a posteriori and a priori | The Philosophy Student

So, what is the difference between the terms a posteriori and a priori?

a posteriori: after experience.

a priori: independent of experience.

a posteriori knowledge depends on a justification of experience, to that which is contigent.

Example: a posteriori knowledge is that Canberra is the national capital city of Australia, or that your PC is on your desk.

a priori knowledge is that which is necessary and independent of experience.

Example: 2 + 2 = 4 or knowing that all bachelors are unmarried men.

Having said this, American philosopher Saul Kripke, argued that there are contigent truths that can be known a priori, as well as, necessary truths that are only discovered a posteriori.

What the Bleep Do We Know!? | The Philosophy Student

"All I know is I know nothing." - Socrates

This is so true!

 

I'll give you one example:

A close friend and I chatted on the phone recently. He has a degree in psychology, and was studying science in order to study medicine, so you know, a very intelligent guy. He is currently studying computer science, and at the start of the academic year, we got to catch up at university. This friend is one to be scientific, logical, and coming from an academic point of view, he is very knowledgeable. He's the kind of guy who thinks about anything and everything! And he often brings me up to speed on many current topics as I'm usually thinking my stuff through and not doing much research on recent issues. So, I'm somewhat naive in the sense of current affairs but I have, generally, a good philosophical understanding having had some time to think things through.

I mentioned to my friend that I had recently watched the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know!? and he did a quick search on wikipedia, as he had not heard of it before. Now, I must say that I don't normally do too much research when it comes to to a TV series, film, documentary, or other videos before I watch them. I may watch the trailer, do a bit of scoping for some other information and kinda get a "feel" for it. I then decide on this general feeling if I want to watch it or not. If I was interested in learning something new, I'd watch a documentary with the idea that it would be factual. So, up until recently, I had thought that all documentaries were non-fiction, but as it turns out, they are often based on opinions and they tend to have biases.

So, I thought I had learnt a grander picture of things, with the kind of meaningful stuff I crave, in the pragmatism of the scientific enterprise...but no. It was only pseudoscience.

At the end of it, I knew that I knew nothing.

 

Note: Further study required.