What is Synthetic A Priori |
- Both are the way you know something.
| A Priori | A Posteriori |
| Pure | Experience |
| Transcendental | Empirical |
| Before Experience | After Experience |
| Formal | Sensory |
| Is NOT innate... but you don't need experience. |
Understanding Analytic and Synthetic
- Both are rooted in Linguistics
| Analytic | Synthetic |
| - Adds nothing to what you know | - Adds something to what you know |
| - Non Expansive | - Expansive |
| - Explains the predicates | - Adds to the predicates |
| ?? Are all A Priori | ?? Verified with Experience |
"Reason" versus "Understanding"
| Reason | Understanding |
| A Priori | A Posteriori |
| No Space and Time | Space and Time |
| Transcendental Ideas (Psycho, Cosmo, Theo) | The Categories |
| Always Presented in Experience | |
| Always Confirmed by Experience |
Understanding Transcendental
Ideas
| Transcendental Ideas |
| - Are about everything, but they aren't anything specific. |
| - Are like a variable in an equation. X represents every number, but is not a specific number. |
| - Explain Understanding and what comes out of the meat grinder, but they never come out of the meat grinder. |
| - Are outside of Space and Time |
| - Are necessary, but useless |
Examples of Synthetic A Priori |
1. Experience
|
V
2. SPACE AND TIME -> 3. THE CATEGORIES -> 4. The Final Product
(The meat Grinder) (The holes on Grinder)
We start with Experience. We put experience in the context of Space and Time. The Categories are the 12 holes on a meat grinder where the meat comes out. After experience is filtered through the categories, we get a final product that we are able to understand.
1.a. Space doesn't exist.
1.b. Thus, there is no experience of space to base geometry on.
1.c. Hence, Geometry is Analytic.
2. All other forms of Math are Synthetic.
Since you don't need experience to know math, it is a priori (before experience). Thus, Math is Synthetic A Priori.
Understanding Math with Intuition
1. Empirical Intuition sees all the chicken qualities, like fluffy,
chirps and yellow.
2. Pure Reason says, "Something Must be behind those qualities,
but I know not what."
3. Pure Intuition sees the chicken through the space-time meat
grinder, which is not empirical.
A. Empirical Intuition creates an object that resembles the object
we want.
B. Pure Intuition studies that anticipated object before the
real impressions of that object are presented.
- The Forms make A & B possible.
Understanding Natural Sciences with Judgments
1. In science, our representations of the outside are represented
with judgements.
2. There are two types of Judgments:
| Judgments of Perceptions | Judgments of Experience |
| - Are organized through the associations of the ideas they produce | - Are organized by the understanding. |
| - Individual | - Universal |
| - Data Collection | - Theoretical Laws |
3. Both types of Judgments are about Synthetic things, but done a priori.
4.a. How do these 2 Judgments work together?
4.b. We start out with ideas that are Judgments of Perceptions.
They are organized by associations.
4.c. This is the original meat we want to put in the grinder.
These are individual ideas and unique to you.
4.d. All of these ideas go into our understanding.
4.e. Somehow, our understanding forms Judgments of Experience.
How?
4.f. The ideas go through the space/time meat grinder (which
is universal) and come out the 12 categories.
4.g. This process gives us judgements of experience.
4.h. The laws that govern this process are universal.... but
the instances of the laws are individual.
5. When you cut off the meat to this machine, understanding is able to look at the Space Time meat grinder and the Categories. This is Reason.
- According to the rules of Pure Reason.
- Requires the 12 categories.
?? How do Transcendental Ideas allow Synthetic A Prioris to exist??
More Epistemology |
1. We have the knowledge of something.
2. Under what conditions is this knowledge possible?
1. A Sensible Object is run through the meat grinder (the categories)
to produce a concept.
2. This concept is compared with the concepts from the categories.
3. This comparison gives us the truth value.
- Both.
- The mind is conditioning experience.
- Expirience is informing the mind.
1.a. You never perceive matter that is not formed....
1.b. But you can separate Form and Matter in your mind.
1.c. Similarly, you will never perceive objects that are separated
from Space and Time
1.d. But, you can separate Space/Time from Objects in your mind.
2.a. You have a pass to unlimited use of every gym in the world.
2.b. That doesn't necessarily mean that there is a gym....
2.c. But, you know that if you ever find a gym, you will need
your pass to get in.
2.d. Space and Time are similar to your pass.
2.e. Space and Time don't necessarily imply that there are objects
in the world...
2.f. But, if you are ever going to perceive an object, you will
need Space and Time.
3.a. You have 3-D glasses.
3.b. Those 3-D glasses don't mean that there are any 3-D movies....
3.c. But you know that if you ever want to watch a 3-D movie,
you will need those glasses.
3.d. Space and Time are similar to those glasses.
3.e. Space and Time don't mean that there are any objects in
the world to perceive.
3.f. But, if you are ever going to perceive an object, you will
need Space and Time.
4. Space and Time are the meat grinder that we have to push all experience through.
5. Space and Time = Forms of Sensibility.
6. Forms of Sensibility are about the world, but not in the world. They are filters we see the world through.
7. Space and Time are universal.