Results 1 to 13 of 51
-
12-25-2012, 07:08 PM #1
Regular Guest
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Posts
- 391
There are no known instances of one reasoning to new knowledge of the world a priori
Peikoff: "The theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy presents men with the following choice: If your statement is proved, it says nothing about that which exists; if it is about existents, it cannot be proved. If it is demonstrated by logical argument, it represents a subjective convention; if it asserts a fact, logic cannot establish it. If you validate it by an appeal to the meanings of your concepts, then it is cut off from reality; if you validate it by an appeal to your percepts, then you cannot be certain of it".
-
12-25-2012, 11:05 PM #2
Professional Member
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
- Location
- CA
- Posts
- 211
huh
-
12-25-2012, 11:20 PM #3I draw all my schematics in crayon now. If they cannot always be correct, they can at least be colorful.
Service calls submitted after 3PM will be posted the next business day.
I give free estimates [Wild Ass Guesses] over the phone.
I am not in business to make money from other people so that I can afford to work for you for free.
If the fall is over, mmmm let's say, 6 feet or so,.. I do not 'bounce' very well.
-
12-25-2012, 11:29 PM #4
You may know what I don't know, but not that I don't know it, and I can't tell you, so you will have to tell me all.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what will never be. (Thomas Jefferson 1816)
-
12-26-2012, 04:02 AM #5I draw all my schematics in crayon now. If they cannot always be correct, they can at least be colorful.
Service calls submitted after 3PM will be posted the next business day.
I give free estimates [Wild Ass Guesses] over the phone.
I am not in business to make money from other people so that I can afford to work for you for free.
If the fall is over, mmmm let's say, 6 feet or so,.. I do not 'bounce' very well.
-
12-26-2012, 07:56 AM #6
Regular Guest
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Posts
- 391
5488², the analytic - synthetic distinction was recognised by Kant after reading Hume's Enquiry - it is his response to how Hume differentiated between knowledge a priori and knowledge a posteriori - that is knowledge attained through thinking alone (a priori) and then experiential knowledge of what actually exists out there in the universe (a posteriori).
Hume observed that propositions, which are the only things that can be true or false, are of two kinds: Relations of ideas and Matters of Fact.
Relations of ideas are true by mere definition such as "a bachelor is an unmarried man". Hume said the same of Euclid's postulates making Euclidean Geometry an arbitrary human construct not true of the world out there (it offers up no propositions reaching outside of itself just like the rules of chess are only true within the game itself but not of the world out there). Propositions are comprised of subject and predicate.
Matters of fact are contingent upon the way the world is for their truth so "snow is white" cannot be arbitrarily defined by humans but must be observed out there in the world. Sure, we can arbitrarily name light of different wave lengths whatever we like - but that snow is found associated with a particular wavelength is not something man could stamp on the world by mere definition and is instead something man must discover.
Kant then said that if to know the truth of a proposition one must only analyse it to see whether the predicate is already contained within the subject then it is an analytic proposition which if true then is true only because we humans have made it so. Kant would say that to know whether all bachelors are unmarried men one does not have to go out into the world asking every bachelor if they are also unmarried - one only has to analyse the words.
Kant also then said that to know the truth of a synthetic proposition such as "snow is white" which is in fact comprised of two independent concepts (ways of organising the world) one cannot analyse the words alone but instead is forced to go out into the world and discover the truth or falsity of that which is claimed by the proposition since the proposition is a synthesis of two different concepts.
Both Hume and Kant agreed that common sense and intuition had nothing at all to offer about how the universe out there might be. Common sense and intuition had told us, for instance, that the sun orbits the earth and that heavier objects fall to the ground, even in a vacuum, faster than lighter objects and so on and so on.
-
12-26-2012, 08:12 AM #7
I feel smarter already.
Oh wait, the short term memory thing kicked in again. Back to normal.Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. Mark Twain
-
12-26-2012, 09:15 AM #8If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what will never be. (Thomas Jefferson 1816)
-
12-26-2012, 10:26 AM #9
Professional Member
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
- Location
- CA
- Posts
- 211
-
12-26-2012, 01:25 PM #10
Love it when we get some hippie who is feeling insecure to the point they need to quote some liberal egghead's drivel as if it was their own or to make people think they are intellectuals. Do a little research into these bastions of brain power and you'll see just how screwed up they were. Useless threads.
Keep the fire inside the fireplace.
-
12-26-2012, 01:33 PM #11
Just ignore the OP thermophysics. She's my mother in law.
She Kant help herself.
-
12-26-2012, 01:37 PM #12
She's always this way when she smokes marijuanica.
Her next post will be about christmas cake, her favorite "munchie".
-
12-26-2012, 01:40 PM #13"I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle."
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them."
Barry Goldwater


Reply With Quote
