We weren't even able to "forcibly impose" our values on rinky-dink third world countries like Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua even though we killed millions of people, mostly civilians, trying to do it. Generally, our interference has made things worse, e.g. our party in Iraq ended up sending millions of refugees into Europe. Just running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time overtaxed our armed forces.

This is a fair point; but don’t you think we have a duty to try?

If I take your argument seriously, then we should stop the Nazis if they were to stay in their own country; we shouldn’t stop North Korea from literally torturing their own people; etc.

We should want to expand western values as much as possible. Perhaps, in some situations, it is not feasible to go to all-out-war. I agree with that; but there’s others tactics we can deploy, which are equally imperialistic.

The fact that you would name countries like Iran, China and India in this list betrays an ignorance that is hard to explain in mere words.

This must be a joke.

China has concentration camps; harvests the organs of North Korean defectors for the black market; uses North Korean defector women in sophisticated sex-slave rings; denies people the right of privacy, free speech, freedom of religion, etc.; uses child labor in factories; … need I go on?

Iran has a moral division of the police that is designed to prosecute women that don’t follow Islamic tradition (like wearing Hijabs); has temporary marriage laws so that men can rent daughters from families for sex slavery; brutally kills homosexuals; … need I go on?

India, although it is now illegal, still has a very much enforced caste system where the lowest caste is called the untouchables, which are considered so worthless that they are not actually in the caste system (according to other classes in that system).

These countries are one’s you would...defend?!?

has a well-documented track record of genocide running throughout its history.

True, but they don’t do it anymore. Those countries I listed do still do it.

Meanwhile, the US is aiding and abetting genocide in Palestine as we speak

I don’t about that: it’s much more nuanced than that.

The problem I, and it seems plenty of other very intelligent people, have with this conception of both Kant's intention, and the (relatively) plain reading of the concepts is that there is no foundation for expecting a disconnect of this kind between experience and that which causes the experience. We simply have no reason to reduce our description to "something".

That’s literally the whole project of the CPR: you just denied the whole book here (: .

The experience couldn't be without that which 'triggered' it within us, within the bounds of our a priori concepts. We can easily still use the term "coffee" and just accept we can't know it's properties beyond it's tendency to elicit the experience of itself within the bounds of our a priori conceptual schema

Ok, now you are affirming the CPR (: .

Otherwise, we're saying things cause us to experience other things in some pretty direct fashion.

I wasn’t claiming that. Are you implying that’s what I was saying in the quote you had of my explanation of the coffee cup?

Regarding which, nationalism has been historically viewed as a source of ills towards any country aspiring towards a democratic state.

I could see that, insofar as it is fascistic: are you claiming that nationalism and fascism are the same?

Like the USSR appointed itself liberator of the world's exploited proletariat?

Not at all. I am evaluating the justifiability of imperialism via a moral realist theory: I am not saying that every country should just take each other over for any willy-nilly reasons. The problem with your view, is you have to deny obvious cases where a country should intervene. For example, if the Nazis stayed in Germany (in the sense of not invading other countries), then would you say that no country should have invaded Germany to stop the Holocaust? That’s the consistent conclusion of your argument here.

What I said:: there are always consequences. Consequences are inescapable. These days, consequences tend to come in the form of nuclear warheads, which several of your 'inferior' societies possess

Oh, are you noting that, in practicality, there would be some consequence to invading another country? I agree with that. There would be consequences to invading Germany to get rid of the Nazis.

No, I can't. And neither can a functional democracy. In order to have a government that's both arrogant and blind enough to try to impose itself on other sovereign nations, first, you need either absolute monarchy or a military-backed dictatorship

It wouldn’t be blind: it would be operating under policy guidelines; just like the Geneva convention or how the UN tries to enforce universal rights—instead, though, we would actually do something about it when it happens.

is the sequence of event leading to the prerequisite populist dictatorship

Imperialism does not presuppose a dictatorship. It never has and never will.

Oh, yes, I agree. All Columbus did was report back to the monarchy.

Uhhh, no he didn’t, lol. He would literally cut the hands off of slaves if they didn’t meet their daily quotas when mining. The dude was brutal.

I would say they only have a moral obligation to conquer other land if it's in their own vital security interests

So, if the Nazis would have stayed in Germany, then you think no one would be warranted in stopping them?

But to the point of imposing political systems, would you say historical track records are good for these kind of projects?

I don’t think there’s a particularly good track record, no. However, that’s because countries were taking each other over for bad reasons.

Partly because 'degeneracy' is far more evident in some western countries than in some you consider inferior; most western leaders and nearly all of their people lack the drive to conquer. Because 'democratic values' are not healthy enough in the west to survive transplanting.
But mostly because it can't be done. No western nation is powerful enough, no matter how many people it kills, cripples and displaces, no matter how much land it renders uninhabitable, how much of its resources are sacrificed, to attain, let alone maintain, such an empire.

I can foresee, as a possibility, a nation which comes up with a better economic system than capitalism; and if that happens then, yes, they should imperialize everyone else (assuming it drastically fixes the gaping issues with capitalism without introducing new catastrophic issues like communism). Either way, if I grant your point or not, it results in my OP being right.

That if doesn't bear scrutiny - in relation to more countries North Korea. That, too, is a good reason. What's the point of an empire of radioactive rubble and rotting corpses?

I didn’t follow this at all. What do you mean?

That's the inevitable destination: militancy, exceptionalism, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing, oppression.

Why? You can take over a country with the sole purpose of giving it the gift of democracy and then trying to salvage the culture as much as possible to keep the traditions. You are confusing the immoral acts of many instances of imperialism with its generic idea. If the West took over North Korea, e.g., we would not, in all probability, do anything remotely similar to what Columbus did to the Natives. Wouldn’t you agree?

The problem of imperialism is that it disconnects peoples from the traditional ways of their land and their context, which typically causes problems done the line for centuries to come no matter the intentions.

That's partially fair; but I would note that imposing important and vital political systems is good. E.g., if you are against imperialism completely, then we wouldn't have any justification to take over North Korea, Talibanian Afghanistan, etc. Nations have a moral obligation to imperialize sometimes.

I suppose this is the thesis of the OP

There’s essentially three theses:

1. The western supremacy thesis: western values are objectively better than many, if not all, non-western values which have historical arisen and, consequently, those values are superior.

2. The nationalism thesis: you should have some sense of pride in your country insofar as you have a vested interest in it and that, if applicable, it has superior values to other countries. Nationalism, to a certain extent, unites its citizens in a common good.

3. The imperialism thesis: imperialism is not per se wrong, as a proportionate response to inferior values is necessary and obligatory. The problems with imperialism was historically the immorality which came frequently with it: the West didn’t go in and free less-powerful groups but, rather, actively enslaved them for profit.

One, would be the aspect of nationalism enabling negative consequences

What do you mean?

I don't think this issue can be seen deontologically, with the baggage of human history in mind. The second question is whether if you don't accept the consequentialist assessment of the merits of nationalism

I am not sure I am following: I am neither a deontoligist nor a consequentialist—nor does the OP presuppose either of them.

then on what merit do you asses its morality or goodness to a nation defined as nationalist?

Most abstractly, based off of what is actually good. If you mean to ask what normative ethical theory I subscribe to, then it is a form of Virtue Ethics.

How do you impose democracy upon a people by force?

Enforcing, similarly to how we do in the West, the idea of liberties, rights, and equal representation. As a side note, most of the time; the people want it—the government is just oppressing them, and so the solution tends to be just overthrowing that government.

Should all nations think this way? Should all of them declare war upon all the others to impose their values upon other nations by force?

Very good question: yes. If a nation believes that they have an importantly better position than another one, then they should think this way. Otherwise, you are saying, e.g., that a country which values democracy is equal to a country that actively oppresses its people. That's nonsense.

To be clear, I am not arguing that nations should go to war over trivial things—and some cultural differences are just that; but if there are two nations so fundamentally different than each other, morally, then there should be an proportionate response by each to each other. Again, e.g., North Korea deserves to be usurped; and I cannot say that only Western countries should think this way—as that would be inconsistent and arbitrary. I just think that countries should imperialize for good reasons and in proportionate manners in relation to what is actually good.

You should make note which version of CPR you are quoting i.e. 1st or 2nd. They have many different contents on what they are saying.

It doesn’t matter: I’ve read many different versions; and there is a consensus that Kant did use the term ‘noumena’ at least in a double-sense in some parts of his works. I already demonstrated this.

Now it is your turn to demonstrate how he reworded it in a different version with respect to those sections I quoted. You haven’t even attempted to demonstrate that yet.

If all the daily objects you perceive in the external world had their Thing-in-itself, then the world would be much more complicated place unnecessarily and incorrectly. For instance, when you had a cup of coffee in a cafe, the cafe maid will demand payment for 2 cups of coffee. Why do you charge me 2 cups of coffees when I had only 1 cup? You may complain, and she will retort you, "well you had 1 cup of coffee alright, but remember every cup of coffee comes with a cup of coffee in Thing-in-itself, which must also be paid for. Therefore you must pay for 2 cups of coffee although you may think you had only 1 cup." You wouldn't be pleased with that, neither would had Kant been at the barmy situation

This made absolutely no sense. Kant never argued any of this; and I am unsure where to even begin. I would suggest re-reading the CPR. I’ll just give you some nudges and pointers.

had their Thing-in-itself

This implies there are two objects for each object: there aren’t. Kant’s critique is epistemic, not ontological.

well you had 1 cup of coffee alright, but remember every cup of coffee comes with a cup of coffee in Thing-in-itself, which must also be paid for. Therefore you must pay for 2 cups of coffee although you may think you had only 1 cup.

Not only was this ungrammatical, but it makes no sense. Kant never argued this at all—not even remotely.

The coffee which you perceive is the cognized version of the sensations of a thing-in-itself; whatever it may have been in-itself. There isn’t a coffee out there, and a coffee-in-itself which corresponds to it. The coffee which you perceive isn’t out there in the real world: it is a perception you have of something.

It is unpopular because by "animal" a philosopher tends to mean much more than what a scientist means by it. You are uncontroversially an animal in the latter sense; but it is worth mentioning that humans, as an animal, are deeply different than other animals. I don't see what's so controversial here.

Which version of CPR are you reading?

It has all the editions in it, as far as I understand, and it is translated by J.M.D. Meiklejohn.

There are several passages where Kant uses noumena and Thing-in-itself synonymously.

I am not denying that. As I said, no one really knows what Kant exactly had in mind with those terms; and that’s why I separated them hypothetically based off of which semantic schema one might accept.

The interpretation I have from the CPR and Prolegomena is what I already quoted, essentially, to wit, that the term “noumena” in two senses: the first negative, the second positive. The former is a thing-in-itself, which is just to say they are synonyms in this sense, but the latter is not a thing-in-itself at all.

Thing-in-itself is not available to your senses, ergo there is no sensation of it. If you have sensation of Thing-in-itself, then you would perceive it like you would see chairs, tables and cups. But you cannot have sensation of Thing-in-Itself.

The confusion lies in the ambiguity in your thinking here. What was sensed turns out to be different than the sensations of it, because our sensibility senses according to the way it is pre-structured to, so you are partially right and wrong when you say “[the] thing-in-itself is not available to your senses”. Kant is painfully clear in the CPR that a thing-in-itself is the thing which excited your senses as it were independently of how it excited those senses and what got sensed—viz., something excited my senses such that, as an end result, I perceived a cup: whatever that is, is the thing as it were in-itself.

There are things that is unavailable to your senses, so there is no excitation from the things. But your reason can infer the things which exists outside of the boundary of your senses such as God, spirits and souls.

No, you are demarcating an invalidly stricter set of real things as things-in-themselves; which are really just supersensible things—which would be noumena in the positive sense (at best).

Whatever excited your senses such that you see here a cup, is a thing in reality which exists in-itself in some way—that’s a thing-in-itself. A thing-in-itself could also, in principle, if you want, include noumena in the positive sense; if by this you carefully note, in your schema, that a thing-in-itself is just a real thing as it were in-itself and a noumena a thing-in-itself which cannot be sensed—but, then, most notably, you are still incorrect to say that things-in-themselves are not that which excite our senses but, instead, right to say that some things-in-themselves cannot excite our senses.

Some of the concepts are A priori. Senses are not A priori.

Yes they are. There are pure intuitions of sensibility, like space and time, and who knows what else. In principle, your sensibility is pre-structured to sense a particular way; and it is not true that all faculties of sensibility are equally structured to sense the same way. Viz., there could be an extra-dimensional being which senses toto genere different than us, and has different pure forms of sensibility.

Numena and Thing-in-Itself are described as the same thing in CPR.

No they are not at all. The word “noumena” is used in a double-sense in the CPR, and Kant is very explicit about that. E.g.,:

If, by the term noumenon, we understand a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensuous intuition, thus making abstraction of our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the word. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensuous intuition, we in this case assume a peculiar mode of intuition, an intellectual intuition, to wit, which does not, however, belong to us, of the very possibility of which we have no notion—and this is a noumenon in the positive sense

–– (CPR, p. 109)

If thing-in-itself is unknowable and unperceivable, how could you talk about sensations of thing-in-themselves?

That’s the whole point of a thing-in-itself: it is whatever was sensed—and that is the limit of what we can talk about it. Viz.,:

At the same time, when we designate certain objects as phenomena or sensuous existences, thus distinguishing our mode of intuiting them from their own nature as things in themselves, it is evident that by this very distinction we as it were place the latter, considered in this their own nature, although we do not so intuit them, in opposition to the former, [ or, on the other hand, we do so place other possible things, which are not objects of our senses, but are cogitated by the understanding alone, and call them intelligible existences (noumena) ]

(PS: I kept in the bracketed portion as another demonstration of Kant’s double meaning to noumena, although it is not relevant to my point now). –– (CPR, p. 108)

How does it get sensed?

Because some thing excited your senses; otherwise, you are hallucinating, which is absurd. That thing which excited your senses, was a thing, whatever it may be, as it were in-itself.

Why isn't it migrated over into the sensations?

Because the way your senses sense is a priori.

When thinking-as-conceived is reduced to a series of thoughts, experience confirms we cannot think a plurality of thoughts simultaneously, which is to say we cannot think more than one thing at a time, which is the same as saying we have only one thought at a time.

But, in terms of what we actually are, as opposed to what we appear to ourselves, we cannot say any of this is true…right?

the transcendental analysis of experience demonstrates there is only ever one thought at a time, which does not prove more than one is impossible.

How can transcendental analysis demonstrate that there can only ever be one thought we have, when those thoughts are not occurring in the time which is used to represent them?

That understanding can think noumena….which is their true origin after all….. is not contradictory, but the cognition of them with the system we are theorized to possess, is impossible, for the exact reason that forming a representation through our form of sensuous intuition, of an object merely thought by understanding alone, is impossible.

How would such a noumena, though, be a representation of something which is real? The understanding can create an object of pure intellect, but that would always just be a product of imagination—wouldn’t it?

Your senses don't produce sensations

By senses, I just mean your faculties (or faculty) of sensibility; which is the power you have to be excited by things-in-themselves.

but sensations are caused by the external objects, which are phenomenon.

Phenomenon, in the Kantian tradition, are sensations of things-in-themselves; which are thusly not the thing-in-itself but, rather, conditioned sensations of them. The “external object” is not a phenomena—they are noumena (in a loose sense) or, if you wish to reserve such a term for merely an object of pure intellect (as it is unclear which one Kant meant), things-in-themselves.

Thing-in-itself is not sensible entity, but cognisible entity via reasoning

That would be a noumena, in the strict sense that Kant talks about it sometimes. A noumena is an object of thought which cannot be sensed. A thing-in-itself is sensed insofar as it is what excited the sensibility in the first place but necessarily is not migrated over into the sensations.

. It is the entity from the reasoning point of view, which must exist, but is unavailable to your senses, hence unknowable via normal perception

Right, it is, logically, the thing which, as it were in-itself, excited your senses; but cannot necessarily be sensed absolutely accurately because the sensibility can only sense relative to how it is pre-structured to,

It is a different type of perception you need to perceive Thing-in-itself.

things-in-themselves are never perceivable—not just for “normal” perception—unless by a thing-in-itself you are conflating it with a noumena (in that stricter sense of the word).

By my lights, a noumena, in this sense, is a contradiction in terms, because it posits an outer object of intellect; which posits that the understanding, or some form of a faculty of understanding, could possibly cognize an outer object without being given sensations of it. @Mww?

Very true. Very true. The only difference is that, I would say, cognitive science can't really get at the fundamental questions that Kant was trying to answer; being that it is purely philosophical. Most people nowadays won't grant transcendental philosophy as legitimate because they think science is the only valid means of inquiry into reality---which is false.

Empirical experiences are experiences that are assumed to be sensations that represent things outside of myself. Non-empirical sensations are those which are generated inside of myself.

Two things needing to be mentioned here:

1. This “empirical” vs. “non-empirical” distinction you are making is NOT the same as my distinction between what I sense vs. I use to cognize those sensations. You, here, are making a distinction between what is sensed about external objects vs. sensed about oneself.

2. The word “empirical” does not, nor ever has, referred to only sensations of external objects (assuming, and we must assume for your distinction to work, we are excluding ourselves as an external object); because anything which is sensed about reality is empirical (traditionally); and so anything of which my brain senses about my body or its own internal processes (e.g., thinking) is empirical data—for those are sensations of something which is in reality. The only time it would make sense to say that some set of sensations are non-empirical, is if we admit, which is highly questionable, that when we are hallucinating (or something similar) our senses are generating fake data. FYI, I would say that it is much more plausible, in that case, that our brain is simply capable of using the faculty of imagination as a source of fabricated sensations rather than our senses themselves being capable of, on cue, generating fake data.

I feel the above terms are clear and largely unambiguous, which is important for any model and discussion of knowledge. My issues is, "What is apriori"? Its not clear, and its not unambiguous.

Of course, as any philosophical discussion naturally goes, each participant believes they have all the unambiguous points (:

I don’t think your terms are clear at all but, rather, are muddied.

E.g., to use your tree example, you are saying that, if I understood correctly, the experience of the tree is empirical but that your thoughts about that tree are non-empirical; and this is because the tree is a representation of sensations of something in reality whereas your thoughts are not. However, your thoughts as presented to you in your conscious experience, are representations of something in reality just as much as the tree is—so both are empirical; and this distinction sidesteps the whole discussion about a priori aspects of experience, for you completely skipped over the fact that there are pre-structured aspects to the way that you experience that tree!

In the above two paragraphs, what would you consider apriori? What clarity and accuracy would the term add?

Let’s use the tree example: you are experiencing a tree. Ok. The tree, assuming you are not hallucinating, must be the product of your senses, ultimately, being excited by something in reality and of which your brain is intuiting and cognizing; and so the sensations, insofar as they are raw data of that thing which excited your senses, must be empirical (because they are about reality). The tree, however, is represented to you in space and time which are pure forms that your brain uses to intuit those (empirical) sensations and thusly are not properties of the thing, whatever it was, which excited your senses in the first place. So the space and time are synthetic. Likewise, the tree is presented to you not just in space and time, but also with strict mathematical relations; and this is something which is necessarily something which your brain synthetically adds to the mix in order to represent the ‘thing’ which is constructing from the sensations of whatever thing impacted your senses (in the first place) (viz., it is impossible for you to come up with a way to represent, e.g., a square on a plotting graph without producing inherent mathematical relations between each line and what not when graphing it). Likewise, the tree is not just represented to you synthetically in space, time, and with mathematical relations; but also with strict logical relations. Viz., when your brain is constructing the objects to present to you from those sensations, it does it in an inherently logical way: it will not, e.g., determine that it should represent that leaf and that other leaf in the same exact place in space and time because a proposition, for your brain, cannot be both true and false in accordance with those forms of intuition—these are, viz., rules a priori which your brain has which do not apply to whatever thing excited your senses in the first place. Likewise, your brain must have, in order to cognize those sensations, certain a priori, and primitive, concepts; such as causality (viz., your brain must already be equipped with the understanding that it must seek out cause-effect relations in those sensations in order to represent them inherently causally for you in the first place—e.g., in order for your brain to represent the sensations of whatever the tree is in-itself which excited your senses, it must already have the concept of causality at its disposal and the rule that it must connect things in those sensations in a cause-effect manner). Likewise, in order to do math (which is synthetic), your brain must, as another example, have the concepts of quantity (i.e., unity, plurality, and totality).

Just try plotting a line on a graph without having the implicit understanding that, e.g., a dot is identical to itself, the line unites the dots, there are multiple dots which are required to make the line, you must add the dots together in succession, etc. It’s impossible. Your brain is plotting objects on essentially a graph, namely space and time, to represent objects to you as an experience.

No, I can't agree that the term 'discrete' references space in some way. I feel like you're confusing 'living in space' with 'knowing space'. Because we live in space, we will act and sense things from space.

‘Discrete’ is obviously referencing space, otherwise you would have to posit that a discrete experience does not contain a multiplicity of objects.

We do not live in space, our brains represent things in space. Do you see what I mean? I think you think that there’s a space and time beyond the space and time which are the forms of your experience and, of which, you live in. We only ‘live in’ space and time insofar as we have conditional knowledge about ourselves and our environment which is inherently in space and time; because that’s how our brain represents them.

All things act as if they live in space, because they are beings that live in space.

That you understand things to be in space, like amoeba, does not entail that they are in space themselves. You understand an amoeba to react in space because space is a fundamental form which your brain uses to represent amoeba; or you use, with your reason, assuming you cannot see them with your own eyes nor with a microscope, to understand, conditionally, how they behave.

But no living thing has knowledge prior to interacting with space

Your brain does NOT interact with space: it uses it to represent whatever is going on in reality. You are using your knowledge of reality, which is conditioned by those spatiotemporal forms which your brain uses to represent things, to project that onto the things which excited your senses. You cannot validly do that. All you are doing is anthropomorphizing reality with the a priori modes that your brain has for representing it.

An electron circles around a hydrogen atom. Does it do this because it knows space and time apriori?

Electrons and atoms, and one circling the other, is already conditioned by your a priori understanding of reality; because it is deeply and inextricably ingrained in the a priori spatiotemporal means which your brain uses to cognize things. You are projecting that onto electrons and atoms with respect to whatever they are in-themselves, which we cannot know.

I can give you an even easier example: my car in my garage. When I say “my car is in my garage”, I am not saying that there’s a car which exists in a garage in the sense of what they may exist in-themselves; but, rather, explaining it in terms of the only way I can: as conditioned by the a priori means which my brain cognizes reality. I cannot think away space and time from my understanding of a car, a garage, and a car in a garage not because they are actually in space and time but, rather, because all I have ever experienced, and will ever experience, of a car, garage, and a car in a garage is going to be placed in space and time (synthetically by my brain in order to represent the sensations which were excited by whatever they are in-themselves).

These discrete experiences become memories, and beliefs can form about them.

All of which assumes that your experience is fundamentally spatial; and not that reality in which you exist is spatial.

What do you see as 'apriori'?

a priori has always referenced, traditionally, that which is prior to empirical data. Prior to Kant, it was primarily used to denote the forms of reality as opposed to its content (i.e., the rationalists arguing that reality is inherently rational because it has spatial, temporal, mathematical, logical, etc. forms); and for Kant, it was used primarily to denote that those inherently rational aspects, or forms, of Nature (e.g., the inherently logical and mathematical aspects to a leaf, or the laws of which is seems to obey) are actually the forms of our modes of experience. There’s nothing ambiguous about this. When someone says something is a priori, they are saying that thing pertains to the prior forms to something as opposed to the empirical aspects to it (e.g., the inherent mathematical aspect to a wooden block as opposed to how it reacts when being lit on fire).

Does it need to have another term tied to it like experience or knowledge? If so, give both.

a priori can be a noun or an adjective; so one can denote a certain thing as being the aspect of it which is a priori by saying “a priori <thing in question>”—e.g., a priori knowledge.

Simply put, a priori experience refers to the aspects of one’s conscious experience which are prior to the empirical data being represented and which are used to cognize the sensations of those things which excite our senses; and, of which, I gave a detailed account with the tree—so I don’t feel the need to add another example of this.

a priori knowledge refers to any knowledge which is grounded in those a priori aspects of experience. Such as “1+1=2”, “!(a && !a)”, etc.

Apriori and aposteriori are often seen as divisions between 'knowledge apart from experience (I generously say "apart from the empirical"' to fix this, and "Knowledge from experience (or the empirical).

This is true, because by experience they mean the empirical aspects of experience. E.g., you don’t need to technically sense anything in reality to know that 1+1=2; but you do need an experience, even if it be merely hallucinogenic, in order to do math. Viz., a knocked out mathematician cannot do math, but a conscious one can derive mathematical proofs without any empirical experiments.

So there should be an aposteriori conception of space

Ehhh….space is pure a priori. Not everything has both aspects to it. The a priori concept of quantity does not have a a posteriori aspect to it—that wouldn’t make any sense.

If I measure the table as being 1 meter long, isn't that an aposteriori conception of space?

Space is the extension in which the table is represented; and not the exact mathematical quantity that you measured. Math, not in terms of its axioms and propositions itself but in terms of how your brain represents things with math, does have an a posteriori aspect—the idea of representing it with extension does not.

Your brain learns, arguably, how to deploy the a priori axioms and propositions and concepts of math (e.g., geometry, quantity, addition, subtraction, etc.) in manners to better represent those sensations in space and time in relation to each object it determines is a part of those sensations; and, to your real point (I would say), the exact mathematical relations it attributes to something in order to represent it are conditioned by what it cognizes and intuits it is (based off of the intuitions).

In other words, math itself, which your brain is using, is a priori; but that your brain decides to represent that table as 1 meter long (although it is uncertain what unit of measure it uses, but that’s despite the point here) is conditioned by the empirical data which it is represented with that a priori math.

Think of it this way, as an analogy, if we are playing a game where I have a plotting graph (like in math class) which only allows me to draw in straight lines and tell me to represent a shape that is almost a square (but is a little squiggly); then I will use the mathematical principles which I do not learn from the fact that you told me to represent this squiggly square nor from the idea of a squiggly square to draw the straight-lined representation of the squiggly square. You telling me to represent a squiggly square, along with the nuanced squiggly square, in this analogy, is the empirical sensations and the math which I use to draw a representation of it is the a priori, non-empirical means of me representing it. You are, by analogy, with the tree, conflating these two and saying that the straight-lined representation of the squiggly line on the plotted graph is itself purely empirical—no, no, no...some of that is a priori.

Further, what is a clear term of 'transcendental knowledge' vs 'self-reflective knowledge'?

In simpler terms, it is the differencing between cognizing and thinking—it is the difference between your brain’s cognition for representing objects and your ability to reason about that constructed experience.

This is getting really long (: , so I will end it here.

Isn't Thing-in-itself a postulated existence, rather than perceived existence?

A thing-in-itself is whatever external thing in reality impacted your senses in the first place, and of which excited your faculties of representation into producing the perception which you ended up having.

If by “postulated existence”, you mean that reason herself must posit the thing-in-itself, given that one’s conscious experience is representational, then yes: we do not perceive things-in-themselves—that’s the whole point!

Hence you need faith to perceive it, rather than knowledge?

Hmmm, you don’t perceive a thing-in-itself: it is, logically, the thing which your senses produced sensations of; and your understanding cognizes those sensations—not the thing-in-itself. No perception of a thing-in-itself is ever possible for any being which has a representational experience; which arguably is any being with experience at all.

I wonder if this post, although not addressed to you, might have been relevant to your enquiries?

I thought it was a good exposition of some of Kant’s ideas :up:

If there's something about it that you would like to discuss with me specifically, then please feel free to let me know and I would be happy to discuss. An in depth response, given how densely packed the information was, would probably to futile without us honing in on a specific aspect of the conversation.

So it is that perception is conditioned by both space and time, but thought is conditioned by time alone without regard to space.

Your recognition that space is required for outer sense because it must have the possibility of representing a multiplicity of external objects, whereas our inner sense is in time alone because we cannot exercise our inner functions other than sequentially, is an astute and fascinating observation; however, I think it oversteps the bounds of reason and presumes highly questionable teleology. For what you are positing, with respect to the former, is that our internal thinking in-itself occurs only with one occurring at a time; which already presupposes knowledge of how we think as it were itself as opposed to how it appears to itself, and it supposes that that thinking occurs in a time which is not a pure form of sensibility. With my argument to Philosophim, I was merely noting, transcendentally, that my brain must be cognizing my thoughts (that I am aware of) because they are organized in time; but I cannot claim to know that my thinking, which could be occurring at deeper levels of my subconscious and of which I am not aware of, is fundamentally conditioned itself by time and, moreover, determined in-itself to be a series of one thought per time unit. With respect to the latter, it seems like if you are right then objects external to us are themselves in space and our thoughts are in time (alone); which then, beyond overstepping the bounds of reason, incites the question of “how could the brain be so pre-constructed to happen to mirror the forms of reality-in-itself?!?”.

I don’t see how one could prove, transcendentally, that I cannot have two thoughts at a time; other than to say that my brain would fail to properly render that into my self-consciousness. Likewise, I should, rather, say that I cannot see how one could prove anything about how thoughts exist in-themselves, which my previous statement presupposed many things about them as they are in-themselves (e.g., ‘two’, ‘at a time’, etc.).

That got the Andy Rooney-esque single raised eyebrow from me. Like…wha???

Oh I see: number 2 was supposed to say that “your senses produce sensations”.

How is it not real? Its a real experience.

I am not sure there is much more I can say on this point other than reiterate: what you mean by ‘real’ here is just a vague notion of existence—i.e., that you are having an experience—whereas what I am indicating is that the a priori aspects of our experience, e.g., of a tree is purely epistemic and not ontological. If you want to use ‘real’ in your more generic sense, then that is fine: it does not avoid the issue that the a priori preconditions for that experience are not a part of reality—they are, rather, the epistemic ‘tools’ which human cognition has for cognizing reality. Do you see this difference I am noting (irregardless of the semantics)?

My point is, is that any discrete experience is real.

It is not a part of reality, though. Do you agree with that?

But I don't know 'space' as a discrete experience apart from experience

“discrete” is a word which references an idea engrained, fundamentally, in space. You may say that ‘space’ is not conceptually known, self-reflectively, by merely discretely experiencing, but do you agree that, at least, space is the ingrained form of that experience in virtue of which it is discrete? Can we agree on that, and then work our way up (so to speak)?

Perhaps what would help is to clearly show a non-empirical aposteriori example and an empirical apriori example?
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You need to be extremely clear. If I judge space as catching a ball, what part is apriori, what is aposteriori? If babies cannot grasp spatial relations prior to six months, what do they know about space apriori?

I need clarification: are you asking for an example of a prior vs. a posteriori aspects of experience OR a priori vs. a posteriori knowledge?

Your original question (above) was about the former, and now I think, based off of your response (above) that you are actually thinking about knowledge—not those innate aspects of experience.

My point is that I am unable to see your division between aprior space and aposteriori space.

There is no a posteriori space—it is pure intuition. What I think you are confusing is self-reflective knowledge with transcendental knowledge (and innate capacities, as you would put it). So let’s start with the basics. Do you agree that:

1. Babies experience (outer objects) in space.
2. Babies do not have any self-reflective conceptual capacities (through reason) that they experience (outer objects) in space nor what ‘space’ is as ‘extension’.
3. A child can, at some stage of development, understand notionally what space is without being about to apply language to explain it.
4. Adults have a self-reflective understanding of what space is, and can apply language to explain it.

Let’s start there.

No, we are continually experiencing. Then, we create discrete experiences

Hmmm, maybe I am misremembering your theory: I thought you agreed with me that our experience is inherently, innately, discrete; which implies that space and time are the forms, even if you don’t think they are pure a priori, of that experience.

No. This is just wrong. It is a fact that the concepts of space and time are developed over time. It is on you to show proof that space and time are concepts apart from experience. I'm siding with science on this one.

Again, you are confusing self-reflective knowledge with transcendental knowledge. No one is denying that we develop the concepts, in the sense of self-reflectively, of space and time over time; but this doesn’t negate the fact that space and time are the pure forms of our experience independently of our self-reflective, conceptual understanding of them.

Correct. Then everything is apriori.

???

The experience which you have, as I noted before, is as in part a posteriori; otherwise, you are doing the equivalent of hallucinating—since there is no empirical content.

Incorrect. Space is a concept we learn by bodily extension. Discrete experience comes first, the concept of 'space' comes after

Bodily extension presupposed space: your experience presupposes space as one of its forms. Space is more fundamental than what you are calling your ‘concept of space’; because by concept, you are referring to a concept derived self-reflectively.

Here’s one of the roots of our confusion: you are failing to recognize that cognition has a dual meaning on english—it can refer to our self-reflective cognition (e.g., thinking about our experience) or our transcendental cognition (e.g., our brains thinking about how to construct experience). I would like you to address this distinction, because you keep equivocating them throughout your posts.

No, I did not agree to this. Please link to a scientific reference to senses beyond the five.

You agreed here:

I'll agree that proprioception and echolocation are definitely senses, but introspection? — Philosophim

Here’s a basic article from a neuroscientist: https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/how-many-senses-do-we-have . Exteroceptive vs. interoceptive senses are just the scientific way of saying ‘outer’ vs. ‘inner’ senses.

Your thoughts are not represented to you. You experience them

Do you deny that your brain is organizing your thoughts in time to construct your experience of them (of which you can introspect)?

HA!!! Mysterious forces.

:smile:

One more step, and it becomes clear why there are only two pure intuitions, given the dualistic nature of the human intellect.

Could you elaborate on this? I didn’t follow this part.

I might mention your #2 from a few days ago, but that wasn’t addressed to me.

Mww, always feel free to chime in on these conversations if you have something to add (:

I don’t recall what this #2 was from a few days ago, but feel free to address it if you would like.

If reality is 'what is', then isn't anything we experience reality?
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The problem is this assumes that experiences apart from the empirical are not reality. Every experience you have is part of reality.

Alright @Mww and @Wayfarer, your mysterious forces are beginning to sway me. In having to explain this to Philosophim, I am starting to appreciate your distinction between what is real and what exists: it seems I have to posit that distinction now to resolve the ambiguity.

Philosophim, the ambiguity is that you are using ‘reality’, like I usually do, too vaguely and loosely. The a priori aspects of your experience exist (viz., ‘there are these a priori aspects to your experience) but they are not real (viz., ‘these a priori aspects of your experience are not in reality but, rather, modes of cognizing reality).

Space, as a pure intuition, is not in reality nor it is a property sensed of the objects that are in reality: it is the way that your brain is pre-structured to intuit phenomena; and so space, as a pure form of sensibility, is not real (because it is not of reality) but certainly exists (as a pre-structured way for your brain to represent and intuit sensations).

Perhaps what would help is to clearly show a non-empirical aposteriori example and an empirical apriori example?

I did that with space: what did you disagree with there?

But this is just wrong. Modern day neuroscience and understanding of brain development shows this is a learned process.

You are equivocating. The scientific fact you pointed to was whether a young person knows what space is; and not if it transcendentally uses it to intuit and cognize objects for its conscious experience; nor if it transcendentally uses it with its self-reflective reason to understand its own conscious experience of things. These are three completely separate claims, and the first one is what scientifically you were noting.

Neuroscience is useless for transcendental investigations; and to not understand that is to misunderstand, fundamentally, the Kantian problem of experience.

Space and time are identities we create to label experiences

Then, you must believe that you aren’t consciously experiencing in space and time before you conceptually understood that you were; which is nonsense.

But this is everything, and not exclusive to space and time. Any identity attributed as a representation is not the property of the thing in itself.

The difference is that properties of things are a mixture of empirical and non-empirical content. We cognize them based off of sensational data, which is empirical. Space and time are pure a priori, because they are not based off of sensations at all.

When our brains cognize a ‘ball’, you are right that it represents sensations of a thing in correspondence with certain pure and impure a priori conceptions; but there is an empirical aspect to it; whereas that it has extension and is placed in a sequential sequence is pure a priori.

How is this different from any other identity like 'red', 'giraffe' or 'Bob'? :)

It depends on what you mean. If you mean an concept which we self-reflective deploy for our conscious experience, then it is no different. If you mean a concept which is ingrained in how we represent reality for our conscious experience, then it is quite obviously drastically different. The former is an idea we have of our conscious experience, the latter is an idea which our representative faculties has for constructing our conscious experience.

This requires no innate understanding of space, just the ability to separate what one experiences into identities.
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No, reason does not fundamentally think in terms of space. It thinks in terms of discrete experience.

That’s what conceptual space is! It is transcendental, because it is necessary precondition for the possibility of using self-reflective reason. Therefore, I am right in concluding, even in your terminology, that we must already use space even when we don’t know what space is. That was my original point that you denied.

There are only five of them.

We already agreed this is false; and scientifically it is utterly false.

Self-reflection is a type of thought, not a sense.

Let’s take the simplest example of inner sense: thoughts about thoughts. I can introspectively analyze my own thinking about other things, and this is because my inner thoughts are presented to me in time. If my inner thoughts were not presented to me, if they were not respresented to me, then they would not be formulated experientially, consciously, in succession. My brain has already sensed and properly sorted my thoughts, under the preconditioned a priori modes to represent them, for me to consciously experience my own thoughts. Time, without space, is the pure intuition for the inner sense; simply meaning, that for reflective consciousness, it is represented by the brain in time alone and never in space.

If I take your argument here seriously, then my thoughts, which are presented to me in organized succession, are somehow non-representational and my brain somehow could organize it in succession without any sensational data of its own thinking processes. How is that possible, Philosophim?!?!?

:up:

I think the consistency of normal experience and our ability to compare to perceptive fabrications (e.g., hallucinations, dreams, etc.) are evidence that something normally is exciting your senses; but what that thing is in-itself is impossible to know. It very well could be a mere idea (like ontological idealists say) or a concrete object (like materialists will say) or an object (like physicalists will say) or something unimaginable.

But how far would you go to saving a zygote?

Just like the question “how far would you go to save an adult?”, it is so nuanced I am not sure where to begin on that one. Let me address the other things you said and we can see if you want to dive in deeper.

I can envision myself maybe running into a burning building to save a person trapped there, but a petri dish or a test tube?

1. No one, per se, is obligated to save a person trapped in a burning building.
2. Some people are obligated, because of their duties (e.g., a firefighter, a father, a mother, etc.).
3. A person who is not obligated to save the person that is trapped, may legitimately decide to save an adult but not a baby; a baby but not an adult; a zygote but not a baby; a baby but not a zygote; an adult but not super old adults; etc. They are not obligated to do it, so there’s nothing immoral happening if they choose not to or choose based off of morally relevant, but not obligatory, reasons.
4. You are right to note that it is morally relevant that a zygote in a petri dish is significantly different than an adult in a burning building but this is only relevant in the case that saving them is not obligatory; and does not deny that they are persons (in the pre-modern sense) or non-persons which will develop into persons (in the modern sense).

Would you put yourself at risk to save a zygote?

If you are asking about me personally, I would not run in an incredibly on-fire house to save a stranger—no matter if they are a zygote or a child. I have no obligation to do so, because they are not related to me (as family nor as a close friend or acquaintance) and I have not assumed the role of a member of society that would (like a firefighter), and I find it not worth it.

Now, if you are wondering if I see the obvious morally relevant differences between the zygote in the petri dish and, e.g., a baby in the case that I have to save one of them (and only one) (without using one as a means towards saving the other), then, yes, I would save the baby.

All of these scenarios I give are to show we value actual persons infinitely more than one-celled organisms

You are sort of correct: we do find morally relevant differences between people in moral dilemmas (e.g., being super old vs. young, having rich vs. poor conscious experience, etc.) but, what you are missing is, that doesn’t apply to rights. This is why @Banno keeps avoiding my questions on rights, because they know that the zygote has a right to life and that the morally relevant differences between them and, e.g., an adult for purposes of certain dilemmas do not apply here because one can never violate a person’s rights for a good end or to produce a good effect.

E.g., I may, and certainly will, admit that there is a morally relevant difference between a really old vs. young person such that if I have to save a 90-year old vs. a teenager where each is in a separate, burning building; then I am going to save the teenager. However, this does not admit that the 90-year old doesn’t have a right to life; nor that I could, e.g., murder them to harvest their organs to save a teenager from an illness. Do you see the difference between these two examples? This is why this is false:

and I think obvious conclusions can be drawn from that regarding the abortion debate.

All that is relevant for your view, if I dare say, is that what you call “non-actual persons” are not persons and so they do not have rights.

You should be able to answer a basic question like that. Let me try to ask it differently:

1. What do you believe a 'right' is?
2. Do you believe anything has any rights?
3. What has rights (if any)?
4. Do humans have rights?
5. If humans have rights, then what rights do they have?
6. What rights, if any, do human beings in the womb have?

If your theory can't answer these, then it has serious problems.

What about you? How far would you go to save a dying zygote? Would you hook your body up to it for 9 months? What if it meant you would be bedridden during that time?

Good question: no, I would not volunteer to save a random zygote nor a random adult by having them use my bodily resources to save their life; and I don't think that is immoral nor would it be morally permissible for society force hook me up to them.

It depends on how difficult or easy it would be to save that life. E.g., we expect someone to call CPS when a baby randomly shows up on our front porch and we expect them to make reasonable accommodations to keep that baby alive until they show up; or we even expect, if there were no CPS, for them to take care of the baby. But if they had to use their own bodily resources to do it, or had to choose between themselves surviving or the baby, then I don't think we would blame them if they chose themselves (assuming it isn't their baby).

If, for some reason, I am forceably hooked up to someone and am sustaining their life; then that would be immoral but also it would be immoral for me to unhook myself.

Honestly, this is a good, separate question about justice which equally applies to helping anyone in society. Should you splurge on a boat, with your hard earned cash, when you could have easily helped change a homeless person's life? These are all good questions, but I don't think it is as relevant to abortion as you probably think it is. Me not helping a homeless person right now is not a violation of their rights---or is that what you are suggesting (essentially)?

But you are implying a zygote has some rights, but are not clarifying what they are; because you don't know....

You didn't answer my question Banno. Let me try again: DO YOU THINK that the zygote has a right to life? Any right to life at all? If so, then what does that right to life entail in your view?

It is simple @Banno: do you or do you not believe that a zygote has a right to life? Do they have that right?

At best, if I grant what you said here then, you are saying that the blastocyst has no right to life; which is the most basic right a human has :sad: ; or, worse, you are saying that rights have degrees.

CC: @RogueAI:

I have been trying, from the start, to get @Banno to answer similar questions; but, unfortunately, they refuse to engage. The whole argument, as far as I can gather thus far, is that it seems immoral to force a woman to continue going through with pregnancy because of any value placed on the unborn human and, therefore, abortion is permissible. This is just utter garbage: it is entirely circular.

I will say that, with respect to my view, I have been using my terms too loosely sometimes; and this is something I will avoid doing in the future. To be painfully clear to everyone, here’s what I am arguing:

I am evaluating whether not Mrs. Smith has the right to, or should, kill the human being developing in her womb in virtue of what is actually good and how I think that relates to behavior. Viz., what is actually good is what is intrinsically valuable, what is most intrinsically valuable is what is the chief good, the chief good is eudaimonia, being a eudaimon requires one to be just, being just requires one to respect other beings relative to their (teleological) natures, a person has a nature such that they havewill develop into having a rational will, and to respect a rational will is to treat it as an end in itself and never as a mere means.

@Banno refuses to discuss whether or not a zygote, embryo, or/and fetus have basic human rights; and this thwarts the conversation to a stand-still.

I would love to see a non-emotional, on point, reasoned argument from observable facts state what a human being is and when such a thing first comes into being.

If I were iron-man a pro-choice position, then I would say that you are asking an irrelevant question because you are equivocating personhood with “human beingness”; and that you are absolutely right that a new human being is create upon conception, but that a person is not thereby created upon conception and personhood grounds rights. A person, under this view, is a being which currently has a mind which has a rational will, and not a mere natural potential for one, and this is indicated, for an organism, by having a brain which is functioning aptly enough to deploy such a subjective experience (as a mind with rational capacities). Therefore, up until the unborn human being acquires the proper brain it is morally permissible to abort.

This argument sucks for multiple reasons:

1. What grounds rights is the rational nature of a being and not its mere acquisition or possession of a mind—otherwise, all animals would have equal rights—and so it is clear that infanticide would be equally morally permissible in this view (for children, especially at really early ages, clearly do not have a rational will).

2. Many human beings which even a pro-choice person wants to count as a person would not count under this view and thusly would not have any rights. E.g., a person who we know is going to wake up from their coma in 2 days time but currently does not have enough brain function to deploy a mind with rational capacities has no rights for those 2 days.

3. Dead people have no rights, which leads to the logical conclusion that one can do whatever they want to a dead person’s body as long as it serves no injustice to anyone who may have known them. E.g., sex, desecration, etc.

This is why anyone and everyone should be going for a teleological analysis of this, even if they don’t believe that we are designed in that strong, theological sense of having an agent which endowed us with purpose. I am curious what @Leontiskos thinks about this.

I am waiting for @Banno to respond with “but it’s obvious we shouldn’t value the zygote over the woman!!!!”. :roll:

I apologize: I was not intending to sidestep any of your response. If there's something I missed, then please feel free to bring it up.

Likewise, I enjoyed our conversation; and until we meet again, Praxis!

I am not in any way setting out to prove that a cyst has less value than Mrs Smith. So I am not begging the question.

Here's why I said it is question begging: you are saying that is it morally permissible to abort because it is obvious that the woman should be able to abort. You are just masking it with other words now.

We might at again flip the question you keep asking of me, and ask you why you think that Mrs Smith has only the value of a zygote.

It's not that they, in total, have the same value: it's that they both have equal, basic human rights. I have consistently kept this conversation in terms of rights, not in total value. I do not disagree that in some circumstances, like when you have to choose between saving one person or the other in a manner that doesn't use one as a means towards saving the other, that we can, and should, value a newborn over an extremely old person.

I have never suggested that all humans are completely equal in value, but have consistently held that we have basic, inalienable rights.

So the question becomes: why don't you believe that all humans have equal, basic human rights? Do you not believe in rights?

You are back to just begging the question. This has been by far the most unproductive conversation I have had in a while.

It seems your version of Neo-Aristotelianism is somehow grounded in idealism rather than practical living and achieving eudaimonia (human flourishing).

Do you know the difference between normative and applied ethics? I think that's the issue here. My starts with normative ethics, as it should, and then dives into how to best pragmatically implement it into society.

There's nothing incoherent with saying people shouldn't be gluttons but that it should be legal; because giving people rights and liberties is better for allowing people to flourish, in practicality, than giving the government too much power to control people. That it should be legal, does not mean it should be morally permissible.

Whereas your whole argument is that X is immoral because it seems immoral to you? Or because you think your invisible friend claims it is immoral?

Definitely because my invisible friend said so, and nothing to do with my response.

It's worth noticing the slip in your spiel. A person has a rational will. A cysts does not. Consistency, where art though?

I knew you were going to that (:

You want to engage in an extended debate in order to hide the simple truth that a cysts does not have the same worth as Mrs Smith.

BRO….I don’t see how that is a simple truth, let alone true. That’s why I keep asking you for an elaboration on your ethical theory. I wouldn’t keep asking if it was clear to me :smile: .

You would use sophistry as a distraction from the immoral act of forcing someone to undergo an extended and unnecessary ordeal.
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Your pretence of depth is no more than surface posturing.

I am hurt: do you really believe I am being ingenuine?!?

You still at heart want there to be an "is" from which you can derive moral truths to which all rational folk must agree.

I take the is-ought gap very seriously, unlike most Aristotelians, and my response is that the chief good is what is most intrinsically valuable; which, hence, does not fall prey to is-ought gap critiques. Eudaimonia is the most intrinsically valuable, that’s why it is the chief good.

But it can't, becasue in the end what counts as flourishing is chosen. You cannot escape the fundamental difference between what is the case and what we choose to make the case.

I thought you would have said, as a moral realist, “what is the case and what ought to be the case are different”; but instead, peculiarly, you said “what we choose” which is straightforwardly an implication towards moral anti-realism.

The flourishing of the cyst is a far less definite thing than that of Mrs Smith.

The blastocyst has a right to life, which you keep ignoring and sidestepping.

For a start, it is entirely dependent on the flourishing of the mother.

So in the violinist thought experiment, you think you are morally permitted to pull the plug? Is that the idea?

Further, the quality of life of Mrs Smith is something that we can ask Mrs Smith about, while that of the cysts is mere supposition.

You can’t ask a 10 month baby about what they think about their quality of life either...can you just randomly murder those too????

You would choose the flourishing of a cyst at the expense of the flourishing of Mrs Smith.

NO. I cannot violate the blastocyst’s right to life to help Mrs. Smith. For some weird reason, you keep refusing to engage in a discussion about rights….as if you don’t believe in them at all.

I appreciate the response, and I see that we need to address more the a priori vs. a posteriori distinction more in depth before we move on to that distinction as it relates to knowledge. So, for now, let’s forget about a priori vs. a posteriori knowledge, and focus on the generic distinction itself.

but you seemed to divide this experience between the empirical and non-empirical. This is where I'm confused.

Yes, this is the root of the confusion (I think). When I was saying, before, that a priori knowledge is knowledge gained independently of “experience”, I was using my terminology too loosely and that is my fault: what I should have said is “<…> independently of our experience of reality”, as that denotes the aspects of experience which are a posteriori—i.e., empirical.

By “experience”, I just generically mean the conscious awareness of which one is having; so why would I say there’s an a priori and a posteriori aspect to that experience? Because, simply put, there are things which my brain is adding into the mix (i.e., are synthetical) which are not actually of the sensations (of objects in reality) in order for it to represent them in the conscious experience which I will have of them.

The Kantian way of thinking about it, philosophically, is essentially:

1. An object “impacts” your senses.
2. Your sensations produce sensations.
3. You brain intuits objects from those sensations in space and time.
4. Your brain cognizes objects, according to logical rules and conceptions, in space and time.
5. You experience an object, or objects, in space and time.

If the sensations are intuited in space and time, then space and time are not contained themselves in the sensations; and it is even clearer when you realize that your brain cannot possibly learn how to represent things with extension nor succession to do it in the first place. Hence, the extension and succession which you experience things in and of, are not from the sensations and hence are not empirical (even if the brain learns how to represent the causal relations of things better with space and time as it develops).

So, e.g., space and time are forms in and of which your brain represents things and are not properties of the things-in-themselves (whatever they may be). This means that space and time are like the containers in which the content of experience is placed; and this is just a simplified way of saying that they are a priori and used to represent a posteriori content.

What you seem to be claiming, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that someone knows what space is before they've experienced it

No. I think that there’s a difference between the self-reflective reason—i.e., meta-cognition and self-consciousness—and non-self-reflective reason (i.e., cognition and consciousness). My brain has the “capacity”, as you put it, to represent in space and this extensional representation is not a reflection of any extension, per se, that an object itself actually has; but I must come to know, by experience, that I can extract out one of the forms of my experience as spatiality and that is is a priori.

This is why Kant famously said that all knowledge begins with experience, but not all knowledge arises out of experience. It was an catchy way of saying “not all knowledge is acquired and grounded in empirical data—a posteriori data”: there are certain ways we are pre-structured to perceive which necessarily are not reflections of anything in reality.

How is knowledge gained apriori?

Through experience, but not through empirical data. It is a transcendental investigation into how our cognition represents things, independently of what is being represented, in pre-structured ways.

I agree with this notion, but I'm not sure that's what Kant actually believes

I can’t speak for what Kant actually believes without being in his own mind; but I can say that the CPR seems pretty clear to me that what he means is that experience contains both an a priori and a posteriori aspect because there are necessary preconditions the possibility of that experience which are about how we are pre-structured to experience as opposed to the representation of the empirical, sensational content of that experience.

If you've never experienced space or its concepts, you don't know it.

I was entertaining your idea that someone could be thinking, self-reflectively, without ever having an inner or outer sense of space. If that is true, then they still would implicitly being using the concept of space, because reason fundamentally thinks in terms of space. E.g., if I am thinking about “bawwws” vs “glipglips”, even if they are utter nonsense, I am making separations and distinctions between them, which is inherent to reason, and this is conceptually spatial. You can’t have thoughts which don’t imply any conceptual separation between other concepts and ideas which you have—viz., you cannot think without space. You may not call it “space”; you may not know it is “space”; but when you are thinking you are thinking in terms of space. If you don’t believe, then just try to come up with a counter-example, and I will demonstrate that it is still using, implicitly, conceptual separation between thoughts, ideas, and concepts in play.

"Inner senses" is a misnomer.

Of course there are inner senses: they are senses of oneself or, more broadly, any sense capable of sensing the being which has those senses. Which leads me to:

I'll agree that proprioception and echolocation are definitely senses, but introspection?

I was assuming by introspection we are talking about self-consciousness, and this requires an inner sense; for one cannot know they are experiencing by merely experiencing: they must also have the capacity to acquire knowledge about their own experience. It is entirely possible to have a brain that is damaged in such a way as to still experience but lack self-experience.

You only have knowledge of yourself insofar as you affect your own senses. Which entails that there is not “I think, therefore I am” kind of direct window into one’s own self.