Linked Questions

5 votes
7 answers
5k views

Is it possible to have an original thought and express it in english?

Given that we have learned English and all the words are defined for us, is any combination of words we string together and speak/write an original thought? Or since all the definitions of words ...
M. Aykens's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Did Kant consider Newtonian mechanics a priori?

Did Kant take Newtonian physics as being synthetic a priori? I get the feeling he did. If he did, how did he justify this, it seems like a huge blunder for such a careful thinker. I mean... Kant ...
Ameet Sharma's user avatar
  • 2,823
6 votes
2 answers
790 views

If one agrees with Quine's dissolution of the Analytic/Synthetic distinction, what is left of Kant's epistemology?

One of Kant's most important (if not the most important) result is his argument (proof?) that synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. If one agrees with Quine's argument against Analyticity as ...
Alexander S King's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
349 views

Does the postmodern rejection of "Grand Narratives" have anything to do with "First Principles" argumentation?

I've developed a recent interest in the distinction between "data-driven" argumentation and argumentation in the context of "First Principles", or a priori starting points. Among the various ...
JacobIRR's user avatar
  • 399
5 votes
3 answers
208 views

If knowledge is structural, does "confirmation bias" follow of necessity?

That 'knowledge' is structural is fairly uncontroversial. Although there are certainly different types, I would like for sake of this question to characterize (what I see as) a generalization of the ...
christo183's user avatar
  • 2,373
4 votes
2 answers
159 views

Why is Hume struggling to reconcile causality with his notion of what is knowable?

This is a follow-up on my earlier question. Regarding causality as involving "a necessary connection between cause and effect" In what sense was Hume struggling to reconcile the "necessity' with his ...
user43583's user avatar
  • 288
1 vote
4 answers
639 views

How can we reach or realize the truth when our senses fail us?

Let us suppose that I'm phoning someone abducted or kidnapped and the criminal who kidnapped him is aiming the gun at his head and ordering him to lead me to the trap he has set for me (in this case ...
K. M.'s user avatar
  • 207
4 votes
1 answer
268 views

Did Poincaré misunderstand the nature of a priori truth?

In his article "On the Foundations of Geometry", Poincaré goes through an extensive discussion to establish that our experience of motion may be properly regarded as displacements. This is requisite ...
user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
210 views

Is it, a priori, more likely that an unknown object does not exist than that it does?

For me, intuitively the answer seems to be yes. But I don't know how this could be justified a priori. The hypothesis "x does not exist" seems not to be simpler than the hypothesis "x exists". By the ...
Max's user avatar
  • 171
1 vote
1 answer
79 views

Is the synthetic/analytic distinction about metaphysics?

Is the distinction between synthetic/analytic a claim about epistemology, ontology or something else altogether? Where can one read more about the stakes of the relevant arguments? I did read the The ...
joka's user avatar
  • 13
1 vote
0 answers
55 views

Do (any) philosophers worry if there can be a priori truths about a changing world?

Do (any) philosophers question how there can be a priori truths about a changing world -- has anyone worried whether this is possible, or if those different modes, of timeless truth and contingent ...
anon's user avatar
  • 185
1 vote
0 answers
38 views

What articles or books are currently considered canonical in the discussion of a priori knowledge and justification?

Quine's "Two Dogmas", I think, would be one. Perhaps also Putnam's "Is Logic Empirical". If you wanted to doubt the existence of a priori knowledge or justification on the basis of the apparently ...
just_asking_123's user avatar