Assess the view that no significant claims about what exists are known a priori.
June 2012 XM A priori knowledge is knowledge gained before experience. Some philosophers such as Descartes in his "Clear and Distinct" ideas have made massively important or meaningful suggestions based soley on a priori knowledge. Others, however, argue that perhaps a priori knowlege is not as important or useful as has been suggested. Descartes would describe mathematics as being synthetic a priori knowledge. He suggested that the fundamental basics of time and space are vital in understanding mathematics, such as the fact the 2 parralel lines will never meet, or 2+2=4. These are logical truths that apply in our universe independant of experience. These are also key components in furthering mathematical understanding, so surely it could be said that this is a priori knowledge is significant and important? Without this basic understanding of time and space it would be very difficult or impossible to live day to day life. Locke argued that concepts that are conceptually guaranteed truths are never informative. They are merely guaranteed to be true because of the structure of our concepts. "Those trifling propositions that have a certainty in them, but tis but a verbal certainty, but not instructive." (Locke, 1690, Book IV, Chapter VIII.). Lockes view here is that although propositions can have logical certainty, they are in no way useful, new or helpful. This is highly relevant to the significance of a priori knowledge because the statement completely undermines a priori knowledge's importance. Locke is a typical example of a philosopher that would hold the view that no significant claims about what exists are known a priori. The question which then logically follows is, "What is the importance of a statement such as all bachelors are unmarried?". The answer is very little, as Locke would suggest it is of mere verbal significance, but gives no new insight or understanding to anything. The statement is simply used as a logical way of proving a priori knowledge. Because being unmarried is a key component of being a "bachelor" (as set by human definition), it is a logically true statement. This doesn't offer any new knowledge, though. Locke would consider this to be a trivial, useless
statement of no purpose. Descartes suggested that God is a priori knowledge, which is of course, a significant claim about what exists as a known a priori. He said that because people have a conceptual understanding of a God(a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent being etc) independant of experience it therefore shows that God exists in the mind as a priori knowledge. He went on to say, to effect, that this proves the existance of God because (apparently) concept of an unexperienced something proves that somethings existance. This is open to criticism, as there are logically unprovable holes in this argument such as the assumption that concept of the unknown(in terms of empirical evidence) proves that unknown entities existance. Kant defined a priori concepts as having properties such as strict necessity and strict universality, because these properties can't be gained for certain empirically. For example, all mathematical propositions would then be a priori. They are known without or independant to reference to reality. Mathematics will remain true regardless of the existence of the world, or if reality is denied. Kant believed that mathematical truths are synthetic a priori knowledge. This means thats they are logically neccesary and universal, but they are known through pure intuition. The knowledge isn't gained through experience, but is synthetic a priori which means that it provides new knowledge independant of any experience. This was one of the parts in Kant's key arguments for transcendental idealism, which he founded. Transcendental idealism suggests that humans experience the external world in a way which is similar to how it actually is, but not identically the same. Kant claimed in "Transcendental Aesthetic" that mathematical judgements are synthetic a priori, and concepts of Space and Time are not from experience but are actually preconditions for this. That is to say, if you have a concept of space and time, synthetic a priori knowledge is needed for this capability. A priori propositions therefore are of significance because they show the necessary structure/experience of the world. They show what we know innately, so they are vital in in the explanation of human capacities which are otherwise inexplicable. Also, a priori statements or propositions are
made more significant because they remain true regardless of doubts of individuals in terms of the senses.
