Publius wrote:
> "galathaea"
gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1168493074.862410.203640@p59g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
>
> Hmmm. Let me see if I can annoy you both.
Tertium datur!
>> I am claiming that Kant believes a priori knowledge is not contingent.
>> I have been quoting to support this position.
>
> Synthetic a priori knowledge is not contingent. It is true in all possible
> worlds *which we can conceive*. But it is wise to avoid the term "absolute."
> The term is ambiguous, and on some interpretations would be construed to
> refer to the noumenal realm, which (for Kant) is unknowable, or to all
> worlds whatsoever, including those which are inconceivable to us. Which of
> course is vacuous. Such truths are *synthetic* simply because their truth
> does not rest entirely upon the meanings of the terms involved. But they are
> *a priori* because we cannot conceive them being false.
>
> 1 point for you, Galathaea.
I like this! So I can strut around saying apriori knowledge is not
contingent. Call it step 1 in my alleged proof or demonstration.
=)
>> I have agreed that I believe synthetic reasoning cannot be shown
>> to be true or false through purely analytic means. I disagree that
>> this
>> means we can know our space is Euclidean through a priori synthetic
>> judgements, and then discover our space is nonEuclidean also through
>> a priori synthetic judgements. The synthetic discovers the truth, but
>> truth doesn't change for Kant.
>
> As far as I can recall, Kant never mentions the term "Euclidean Geometry."
> He certainly does not claim that every theorem of Euclidean Geometry is a
> synthetic a priori truth. He does claim that the "fundamental proposition[s]
> of pure geometry" (such as a straight line is the shortest distance between
> two points) are SAP. The controversy over the 5th postulate was not a lively
> issue when Kant wrote, and was not likely before his mind. Had he been aware
> of that controversy he might have suggested that only the theorems of
> absolute geometry (those portions which do not depends on the 5th postulate)
> would qualify as synthetic a priori. Obviously, we can indeed conceive of
> worlds wherein the parallel postulate is false.
>
> You lose your point, Galathaea!
It is crucial to stress that Kant does stress consequences, like the
one
I quoted. I will reinsert it here again:
(p 67)
" If we consider the properties of the circle, by which this figure
combines in itself so many arbitrary determinations of space
in a universal rule, we cannot avoid attributing a constitution
to this geometrical thing. Two straight lines, for example, which
intersect each other and the circle, howsoever they may be
drawn, are always divided so that the rectangle constructed
with the segments of the one is equal to that constructed with
the segments of the other. The question now is: Does this
law lie in the circle or the understanding? That is, does this
figure, independently of the understanding, contain in itself the
ground of the law; or does the understanding, having constructed
according to its concepts (of the equality of the radii) the figure
itself, introduce into it this law of the chords intersecting in
geometrical proportion? When we follow the proofs of this law,
we soon perceive that it can only be derived from the condition
on which the understanding founds the construction of this
figure, namely, the concept of the equality of radii. But if we
enlarge this concept to pursue further the unity of various
properties of geometrical figures under the common laws and
consider the circle as a conic section, which of course is
subject to the same fundamental conditions of construction as
other conic sections, we shall find that all the chords which
intersect within the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola always
intersect so that the rectangles of segments are not indeed
equal but always bear a constant ratio to one another. If we
proceed still farther to the fundamental teachings of astronomy,
we find a physical law of reciprocal attraction applicable to
all material nature, the rule of whichis that it decreases
inversely as the square of its distance from each attracting
point, that is, as the spherical surfaces increases over which
this force spreads, which law seems to be necessarily inherent
in the very nature of things, and hence is usually propounded
as knowable a priori. Simple as the sources of this law are,
merely resting on the relation of spherical surfaces of different
radii, its consequences are so valuable with regard to the
variety and simplicity of their agreement that not only are all
possible orbits of the celestial bodies conic sections, but
such a relation of these orbits to one another results that no
other law of attraction than that of inverse square of the distance
can be imagined as fit for a cosmical system.
Here accordingly is nature, which rests upon laws the understanding
knows a priori, and chiefly from the universal principles of the
determination of space."
Yes. It's a rough spot for Kant, a place where he believed something
a priori that actually was a posteriori. One could imagine it
otherwise.
It was contingent.
So Kant's ability to distinguish a priori from a posteriori comes as an
immediate question. What is the criteria?
How does a priori synthetic differ from a posteriori synthetic, to
Kant?
This is where I am saying his error lays. He does not have a valid
criteria. Experienced logic might be quantum logic, and only
approximate the boolean models of the past for large collections
of matter. Experienced geometry could be noneuclidean.
Experienced numerosity could be stochastic. These are now known
to be a posteriori, only after we realised how to conceive of them
otherwise.
The classical concepts fail bisimulation with experience
when resolution increased.
Everything seems a priori until we learn to think otherwise.
The Modern Convergence has a different explanation. It says we
don't have an intuition, we have a nervous system. The categories
of our perception, the concepts and their dynamics, is described
in terms of signal processing models of neural function.
In the Modern Convergence everything is a posteriori.
>> This is why I bring up his monovalence.
>
> That term is something of a postmodernist jargon word. Outside that clique
> its meaning is nebulous. Could you clarify the meaning you attach to it?
It means the belief in "One True Model" (patent pending). In this
belief,
"existence is".
Here, I mean model in the meaning of Tarski.
A model removes all ambiguity from the specification language,
experience.
All derivations of the model's language are mapped into the ontology,
constants becoming subontological parts.
Belief in One True Model is a primary part of believing in the a
priori.
Sincet bisimulations may not be able to resolve the One True Model
from other models with the same predictions, we have a noumena /
phenomena distinction.
Because Kant does not realise the cognitive connection between
languages and models, he completely misses the foundation on which
to build science and knowledge. Instead he offers an apology for
monovalence and provides an attempted explanation of how we
could come to know the phenomenological truths the One True
Model calculates.
But I will make this argument one agreed premise at a time.
>> He believes that we can discover facts of our world that are absolute
>> and a priori, through synthetic reasoning.
>
> Beware that term, "absolute." Kant does not use it in the contexts you do,
> or with the sense you seem to be giving it. SAPs are a priori *only because
> we cannot conceive them being false*. Kant is not implying omniscience or
> knowledge of the noumena.
Exactly, he is discussing the phenomenological truths. The experienced
language of the One True Model.
>
>> It might be possible that we could never have derived 1+1=2
>> analytically
>> from the concepts themselves, and required synthetic understanding
>> through our intuitions. Kant asserts just this. But Kant also asserts
>> that our experience has shown this must be the case apodictically.
>
> Yes.
But it had only shown it approximately. Because there is a way
numerosity can be quantum stochastic and approximately the
classical definiteness we experience. It is called the classical
limit and is the foundation on which quantum mechanics is viewed
as a deformation theory.
>> Kant also says that our geometric intuitions of space are derived from
>> a synthetic process. But those intuitions are apodictically true.
>
> "Geometric intuitions," yes. But not the parallel postulate.
And what is the criteria?
>> So maybe we know 1+1=2 is true apodictically, though? Except that
>> quantum field theory does not even allow a classical idea of number,
>> so that what might be measured as 1 electron might also be measured
>> as 2 electrons and an antielectron, or 3 electrons, an antielectron, an
>> antineutrino, an antineutron, and a proton...
>
> How best to quantify quantum phenomena (as with otherwise characterizing
> them) has nothing to do with 1+1=2. However those issues are eventually
> resolved, if the proffered theory does not presume that 1+1=2 it will be
> incoherent.
No it isn't. That is the whole point. Stochastic number theories have
a
rich structure. There are invariants that are maintained and in the
statistics. The models do give phenomenological predictions.
The dichotomy of apodictic or incoherent is false. The coherent
interpretation is awaiting immanentisation.
None of the challenged premises throw one into relativism. There
is still observed structure. It just throws away silly claims of a
priori.
>>> This is where I may diverge from Kant. There is a difference, which he
>>> does not seem aware of, of things being absolute, and things being
>>> objective. It is hard however, to see how the truth of 1 + 1 = 2 is
>>> going be anything other than unvarying so long as I can see. I will
>>> hold at the least it is objective: That is to say, it is independent
>>> of what I think about it, and is knowable, and applies with
>>> universality.
>
> Knucmo, you are making the same mistake as Galathaea re: "absolute."
>
>
>>> I have given quotations like:
>>> " Here is a great and established branch of knowledge, encompassing
>>> even now a wonderfully large domain and promissing an unlimited
>>> extension in the future, yet carrying with it thoroughly apodictic
>>> certainty, that is, absolute necessity, and therefore resting upon
>>> no empirical grounds. "
>
> There is an example, G. "Absolute necessity" is *not* equivalent to
> "absolute truth." The latter suggests implications which the former does
> not.
Exactly. I have tried to be explicitly clear, in my syllogism and in
an
earlier thread title ("stoicism or kant: the phenomenological struggle
for
metaphysics (orthodoxy and paradoxy)"), that this absoluteness is
of phenomenological truths. I am not making the error you think I am.
>>> Not relevant. I don't see how this relates whatsoever, as I have denied
>>> that my espousal of Kantian metaphysics entails Kantian ethics.
>
> There is no entailment. Both rest on SAPs, however.
Not just rest on them. Both derive on the assumption that one can know
them, and the assumption is based on an even more fundamental
assumption of monovalence. For Kant, the synthetic a priori gives one
an absolute (phenomenological) ground of certainty on which to build
these
structures of knowledge and moral wisdom.
I think one should beware those trying to sell certainty. I believe
there
are reasons of health to avoid thinking in terms of certainty. I
believe
that when one believes in one truth (even phenomenological, but I
think monovalence is often assumed), one has an excuse to do very
unhealthy things. Fundamentalists blow themselves up in crowds
or crash planes into buildings or invade middle eastern countries.
Most importantly, it's not a scientifically sound assumption.
But I want to take this one agreed upon step at a time.
So I ask you for my next premse:
What is the criteria to distinguish the synthetic a priori
from the synthetic a posteriori?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
galathaea: prankster, fablist, magician, liar
