tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30289778.post2848123335868966332..comments2023-12-01T00:34:23.424-05:00Comments on Knowledge and Experience: A Priori, Empirically ConfirmedEvelyn Bristerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016286150526911445noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30289778.post-86805379961551142862010-07-07T18:50:40.640-04:002010-07-07T18:50:40.640-04:00Nick, that's a nice point about how the use of...Nick, that's a nice point about how the use of "a priori" remains current but the meaning has changed as naturalism has become a widespread philosophical stance. (Though the PhilPapers survey, if one trusts it, indicates that not all of our tribe are naturalists even now--only half are, and I count myself among them.) <br /><br />Although part of me wants to recognize how nice it is that some scientists (or science journalists) show their cleverness by making a reference to philosophy, I can't help but think that it also displays a certain flipness toward philosophical concepts and their meaning. After all, if the a priori concept of absolute space is subject to support or disconfirmation, it has *already* been disconfirmed--but by relativity theory and the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries.Evelyn Bristerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17016286150526911445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30289778.post-89205674470239768762010-07-07T16:20:33.847-04:002010-07-07T16:20:33.847-04:00I take it the sardonic tone in your comments is en...I take it the sardonic tone in your comments is enough to divine your position on the matter. :) I totally agree.<br /><br />Kant was, of course, basically uninterested in the development of our concepts and intuitions. He was more concerned with their necessity and/or universality. AS you note, if a mind develops a faculty then it cannot be universal or necessary.<br /><br />I think, though, that this quote reflects a change in the way people use the term "a priori". Both the average intellectual and sophisticated philosophers (see Penelope Maddy's "Second Philosophy") are less concerned with the necessity of a priori terms because they think that naturalism is true and that no interesting fact about the world is a priori in Kant's sense.Vanitashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03190524739107446297noreply@blogger.com