraction. We don't discover perfect circles in the concrete. What we are doing is abstracting tropes (similarities in configuration, not universal qualia) from specific instances.

>>14020905
Because the statement relies upon collateral information (shared definitions, synthetically derived) which you arbitrarily ignore. Read Quine.

>>14021206
>Because the statement relies upon collateral information (shared definitions, synthetically derived) which you arbitrarily ignore. Read Quine.

Quine doesn't get that an analytic statement is an identity statement, the social class of "bachelor" might be culturally determined but that A equals A is not.

>It is dervied from experience. An abstract triangle is just that -- an abstraction. We don't discover perfect circles in the concrete.

And yet an abstraction still constructed in space, and ordered by the determinations of space. It's precisely because there are no perfect shapes in nature that we can't account, experientially, for the fact that a triangle's three sides always add up to 180 degrees, etc.

I would very much urge you to read Deleuze's lecture on Kant. He was the one who made the whole problematic click for me, and trust me I normally fucking can't stand Deleuze

>>14018422
an experience preceded the contents of this statement

>>14019298
an experience preceded the supposed truth of this statement

>>14019307
an encounter with a triangle is sufficient to extrapolate upon the rules of such a geometric shape and apply it universally. but an encounter(experience) is required, even if this encounter of what a triangle is (three sided geometric figure whose angles add up to 180 degrees) was simply reading the definition of a triangle, but 'triangle' is not known a priori and that is the point being made/

>>14021238
>Quine doesn't get that an analytic statement is an identity statement, the social class of "bachelor" might be culturally determined but that A equals A is not.
Sure it is. Does every 'A' actually equal 'A' or have we agreed to accept the equivalence for the purposes of logical operation? Is this 'A' the same as this 'a'? Is this 'A' the same as this 'A' (down to every quantum fluctuation and position in spacetime?). Universal identity is an abstract assumption of convenience -- it is an open question whether any concrete universals exist.

>It's precisely because there are no perfect shapes in nature that we can't account, experientially, for the fact that a triangle's three sides always add up to 180 degrees, etc.
The -angles- of a triangle only always add up to 180 deg. in the idealized abstract realm in which the notion of a universal triangle-qualia is assumed. In the concrete, the sum of angles is contingent up the curvature of space as was pointed out earlier. Since that curvature is being influenced by anything with energy and momentum, you won't be able to find actually identically summed angles in identically curved spacetime with which to form a concretely universal category.

Yes, it's true that abstractions can make astounding and actionable predictions about the concrete world, but that doesn't mean our abstractions are truly equivalent to that world.

>>14021545
Okay, but the triangle is still determined by space. If we were able to perfectly reproduce two IMPERFECT triangle, space as an a priori form would determine them in an identical way.

>>14021584
No, you're missing the point. No two actual triangles will be identical. Ever. Space itself is not uniform.

>>14021752
No, I get what you're saying, that our modern understanding of space challenges Kant's criterion for what he would consider an a priori form. But that's just it, in the ordinary, every day human experience, space is not so fine-grained

>>14021752
And to go even futher, 'actual triangles' don't exist, a triangle is an abstract trope.

>>14021765
Are the limitations of our experience really static? Technology pushes them all the time, right? Why confine ourselves to the present 'ordinary'?

I'm not arguing that our experience isn't necessarily conditioned by spacetime. It clearly is. I'm saying that this isn't sufficient grounds for assuming true universals, nor distinguishing a category of knowledge as pre-experientially validated.

OH NONONONONO. ALMOST ALL PHILOSOPHERS ACCEPT A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE.

>>14021856
Hmm, I'm really curious about that 'other' position. Still, almost 20% (potentially approaching 30% depending on 'other') is a significant dissention.

>>14021902
It can be narrowed down further too

>>14021838
Why take Kant to task for abstract triangles, but you accept physical models about space which have to be abstract as gospel?

>>14021934
>reject both
based

>>14021950
I don't accept them as 'gospel', they are matters of fact to be empirically investigated (establishing probability, if not technical certainty). Current models make better predictions than archaic ones.

>>14021019
that's to misconstrue it
Photons are timeless, from their perspective they never exist since their whole existence is one instant.

>>14022054
The model might be confirmed experimentally, but is the model itself experienced? You say space has to curve to match your findings, you're not actually observing the curvature of space.

>be near several bussiness men and marketing people
>some smug looking guy says a posteriori 3 times in 5 minutes
>he wasn't even speaking english or italian

>>14022093
The model itself is an abstraction, extrapolated from what is experienced.

The curvature is detectable:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1501.01500

Whereas perfect/universal geometries (or qualia in general) are not.

>>14023024
>The curvature is detectable.

Well, sure, by atom interferometry. Do you think we're actually seeing ultraviolet when we represent what it a flower's UV patterns look like to an insect, for example? No. Science's findings are valid precisely because of what Kant is trying to argue, and not in spite of it.

>>14023046
No, they're not. There are no universal forms or 'pure intuitions' which constitute of kind of pre-empirical knowledge. These are arbitrary distinctions -- attempts to draw hard boundaries where none exist.

There is no ultraviolet qualia. It's a trope. Not even two insects of the same species see ultraviolet in precisely the same way. If we extend this to humans, consider someone who lacks depth perception because their biological state isn't identical to yours. Is their intuition of space truly the same as yours? If we reduce this intuition to a less complex one -- ignoring depth perception -- are you sure that our intuitions can be truly identical in this more basic sense when they were not in the former instance? Is it even sensible to generalize an intuition which is contingent upon a confluence of more granular capacities? Where is the hard line that determines when an intuition becomes pure, or where it diverges from the content that ostensibly shapes it? Where is the boundary that allows us to infer concrete universals or pre-experiential validation?

The findings of science are valid when our abstract predictions show consistency with experienced concrete relations -- both of which arise from the exclusively empirical conduit of knowledge. Whether we detect UV radiation via our eyes or technological instruments makes no difference in the act of observation -- it's all continuous.

>>14023611

It does not follow from "there are no universal quality" that "there are no qualia", period. Too big of a jump.

It also does not follow from "there is no universal human intuition of space" that whatever "non-standard" intuition of space a person might have, that the content of their experiences is still answerable to that particular form

Don't think of it as special access to some pre-empirical, Platonic realm. Just consider what Kant is saying in essence: there are certain formal conditions experience must always conform to to be intelligible as experience.

>>14023650
*is not answerable

We know that a lot of Kant's a priori synthetic judgements are false, e.g. believing that Euclidean geometry is the only geometry and that we can describe our surroundings like that. Altough we can locally, but not isometrically, describe our surroundings as an Euclidean space, and in this description we can find triangles in which the angles don't sum up to pi - see the sphere example and realise that because of general relativity that what we experience as triangles can be seen as on a sphere if we embedded our sphere isometrically into a higher dimensional space.
If we know this, why separate these intuitions - wrong intuitions - from other 'knowledge'. I mean why should you say that mathematics is synthetic a priori? It is not like someone 'knows' all of mathematics and uses this knowledge to understand the world around us. What happens is that you know some mathematics, which has become intuitive - through experience - and then apply those intuitions. I mean, if we are speaking about brainlet tier mathematics, that we can have - altough we have never seen it before - the intuition, that - for example - the tangent in a point of a circle must be orthogonal to the radius. But does this really deserve a different name, it pressuposes _nonintuitive_ knowledge, like what is a circle, radius or tangent line. These are all definitions that - most people- if they just struggle through life would never bother to make up.

>>14017814
Literally debunked in the first sentence of the introduction of the first critique.

>The dialectal interpretation of history as a sequence of syntheses is correct. But the driving force aren't the absolute spirit and concepts, ideas and ideals realized in men - but instead it's all material, the economic condition and dynamics over the means of production make for the driving force.
How do the young Hegelians such as Marx claim that Hegel (or German Idealism broadly) wasn't right all along. You can easily say that the economic conditions are a result of the actions of humans driven by their ideas and ideals.

It seems like today, we all talk about ideologies and how those affect economy and that's what we witness.
Is there a more radical materialism that actually rules out the previous view?
Did they just really not want to talk about "the absolute" anymore - even if Hegel says it acts through humans anyway?
How was he wrong in emphasizing the non-material dynamics?
How do Marxists really part with Hegel? I don't see it.

>>14023650
>It does not follow from "there are no universal quality" that "there are no qualia", period. Too big of a jump.
It does follow. If there are no concrete universals (which appears to be the case, so far), then there is no basis to suppose that qualitative properities exist at all. Rather, it is more likely that our experience and all aspects of things are produced by varied quanta, with the notion of qualities in general being an abstraction of convenience.

As I've already said, I don't dispute that experience is conditioned by spacetime, what I dispute is that this can be construed as evidence of concrete universals or a special category of knowledge which is independent from experience in a meaningful way. There is no hard boundary which distinguishes 'pure intuitions' from other appearances (and to go even further the notion of 'appearance' is itself an abstraction, what we actually have is an interaction of phenomena -- actual things -- from which the phenomenon of experience emerges).

We have to remember that these distinctions which you're trying to present as entirely neutral and non-assumptive, were in fact the pillars of Kant's brand of idealism -- the probability of which he never convincingly demonstrated.

>>14017791
By means of a means.

>>14024843
>getting your opinion on kant from someone who got their opinion of kant from someone who didnt get kant at all.

>>14017791
Where is this pic from ?

>>14019287
so what do you make of a statement like "all triangles have three sides". i don't have to experience all triangles in order to say that this is true, do i?

>>14026638
No you don't, but that's because you're recognizing a trope, not a universal form. You're noting certain similarities between configurations of shapes, but in the concrete an idealized 'triangle' doesn't exist (nor do the idealized 'lines' which constitute sides). It's just like the sum of angles discussed above.

So, in the concrete we see that the statement is technically false (fine measurement reveals the imperfection of actual shapes). Even in the abstract though, the statement is a matter of facts (see >>14020154). The concept of the triangle doesn't actually contain the concept of a line segment (a straight object with no curvature and an infinite number of points), nor all the possible combinations of lengths and angles which could comprise a triangle.