Philosophy Discussion Forums

Consul wrote:But this is not the case if the following formulation is used (which I think is preferable to the one above):
"Analytic sentences are those whose truth-value seems to be knowable by knowing the meanings of the constituent words alone."
Thus formulated, an analytic proposition/statement/sentence is either analytically true, an analytic truth or analytically false, an analytic falsity.

You can call contradictions "analytic falsities" but this is not a common usage and it can create confusion in my opinion. There's already a name for such sentences, they called a contradiction, there's no need to conflate it with "analytical".

EMTe wrote:What do you mean by "state of knowledge", Consul?

The having of knowledge, which is a (dispositional) mental state.

EMTe wrote:Knowledge is facts you learn about the world - how to operate crane, how many moons Jupiter has, what is gross domestic product of Vanuatu. "State of knowledge" is some dim expression that desperately tries to make world harder to understand for others and is as such philosophical which equals to being stupid.
Source of knowledge is always external, because you learn from interactions with environment. What comes from inside of you is not knowledge, but your innate characteristics. The whole problem, in my opinion, with you philosophers is that you constantly confuse expressions and broaden or narrow their meanings to create false problems. Instead of accepting some kind of practical division between knowledge and experience (and many other terms) you discuss their limits which is totally pointless and absurd loss of vital energy.

There's a difference between theoretical (propositional) knowledge (knowledge-that) and practical (actional) knowledge (knowledge-how(-to-do)). The source of (non-innate) practical knowledge is learning, but I've been talking about the epistemic sources of theoretical knowledge, i.e. propositional knowledge of facts/truths.
The epistemic source of propositional knowledge is the justifying ground for believing that a proposition is true.

"What I regard as a source of knowledge is what justifies the recognition of truth, the judgement."

(Frege, Gottlob. "Sources of Knowledge of Mathematics and the Mathematical Natural Sciences." 1924/5. In Posthumous Writings, edited by Hans Hermes, Friedrich Kambartel, and Friedrich Kaulbauch; translated by Peter Long and Roger White, 267-276. Oxford: Blackwell, 1979. p. 267)

What are our natural sources of knowledge and justification?

1. sensory perception
2. introspection
3. rational intuition/intellection
4. recollection (memory)
5. testification (testimony): communication of information (that isn't mis- or disinformation)

Supernaturalists claim that there are additional epistemic sources:

* extrasensory perception (clairvoyance, precognition, or telepathy)
* mystical apprehension or intuition (distinct from rational intuition) or vision
* (divine) revelation

Radical empiricists deny the possibility of a priori knowledge (and justification), i.e. that we can acquire propositional knowledge through intuition. Moderate empiricists only deny the possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori, believing that analytic, i.e. logico-conceptual, truths are knowable a priori. For them, intuitions regarding analytic propositions are simply manifestations of logico-linguistic competence and intelligence.

-- Updated May 17th, 2014, 9:52 am to add the following --

Fafner88 wrote:
But the things which are most often said to be known a priori are not observable facts about the external environment (i.e. mathematics), so to argue that a priori knowledge is a contradiction because it doesn't come from the outside is to miss the point. I mean, no one claims that somebody can know a priori that Paris is the capital of France or that Dolphins are mammals, the claim is rather that there's a special class of non-empirical prepositions which truth can be grasped by reason alone.

Rationalists who believe in synthetic knowledge a priori do not believe that contingent or only nomologically (naturally) necessary facts/truths are knowable a priori. If there is synthetic knowledge a priori, it's knowledge of ontologically/metaphysically necessary propositions, i.e. ones which are true in all possible worlds. No rationalist asserts that naturally contingent facts or only naturally necessary facts (= laws of nature) are knowable a priori, i.e. by virtue of pure reason or thought. You surely cannot come to know that Paris is the capital of France or that dolphins are mammals through mere armchair reflection.

"From an intuitive standpoint, …, what happens in cases of the kind in question is this: when I carefully and reflectively consider the proposition (or inference) in question, I am able simply to see or grasp or apprehend that the proposition is necessary, that it must be true in any possible world or situation (or alternatively that the conclusion of the inference must be true if the premises are true). Such a rational insight, as I have chosen to call it, does not seem in general to depend on any particular sort of criterion or on any further dicursive or ratiocinative process, but is instead direct and immediate (though in some cases, …, there are possible discursive processes of reasoning, beginning from other insights of essentially the same kind, that could have yielded that claim as a conclusion).
The occurrence of such an insight does obviously depend on a correct understanding of the claim in question, which requires in turn an adequate grasp or comprehension of the various properties and relations involved and how they are connected. …[S]uch a comprehension may itself depend on having had experiences of some specific sort—for example, comprehending the properties of redness and greenness … may well require having had experiences involving these two colors. But once the requisite understanding is achieved, the insight in question does not seem to depend on experience in any further way, thus allowing it to be the basis for a priori justification and a priori knowledge.
From an intuitive standpoint, such an apparent rational insight purports to be nothing less than a direct insight into the necessary character of reality, albeit…a relatively restricted aspect of reality. When I see or grasp or apprehend the necessary truth of the claim, for example, that nothing can be red and green all over at the same time, I am seemingly apprehending the way reality must be in this respect, as contrasted with other ways that it could not be. If taken at face value, as the rationalist claims that in general it should be, such a rational or a priori insight seems to provide an entirely adequate epistemic justification for believing or accepting the proposition in question. What, after all, could be a better reason for thinking that a particular proposition is true than that ones sees clearly and after careful reflection that it reflects a necessary feature that reality could not fail to possess."

(BonJour, Laurence. In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. 106-7)

Consul wrote:Rationalists who believe in synthetic knowledge a priori do not believe that contingent or only nomologically (naturally) necessary facts/truths are knowable a priori. If there is synthetic knowledge a priori, it's knowledge of ontologically/metaphysically necessary propositions, i.e. ones which are true in all possible worlds. No rationalist asserts that naturally contingent facts or only naturally necessary facts (= laws of nature) are knowable a priori, i.e. by virtue of pure reason or thought. You surely cannot come to know that Paris is the capital of France or that dolphins are mammals through mere armchair reflection.

Did I say otherwise? This was exactly my point.

The quote from BonJour was nice though, I want to read that book some day.

Fafner88 wrote:
You can call contradictions "analytic falsities" but this is not a common usage and it can create confusion in my opinion. There's already a name for such sentences, they called a contradiction, there's no need to conflate it with "analytical"

I don't see any danger of confusion or conflation here. "Bachelors are unmarried" is an analytic truth and, correspondingly, "Bachelors are married" ("It is not the case that bachelors are unmarried") is an analytic falsity—simple as that.
But you're right insofar as most philosophers seem to use "analytic proposition/statement/sentence" synonymously with "analytic truth" (even though they don't have to, since the corresponding concept of analytic falsity is neither incoherent nor incomprehensible). For example, Kripke writes:

"[L]et's just make it a matter of stipulation that an analytic statement is, in some sense, true by virtue of its meaning and true in all possible worlds by virtue of its meaning. Then something which is analytically true will be both necessary and a priori. (That's sort of stipulative.)"

(Kripke, Saul A. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. p. 39)

He could as well have written:

"Let's just make it a matter of stipulation that an analytic statement is, in some sense, either true or false by virtue of its meaning and either true or false in all possible worlds by virtue of its meaning. Then something which is analytically true or false will be both necessary and a priori."

-- Updated May 17th, 2014, 10:58 am to add the following --

Fafner88 wrote:

Consul wrote:Rationalists who believe in synthetic knowledge a priori do not believe that contingent or only nomologically (naturally) necessary facts/truths are knowable a priori. If there is synthetic knowledge a priori, it's knowledge of ontologically/metaphysically necessary propositions, i.e. ones which are true in all possible worlds. No rationalist asserts that naturally contingent facts or only naturally necessary facts (= laws of nature) are knowable a priori, i.e. by virtue of pure reason or thought. You surely cannot come to know that Paris is the capital of France or that dolphins are mammals through mere armchair reflection.

Did I say otherwise? This was exactly my point.

I was just emphasizing your point, because it's an important one. For many seem unaware of what epistemological rationalists really believe and assert.

Fafner88 wrote:The quote from BonJour was nice though, I want to read that book some day.

As far as contemporary epistemological rationalism is concerned, BonJour's book is essential reading.

-- Updated May 17th, 2014, 11:17 am to add the following --

"‘Analytic’ has been used in a wide variety of ways: truth by conceptual containment and truth whose denial is contradictory (Kant 1781/1787); logical truth (Bolzano 1837; Feigl 1949); truth by definition and logical derivation (Frege 1884; Pap 1958); truth in virtue of form (Schlick 1930–1); truth by definition and logical truth (Carnap 1937, 1947); truth by definition (Ayer 1936); truth based on meaning (Ayer 1936; C.I. Lewis 1944); truth by semantical rule (Carnap 1947); truth in all possible worlds (C.I. Lewis 1944; D.K. Lewis 1969); convertibility into logical truth by substitution of synonyms (Quine 1951); truth by implicit convention (Putnam 1962); and so on. Although related, not all of these uses are equivalent. For example, logical truths are not true by definition (in the sense of explicit definition), but they are trivially true by definition plus logic. Furthermore, Gödel’s incompleteness result shows that logical derivability and logical truth are not equivalent. Likewise various principles (for example, supervenience principles) which are true in all possible worlds seem not to be true by definition plus logic (if ‘definition’ does not include ‘implicit definitions’). Similarly, it may be doubted that correct definitions provide exact synonyms. Little care has been taken to distinguish these disparate uses and needless confusions have resulted. But, as Strawson and Grice (1956) note, observations of this sort ‘would scarcely amount to a rejection of the distinction [as Quine urges]. They would, rather, be a prelude to clarification’."

(Bealer, George. "Analyticity." In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 1, edited by Edward Craig, 234-239. London: Routledge, 1998. pp. 234-5)

"One of the most widely accepted conceptions of analyticity, and also in some ways the clearest, is that proposed by Frege: a statement is analytic if and only if it is either (i) a substitution instance of a logically true statement or (ii) transformable into such a substitution instance by substituting synonyms for synonyms (or definitions for definable terms). Or, in non-linguistic terms, a proposition is analytic if and only if it is either (i) an instance of a truth of logic as it stands or (ii) equivalent to such an instance by substitution of concepts for equivalent concepts (where by equivalence between concepts, I mean the relation that corresponds to synonymy between expressions, i.e. the relation in which the concepts <bachelor> and <unmarried man> can stand to each other). A proposition or statement is synthetic if and only if it is not analytic."

(BonJour, Laurence. In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. 32-3)

So, a statement is Frege-analytic iff it is an explicit or implicit logical truth.

I don't think you understand my position, Consul, because you're a philosopher and I'm radical anti-philosopher. I don't see any difference between practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge, primarily because I view those difference as unnecessary word games aimed at destroying the opponent. You take the word "knowledge" which has perfectly fine common sense meaning and broaden it or narrow to suit your philosophical views. So now we have practical knowledge, theoretical konwledge, a priori knowledge, a posteriori knowledge, experience. Why complicating things? Let's call whatever's a priori - innate characteristics or sth and whatever's a posteriori - knowledge. Or otherwise, it doesn't matter what word you use as long as we come to some conslusion. Adding another meanings to words is truly what philosophers are perfect at, but it's not very productive activity.

I now think that Priori Knowledge is Possible.

If you where to make a connection with subject without know its significance it might be Possible to glean more information from different Sources to then at a later date have a Flash of Insight as to some Priori Knowledge on the subject. You can glean a great deal of information about self realization, Consciousness, Ego, simply by stumbling upon a plethora of information in reference to Singularity, Individuality, the Boundlessness of God, Free Will, and the Creation of the Universe, you might become All Knowing, God Like, a Wise Ass.

When God said to Moses, I am that I am, God Simply meant I am an Individuality, that the Spirit, the Nature, the Seed of All Living Things, all living thing meaning, being, things that exist in the material sense of the word, that Singularity is the Way even for the Individual (Microcosm) that exists part as part of a Greater Whole; God being the One and the All, God being a Singularity that is Omnipresent.

The Universe was born of Nothing.

Are you some sort of fundamentalist Christian troll?

The terms of a priori and a posteriori represent an idealistic dichotomization of experience, which does not reflect on how experience is really created. In fact, experience comes from the interaction between subject and object, and thus the qualities we experience are neither subjective nor objective in the strict sense of the word. If a person pokes with a stick in a dark room, and detects "soft" and "hard" objects there, it means that "hardness" and "softness" are qualities that emerge in the interaction between the person and surrounding reality. Is softness and hardness wholly subjective qualities? No, there is no reason to say so. Are they wholly objective qualities? No, because they are very sensual experiences, as in the case of a woman's breast. Thus, they are neither wholly objective, nor wholly subjective. Qualities are best seen as "semi-objective facts" in the interactive realm between outer and inner reality.

So it is with all qualities; moist and dry, hot and cold, red and blue, etc. Thus, we are part and parcel of outer reality, and not alienated onlookers along lines of the Kantian paradigm. In a sense, "objective reality" is created in our interaction with it, which has been proven without a doubt by quantum physics. When a bird flies, it does not make a lot of calculations of differential equations in order to interact with reality "out there", i.e., how to parry vortexes in the air, etc. In fact, the qualities that the bird experiences emerge in the interaction with the air. The bird is part and parcel of the wind, which it soars effortlessly upon. The wind is like an extension of its wing, which is an extension of its brain. Bird and wind must be regarded as a whole.

It doesn't make sense to say that qualities, like colour, are wholly subjective "figments" of the mind, when they in fact are relational properties between a conscious agent and its surrounding, much like sensing whether something is soft or hard. If your finger goes in farther, then it's soft. It doesn't make sense to say that it isn't "soft". Nor does it make sense to say that it lacks a colour such as "red". This doesn't mean that it is absolutely objectively "red", since there is no such thing as "absolute objectivity" except in theological issues. Water is indeed soft. But a person who falls from a great altitude will experience it as very hard. Nevertheless, we don't say that this is merely his "subjective experience", because we know that qualities depend on the interaction between agent and reality. What he experiences when he hits the surface is real. Thus, qualities are real, but not in the sense of armchair philosophers, who dichotomized reality in terms of ideal concepts. They are real in the interactive realm between agent and outer world. Thus, we needn't have recourse to a priori understanding to experience the sensuous facts of reality. We understand with our body and our instincts.

Mats Winther

EMTe

Let's call whatever's a priori - innate characteristics or sth and whatever's a posteriori - knowledge.

That isn't how 'a priori' is normally understood. In an earlier post you say:

The expression "a priori knowledge" is utterly idiotic, it's oxymoron.

How do you know? Have you observed it being an oxymoron? Can you prove it by performing a scientific test on it? How could somebody disprove your statement?

No; you explain why you think it is an oxymoron by your understanding of the meaning of the word 'knowledge'. You are reasoning 'a priori'. And I am doing the same thing; I am saying your statement about 'a priori' is wrong because it doesn't correspond to the meaning of 'a priori'.

(But this doesn't make such things a matter of individual opinion. If we explored the argument, we might find that my idea of 'a priori' was self-contradictory, or empty of meaning.)

Londoner wrote:EMTe

Let's call whatever's a priori - innate characteristics or sth and whatever's a posteriori - knowledge.

That isn't how 'a priori' is normally understood.

Right. Knowledge is a priori iff its epistemic source is intuition/intellection/reflection rather than perception, introspection, or recollection.

Consul wrote:

Londoner wrote:EMTe

(Nested quote removed.)

That isn't how 'a priori' is normally understood.

Right. Knowledge is a priori iff its epistemic source is intuition/intellection/reflection rather than perception, introspection, or recollection.

It is connected with the whole problem of epistemology. The question is whether we can have experiences without a priori categories or whether there is a priori knowledge at all, without experience. Fichte, for his part, declared everything to be a priori. So the notion of a priori, in Western philosophy, is to the highest degree connected with the problem of perception. According to Kant, we wouldn't be able to experience time and cause if it weren't for the a priori forms that are constitutive of the world. Thus, the world is ordered according to a priori categories. So we perceive what we are prepared to perceive. (But, of course, it is bunkum.) /M. Winther

Mlw wrote: According to Kant, we wouldn't be able to experience time and cause if it weren't for the a priori forms that are constitutive of the world. Thus, the world is ordered according to a priori categories. So we perceive what we are prepared to perceive. (But, of course, it is bunkum.) /M. Winther

I don't think that is quite how I would put it. Rather it is that we can only make sense of the various impressions we get of the world because we already have a certain cognitive framework in place. It isn't that the world is ordered that way, it is that we are.

Kants' take was not just that this framework/order is true 'a priori', but that it was itself 'synthetic', because as far as we are concerned it is the world of experience. (As opposed to 'synthetic' being to do with the supposed source of that experience; something it is pointless to speculate about since we can never know things other than via our own consciousness).

Londoner wrote:

Mlw wrote: According to Kant, we wouldn't be able to experience time and cause if it weren't for the a priori forms that are constitutive of the world. Thus, the world is ordered according to a priori categories. So we perceive what we are prepared to perceive. (But, of course, it is bunkum.) /M. Winther

I don't think that is quite how I would put it. Rather it is that we can only make sense of the various impressions we get of the world because we already have a certain cognitive framework in place. It isn't that the world is ordered that way, it is that we are.

Kants' take was not just that this framework/order is true 'a priori', but that it was itself 'synthetic', because as far as we are concerned it is the world of experience. (As opposed to 'synthetic' being to do with the supposed source of that experience; something it is pointless to speculate about since we can never know things other than via our own consciousness).

Of course, without causal lines, there couldn't be any perception at all. /Mats

Instead of quoting your recent quotations...

As a psychologist I have a task for you. Deeply unlogical and unphilosophical, so prepare for something truly disturbing, probably first such a game on philosophical boards.

Hereby, I choose three random people, let's call them Consul, Londoner and Mlw. I force you to come to some emotional conclusion within a period of 10 days and number of 100 posts. By emotional conclusion I mean that you'll have to post similarly-sounding posts (in logic and generally understood tone).

The task is godlike. By godlike task I mean the task that must be fulfilled in order to please the god. So, questioning the rules or their general uncoherency is not available.

As a god I require you to use all your available brain/body quirks to fulfill the task. Remember, it's just for this game.

Other members will rate your results and approach.

Remember, the task is to come to agreement.

Have fun.

EMTe

By emotional conclusion I mean that you'll have to post similarly-sounding posts (in logic and generally understood tone)...

Remember, the task is to come to agreement.

Which?

Because despite differences in opinion, I think the tone in this thread has remained generally respectful, using arguments and not insults.

With one exception:

EMTe

Are you some sort of fundamentalist Christian troll?