2 replies to this topic

[Darkademic]

How can you know anything that isn't based on experience? Well, you can't. Objectivism rightly rejects the a priori/a posteriori dichotomy as it recognizes that all knowledge is dependant on experience.

[Twilight]

Indeed.

The a priori/a posteriori distinction is linked to the analytic/synthetic dichotomy which Kant (amongst others) went into great detail about. Philosophers such as he believe analytic truths are a priori (they are justified independent of any experience) while synthetic truths are known a posteriori (they are justified in virtue of experience). Objectivism rejects a priori truths altogether, and holds that all knowledge, including mathematical knowledge, is about the world (though possibly at some very high level of abstraction or quantization). Justification always terminates in the evidence of the senses.

[Darkademic]

I've been having a little debate about this at the forums on thestudentroom.co.uk. Some Oxbridge students are jabbering about the existence of a priori knowledge and skepticism.

One of them doesn't even think he's ever experienced the law of non-contradiction . It really makes me lose faith in the whole education system when the supposed brightest young minds are coming out with that. One also thinks that Kant can be wrong, yet not be nonsense at the same time.