A priori and a posteriori

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search
For other uses, see A priori (disambiguation) and A posteriori (disambiguation).
The Latin phrases a priori (lit. "from the earlier") and a posteriori (lit. "from the latter")
are philosophical terms of art popularized by Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (first
published in 1781, second edition in 1787), one of the most influential works in the history of
philosophy. However, in their Latin forms they appear in Latin translations of Euclid's Elements,
[1]

of about 300 BCE, a work widely considered during the early European modern period as the
model for precise thinking.
These terms are used with respect to reasoning (epistemology) to distinguish "necessary
conclusions from first premises" (i.e., what must come before sense observation) from
"conclusions based on sense observation" which must follow it. Thus, the two kinds
of knowledge, justification, or argument, may be glossed:

 A priori knowledge or justification is independent of experience, as with mathematics (3 +

2 = 5), tautologies ("All bachelors are unmarried"), and deduction from pure
reason (e.g., ontological proofs). [3]

 A posteriori knowledge or justification depends on experience or empirical evidence, as

with most aspects of science and personal knowledge.
There are many points of view on these two types of knowledge, and their relationship gives rise
to one of the oldest problems in modern philosophy.
The terms a priori and a posteriori are primarily used as adjectives to modify
the noun "knowledge" (for example, "a priori knowledge"). However, "a priori" is sometimes used
to modify other nouns, such as "truth". Philosophers also may use "apriority" and "aprioricity" as
nouns to refer (approximately) to the quality of being "a priori".
[4][not in citation given]

Although definitions and use of the terms have varied in the history of philosophy, they have
consistently labeled two separate epistemological notions. See also the related
distinctions: deductive/inductive, analytic/synthetic, necessary/contingent.