lancek4 wrote:Perhaps Ill type a little about my position here (which is up for debate).
In other words: time and space are the only 'things' which exist a priori analytically, that have no object with which knowledge must reconcile; they exist 'prior' to any necessary correspondant object or knowledge, but are complicit with knowledge's existing.
I disagree, I believe that for each individual there is no such thing as a priori knowledge. We are all born a blank slate except for some basic instincts. All knowledge we are given from day one seems to be a priori because it is taught to us from books, etc., from sources external to us and we each do not test it empirically, until college with Chem Lab. But in fact it is not a priori because someone else tested it (empirical) which is why it was written down as fact (knowledge). I argue that all that has not been tested empirically is not actually knowledge but merely belief being called knowledge because it's the best guess at the time.
Time is a construct of mans mind and as such is a posteriori, in that it is created 'after' the fact of mans inability; "Kant saw that the mind could not function as an empty container that simply receives data from the outside. Something had to be giving order to the incoming data." Time is an 'unavoidable framework of the human mind' because of this inability.
a priori = from the earlier
a posteriori = from the later
So when you say a priori knowledge you are saying knowledge from the earlier which indicates to me that you're saying that it pre-existed as in books but those whom wrote the book wrote their finding, which was a posteriori to their work.
So from which perspective should we see knowledge? That of it's origin or that of our own particular moment of being apprised. I guess that, truthfully, from the individuals standpoint, we do not 'actually' know that which we are told/taught, but rather we only believe it, because we are merely told that it's in fact, knowledge.
If there is an Absolute Truth one of two things are possible:
i cannot speak of it except to say that it may exist and if it does then this is all I can say of it.
Or
Discourse is self contradictory.
Lance, I'm just not as black/white as you. I only believe in a gray-scale. I would say that many things are possible, that it would depend on the AbTr in question, and finally, that discourse is sometimes contradictory.
This is so much to say, first, that in so much as the above statement is true, it is absolutly true. And that this is the
conditionof knowledge and thus reality.
while I see a particular issue which it seems Kant did not see, I understand him when he says that there is no knowledge that is not derived from the Subject.
Here I would say that it's a combination of subject and object. While the subject cannot become the object thus knowing it 100%, it can measure the object against other objects including the subject as an object. This associative comparison while not 100% can give various percentages of knowing depending upon that which is measured/weighed. Of course AbTr is 100% unbiased knowledge. In addition I believe it difficult for the subject to nullify the bias of itself in knowing itself, such that it could be said that many subjects don't even truly know themselves, let alone that which is external.
To allow for practicality of life and existance, he thus sees that if this primary truth is true, then even that which appears objective is but a representation for the Subject. thus he delieates 'analytical' and 'synthetical' knowledge.
I have researched his 'analytical' and 'synthetical' knowledge and as yet do not necessarily buy into this concept. I will further explore, but for now, I find it questionable.
I have found that it seems that in some cases some would be philosophers try and split hairs so as to arise at some deeper philosophical understanding through word smithing but upon close scrutiny yields only a thesis of illusion.
Because Kant still resided in a 'fixed' universe of Absolutes, his system lacks. Though he saw that all knowledge must be of the Subject, and that there is no a priori Object in-itself that we can know, he failed to explain how he could have such a purchase upon Reason itself.
I'll have to get back to you on this
He may have missed that such Absolute Truth would coincide with a priori analytic, and that once such a truth is spoken about it is moved into the synthetic. which is to say that Kant could propose his Critique because 'Pure Reason' was somehow still understood as an object obtainable through reason, as if reason can analyize itself and get somewhere. Kant was 'allowed' by the condition of knowledge at his time, to posit 'Pure Reason' by which he could obtain a Critique; his was "Pure Reason's critique", a critique that stemmed from the Absolute a priori that he called "Pure Reason", because that is the only Object that must exist unmediated by knowledge: knowledge itself as that by which we come upon our existance -- complcit with time and space.
Yet Wittgenstein saw the problem with such an apporach. He saw that as soon as we begin to speak of the Object as if it has some Absolution of-itself or in-itself, such knowledge becomes synthetical and thus loses the quality that is asserted and hoped for in the assertion of Absolution.
When we understand what Witt came upon, in reflection we can see that the condition of knowledge for Kant was such that the potential for Absolute Truth in knowledge was real, that indeed there Was an absolute, and we can confidently look back and call this - drawing from our benefit of what for Kant would be a "later history' - "colonialism". It is not a difficult task to see the result of Kant's kind of systemic orientaion upon the world: obviously what he was thinking and considering was TRUE - and the facade of such a proclaimation upon humanity crumbled when humanity got a good reflection of itself in the examples of Africa, America and India, in the attempt of one ideology ( the 'must be obviously True) enforcing itself upon another.
Indeed, it is the same type of enforcment of ideology which proclaims its Truth for everyone, and is what necessitated Friere, speaking about South American opppression much later, to explicate the reality of ideological domination and how such 'colonialist' effort works through economic and educational manipulation. The oppressed 'think' that what they have learned is 'obviously true' because of the oppressor's regimine of educating. The discourse of 'freedom' falls under such a rubric.
Yet we cannot merely dismiss ourselves from this condition. Thus the real philosophical problem of our time.
I think I finally see that you're here in the Metaphysics forum primarily for Epistemology, while I'm here more for Cosmology.
In this particular thread, at one point, Bill finally alluded to the size of the cosmos, such that I thought that was his aim. If I was mistaken and in fact he did so to humor me (or another), then I revert back to his original ambiguous initial post, and as such all things could be considered, in truth.
You'll get no argument from me that colonialism sucks. As I believe that the only life anyone has complete dominion over is their own, such that if you want to point a weapon at yourself, you have every right and you're brave, but if you want to point it at someone else you're wrong and a coward.
Ahhhhh. Whew! My thumbs hurt.
That's a phone you're using, buy a real computer! 
