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In my intro to philosophy class, our teacher presented us with "Kant's revolutionary thesis":

There are synthetic a priori propositions. They must be [necessarily are] true without appealing to experience (i.e. they are a priori) yet the predicate is not logically contained within the subject (i.e. they are synthetic).

I assume Hume would not have accepted this but on what lines could he have replied to Kant? ...I may need a plain English explanation.

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    Hume died in 1776, Critique of Pure Reason came out in 1781, so he couldn't reply. Kant assumed that Hume would accept his synthetic a priori "if he only paid attention to mathematics", you assume the opposite (not clear why), and generally, who knows. You can look at Hume's Answer to Kant by Falkenstein for a reconstruction based on passages from Hume's Treatise I.iii.8-13, which Kant likely haven't read. But it is more of a rebuttal of Kant's criticisms than a reply to his proposal.
    – Conifold
    Nov 26, 2019 at 4:25
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    Do correct "their are". Nov 26, 2019 at 5:40
  • I've corrected it for him. Best - Geoff
    – Geoffrey Thomas
    Nov 26, 2019 at 9:00
  • @Conifold Kant definitely didn't read the Treatise, because he speculates about Hume putting some propositions of geometry into question if he considered if they're possible under his empiricist theory. And, indeed, Hume does that. Yet Kant only speculates that he would've certainly done so, given his general philosophical orientation, had he thought about that, which in my opinion is quite conclusive evidence that Kant didn't read the Treatise, but only the Enquiry. Mar 21 at 9:19
  • And Falkenstein's article is quite bad, honestly. I think it misrepresents Kant at many points. He gives many Kantian distinctions (ex. subjective/objective) that he invokes a common-sensical meaning whereas they have a precise and consistent meaning in Kant's text. Mar 22 at 23:31

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