What is the meaning of A Priori? Concept, Definition of A Priori

Concept of A Priori

In Western philosophy since the time of Immanuel Kant, knowledge that is independent of all the particular experiences, as opposed to knowledge a posteriori, which derives from the experience.Latin phrases a priori ("what is before") and a posteriori ("what's after") were originally used in philosophy to distinguish between arguments of causes and effects arguments.

Immanuel Kant, print published in London, 1812.

Is the first recorded appearance of the phrases in the writings of the 14th century of Alberto de Sajonia.Here, an argument that a priori is said to be "of causes for the effect" and an argument a posteriori "from effects to causes'.Similar definitions were given by many subsequent philosophers up to and including G.W. Leibniz, and expressions still occur sometimes with these meanings in contexts not philosophical.Must remember that the medieval logicians use the word «cause» corresponding to aitia of Aristotle's syllogistic one-way and do not necessarily mean by prius something earlier in time.This point is extruded by the use of the phrase demonstratio propter quid ("demonstration due to the") as an equivalent for demonstratio a priori and quia demonstratio ("manifestation that, or because") as an equivalent for demonstratio posteriori.Therefore, the reference is obviously to the Aristotle distinction between knowledge of the Earth or explanation of something and the knowledge of the mere fact of.

Immanuel Kant, published printing in London, 1812.[Credit: Photos.com/Jupiterimages] 

Latent in this distinction for Kant is the antithesis between the necessary truth and contingent truth.The first applies to the judgments a priori, that is coming regardless of experience and sustained universally;The latter applies to judgments a posteriori, that depend on the experience and must therefore recognize possible exceptions.In his critique of pure reasonKantuses these distinctions, in part, to explain the special case of mathematical knowledge, which he regarded as the key example of knowledge a priori.

Although the use of a priori to distinguish knowledge as we have in mathematics is relatively recent, the interest of philosophers in that kind of knowledge is almost as old as philosophy itself.Nobody is disconcerting that one can acquire information looking, feeling, or listening, but that philosophers who have taken seriously the possibility of learning by mere thought have often considered that this requires a special explanation.Plato maintained in his Meno and in his Phaedo that learning of the geometric truths was just the memory of knowledge in a previous existence, when we contemplate the eternal ideas or forms, directly.Augustine and his medieval followers, sympathized with intentions of Plato, but unable to accept the details of his theory, declare that the ideas are in the mind of God, that occasionally gave intellectual illumination to humans.René Descartes, going further in the same direction, argued that all ideas necessary for a knowledge were a priori innate in every human mind.For Kant the puzzle was to explain the possibility of judgments a priori that were also synthetic (i.e. not merely explanatory concepts) and the solution proposed was the doctrine of space, time and the categories (e.g. causality), on which we have been able to do such trials, they were forms imposed by the mind in the things of experience.

In each of these theories, the possibility of a priori knowledge is explained by a suggestion that we have an opportunity for the study of the subject matter of that knowledge.The same conception is also repeated in theory not very Platonic of knowledge a priori, first enunciated by Thomas Hobbes in his De Corpore and adopted in the 20th century by the logical empiricists.According to this theory, the States of necessity can be a priori because you are simply byproducts of our own rules for the use of the language.In the 1970s American philosopher Saul Kripke challenged point of view Kantian by the persuasive argument that there are propositions that are necessarily true but known only a posteriori and propositions that are true but a priori by contingent way, knowable.

Let's say for example:

There are animals such as "stingrays", which have a receptive capacity that allows them to "see" the television; certainly we don't know properly how is the representation that they have, but what is certain, is that you can see the images reproduced there. It was also right to say that there are animals that perceive different colors of that man perceives. Well using the previous information, and knowing the nature of the representation by the intuition can make the following judgment a priori: there are phenomena in nature that, through sensible intuition, we never see; There are colors, smells, textures, figures, flavors that only we will be given to the extent of our sensitive development. The concepts will have to have the same fate?

This is apparently sad; as equally sad is the assertion that an invalid - which does not have legs-, you can never kill "kicking his wife", as the famous historian, Diógenes Laércio that Periander, one of the seven sages of the ancient Greece.

Although you can draw certain conclusions and against argue the claim that there are certain people who have a special "gift" to develop this or that activity, arguing that only and simply it is a sensibility more developed in one of the forms of sensitivity (space or time) that allows a more refined than any representation. Then, if you are aware of the sensitive disposition to any activity, we have as a trial or knowledge a priori, that if we we exercise even more certainly will open the doors to other perceptions. The popular saying, "practice makes perfect", but why? could it be perhaps that just increases the intuition of space and time?
Certainly this series of considerations are encouraging if we take into account that intuition can develop, and therefore achieve one skill much greater in any area.
René Descartes, for its part, pointed out that the reason has independence from the experience. This implies that there is a knowledge that is innate (i.e., a priori), as he explained with his famous phrase "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am").

Synthetic judgments a priori, finally, are those linked with the logic (such as "climb up"). In contrast, trials are ex post empirical and are only valid for particular cases, since they are checked with the experience ("Buenos Aires women talk more than men").
In addition to the mentioned can establish, in the same way, the term that is used as the name of a company of theatre management that began at the end of the 1990s under orders from Joseba García, Member of the Fuegos Fatuos company, and Julio Perugorría, a professional in the theatrical world with a great experience in the same.