Your use of the word "regard" is problematic. Do you mean to say "makes possible" or "facilitates"?

I think if you accept that A Priori knowledge is possible, then it necessarily determines experience-based knowledge, since "A Priori", by definition, is logically anterior to the data of experience, and must provide the framework within which that experience is interpreted and classified.

But you are touching on one of the fundamental problems in philosophy which is yet to be resolved. Although Kant didn't express it in quite these terms, the problem you raise is the problem of the "axiom" - the proposition which is apparently self-evident to reason, but can't be proved, and yet, which must be accepted as true if the philosophic discourse is to proceed to higher stages. The "Axiom of the parallels" is a case in point. In two and half thousand years, nobody has come up with a proof. But it underwrites almost the whole of Euclidean geometry (to the intense embarrassment of mathematicians and philosophers).

The author does not say that synthetic a priori knowledge makes experience possible, but that it pertains to the formal cognitive structures that make experience possible.

So it's consistent with what you say here:

[synthetic a priori knowledge] gives us (makes possible) a lot of human knowledge (mathematical, geometrical, and metaphysical judgments, etc.). — KantDane21

Maybe one practical source of anecdotal evidence for this point can be drawn from the writings of neurologist Oliver Sacks. He documented many cases where patients, due to various neurological disorders, underwent bizarre cognitive dislocation, as evidenced in his famous book title, The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. In the titular story of that book, Dr. Sacks described the case of Dr. P., a music teacher and former singer who had a neurological disorder called Visual Agnosia that caused him to misperceive the world in a highly unusual way. Dr. P. had difficulty recognizing common objects and even people's faces, to the point where he once mistook his wife for a hat: when he and his wife rose to leave Dr Sacks' office, he reached for his wife's head, mistaking it for the hat on the hat-stand.

I've always rather wondered whether this kind of disorder illustrates the way in which, if the mind is affected by a neurological disorder, it disrupts the cognitive framework within which we identify and interact with objects and people, thereby showing up the sense in which that framework is 'mentally constructed' by us, rather than that the world is something simply being presented to us.

I read an article about Hegel, the author stated that "synthetic a prior knowledge regards the formal cognitive structures which allow for experience." is this really right??
My reading of Kant....I never thought that "synthetic a priori knowledge" “makes experience possible,” but basically gives us (makes possible) a lot of human knowledge (mathematical, geometrical, and metaphysical judgments, etc.). — KantDane21

I think you are confusing judgements and understanding in Kant. Kant used synthetic a priori judgements to prove that the understanding (categories of) along with their content (sense data of the things themselves combined with intuitions of space and time) create our possibility of making synthetic a priori judgements.

(Edited to make it clear judgements are derived from transcendental understanding and intuition and not some a priori knowledge outside of this).

No comment from Mww. :scream:

What a travesty.

It's fair to point out criticisms of many philosophers regarding how they interpret Kant. Say Schopenhauer or Russell.

But Hegel is a special case, I'm not going as far as to say that he offers nothing, some people get content out of him.

Nevertheless, he had an interest in being as obscure and controversial as possible, for academic reasons and prestige. All this stems from Kant actually, but Kant had lots to say...

HA!!! I don’t visit this category, so never saw the thread. Which would have got my attention forthwith, donchaknow. If only you’d done that notification thingy I don’t even know what it’s called but people do it all the time, kinda thing.

So….in response to the opening query, re: the author recounting Hegel (although without the Hegelian context), “synthetic a prior knowledge regards the formal cognitive structures which allow for experience."……it is somewhat ambiguous, I think.

A priori in CPR is stipulated in the text as pure, meaning absent any and all empirical conditions. Experience, in Kant, is entirely empirical, therefore, in Kant a priori knowledge has nothing to do with experience, which would include the possibility of it. The possibility of experience is determined by the categories, which are certainly pure a priori, but are merely conceptions, and while part of the formal cognitive structure, are not constituents in the relations inherent in judgements, cognitions or knowledge.

So now it becomes….does synthetic a priori regard the formal cognitive functions themselves, without regard to experience. Here the problem is, those same formal cognitive functions are used for both experience and pure thought, as befitting the admitted dualistic nature of the human intellectual system. Notice, however, that “cognitive” by definition precludes sensibility, and by association, intuition, phenomenal representation and productive imagination, none of which have anything to do with understanding, the faculty of thought, hence, cognition in general. Which serves as warrant that synthetic a priori conditions do not relate to experience, which does necessarily mandate phenomenal representation.

Knowledge is just knowledge, the distinctions for it being the relative sources of it. It is an end in itself, with means determined by the objects with which it is concerned. Empirical knowledge, or knowledge a posteriori, is legislated by Nature, in that if our knowledge is mistakenly determined, Nature will inform us of it. Knowledge a priori, on the other hand, having no empirical content, cannot be legislated by Nature, which is manifested empirically only, hence, must be legislated by something else, which is therefore theoretically allocated to logic, and the LNC in particular.

So knowledge a priori, because it is legislated by logic and can have no empirical content, must get its content from representations that do not arise from anything sensible, which leaves only understanding as its source, the representations of which are conceptions. Because there is no knowledge possible at all from a single conception, it follows necessarily that knowledge a priori is the conjunction of a manifold, or a plurality, of conceptions, the relations between them logically conditioned by the LNC. Insofar as the conjunction of conceptions to each other, commonly called the synthesis of them, must also consider the relation of one to the other, with respect to the possible distinctions in them, and the degree of that distinction, is found the relative truth contained in the proposition the synthesis obtains. Where the conceptions relate to each other with sufficient accord, they are analytical, are called tautological, and are true in and of themselves without the necessity of additional support. Where the conceptions do not relate to each other with such sufficiency, but the conception in the subject of the ensuing proposition does not relate to the conception in the predicate even at all, but rather, adds to it in the completion of the proposition, it is synthetical.

The Grand Finale…..synthetic a priori knowledge is that in which the synthesis of dissimilar conceptions constructs a logically valid proposition, judgement or general cognition. All without any experience, or related to it in any way, but carrying with it a HUGE caveat just the same.

And what is the common name for a proposition in which the subject/predicate relation of dissimilar conceptions results in a logically valid conclusion? The answer to THAT, is what synthetic a priori knowledge, is.

It didn't occur to me at the time, since I know you tend to comment on Kant discussions. Had I known you don't visit this area much, I would have tagged you.

Good, detailed reply for the OP.

It may be good and detailed, but….does it ring true enough like a dainty dinner bell…a little tinkle, or resoundingly true like The Great Hour Bell….15 tons of deafening clang?

You have baited me. :cool:

So knowledge a priori, because it is legislated by logic and can have no empirical content, must get its content from representations that do not arise from anything sensible, which leaves only understanding as its source, the representations of which are conceptions. Because there is no knowledge possible at all from a single conception, it follows necessarily that knowledge a priori is the conjunction of a manifold, or a plurality, of conceptions, the relations between them logically conditioned by the LNC. — Mww

As I've told you, I find Kant very good, but I think this level of technicality may be excessive, so I'd either change the vocabulary to something more intuitive, or I'd simplify his system a bit. I always remind myself that Kant was a Newtonian, hence his emphasis on Space and Time being forms of sensible intuition and not spacetime, worth keeping in mind.

Having said that, the potential Issue I see, is that it's not clear to me that a-priori knowledge need not have "emprical content". If we knew enough about the brain, we could simulate everything we experience with electro-chemical stimulation. What matters is what the organism reacts to (in terms of what "sets off" our mental mechanism, not behavior to be clear), not what there is in the world, in so far as we are dealing with philosophy of mind.

Then we might quibble and argue if electrical stimulation counts as "empirical content". Maybe, maybe not. The word empirical can often be restricted to publicly observable phenomena, things we can all see with our eyes.

But it need not be. Empirical content can be thoughts or ideas, so far as I can see.

it's not clear to me that a-priori knowledge need not have "emprical content". — Manuel

By Kantian definition, and in relation to synthetic a priori knowledge, it cannot. Use another definition, perhaps it can.

“…. By the term “knowledge à priori,” therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience….”.

All experience is of empirical content, so if independent of all experience, independent of all empirical content.

It's a technical term, which can be used in several ways. The issue is, is there a better way to think of what counts as "empirical"?

What prevents this word from applying to ideas?

I gave a simplified answer here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/834880

Hmmm….I see what you mean. Does it change anything, though, regarding synthetic a priori knowledge? I mean, even if we give ideas empirical content, being a mere idea, it shan’t have a real object represented by it, which prohibits a posteriori\ knowledge of it.

“…. A conception is either empirical or pure. A pure conception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding alone, and is not the conception of a pure sensuous image, is called notion. A conception formed from notions, which transcends the possibility of experience, is an idea, or a conception of reason….”.

I’m sure there are better, or, at least, different, ways of using the concept “empirical”, but textual consistency here requires Kant’s version, which I’ve tried to maintain.

Principle. The common name.

Sure. But what I had in mind is something like Schopenhauer's version or maybe even Mainlander, though I have to read him more closely to see if he does simplify Kant.



That's the thing, in principle I don't believe that there need be real objects which we represent.

It can be done by electrical stimulation of the brain, and we would see, for all practical purposes, the same object as if there were a "real empirical object".

Does this change synthetic a-priori knowledge? Maybe. It suggests that what we have are dispositional states which objects "awaken" or "make clear", when we have experience of them.

But the experience is accidental and not, strictly speaking, required for the idea to arise.

I read an article about Hegel, the author stated that "synthetic a prior knowledge regards the formal cognitive structures which allow for experience." is this really right??
My reading of Kant....I never thought that "synthetic a priori knowledge" “makes experience possible,” but basically gives us (makes possible) a lot of human knowledge (mathematical, geometrical, and metaphysical judgments, etc.). — KantDane21

Kant never said synthetic a priori knowledge makes experience possible.  What Kant did was, asking how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible.

It is possible by the operation of a priori judgment.  A priori judgment is possible by the presentation of a priori concepts, and the workings of intuition and imagination in mind.

I don't believe that there need be real objects which we represent. — Manuel

There might not NEED be real objects we represent, but are there in fact such objects?

We already know we have the ability to image real objects…..for all practical purposes to “see” them….without an immediate perception of them. We call it imagination, but it reduces to electrical stipulation of the brain. Or electrochemical. Or both. Doesn’t matter; we can do it. My position is humans think in images, which makes explicit we “see” objects mentally as if they are the same objects we perceive sensibly.

But you’re probably thinking of some sort of external machine that stimulates the brain in such a way that a real object appears in our heads. That’s fine by me, in that I don’t think the brain cares much where the stimulus comes from, as long as what happens with that stimulus is the same no matter where it comes from. Thing is, though, under normal conditions, this perception enables this stimulated neural pathway, so….how to direct the external stimulation along the same pathway in order to generate the experience of the same object but without the perceptual conditioning event.

Does this change synthetic a-priori knowledge? — Manuel

Assuming external stimulation, I’d have to say, yes, it makes it irrelevant. Synthetic a priori knowledge is the synthesis of certain conceptions relative to each other, but with an external stimulation of the brain we can’t say we’ve synthesized anything insofar as we couldn’t affirm the employment of our understanding from whence the conceptions and their relations come from.

On the other hand, we’re not the least conscious of the synthesis of conceptions, which is a purely speculative metaphysical methodology, so external stimulation, while it doesn’t prove that speculative system is not the case, it doesn’t disprove it either. All that can be said is the brain does all the real work, which nobody contested anyway, even without knowing how it does its work.

we have are dispositional states which objects "awaken" or "make clear", when we have experience of them. — Manuel

“….. But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion), an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it. It is, therefore, a question which requires close investigation, and not to be answered at first sight, whether there exists a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions?…”

Those dispositional states reside in us as a condition of our human intellect. Metaphysics doesn’t call them states, per se, but something consistent with the theory which suggests their necessity. Kant calls them pure intuitions with respect to the perception of objects, the categories with respect to understanding the perceptions, pure reason as “the One to Rule Them All”.

Scientifically, what would a dispositional state look like? How would we know it?

"Here we have a wide ocean before us, but we must contract our sails."

There might not NEED be real objects we represent, but are there in fact such objects? — Mww

I believe so, otherwise it seems to me we are stuck in Berkeleyan idealism. But in these topics we can't be certain. Maybe there aren't. Unlikely, but possible.

Thing is, though, under normal conditions, this perception enables this stimulated neural pathway, so….how to direct the external stimulation along the same pathway in order to generate the experience of the same object but without the perceptual conditioning event. — Mww

Exactly. As I understand it (which is Allais interpretation of Kant, whom I think has the best one) Kant is concerned with how we actually experience real objects in "ordinary" or manifest reality. If that's his concern, he is right to argue we need external stimulus, and you are also correct the brain does not care either way.

However, I think the Cartesian account of perception is correct, I have to find the quote from Allais the puts this issue very well, but essentially, the Cartesian account is concerned with how our brain constructs what we experience in principle, not in "ordinary life", in which we are concerned with the actual "real objects" we encounter on daily basis.

while it doesn’t prove that speculative system is not the case, it doesn’t disprove it either. All that can be said is the brain does all the real work, which nobody contested anyway, even without knowing how it does its work. — Mww

Again, completely agree, especially with the last sentence, which is no minor point.

Those dispositional states reside in us as a condition of our human intellect. Metaphysics doesn’t call them states, per se, but something consistent with the theory which suggests their necessity. Kant calls them pure intuitions with respect to the perception of objects, the categories with respect to understanding the perceptions, pure reason as “the One to Rule Them All”.

Scientifically, what would a dispositional state look like? How would we know it? — Mww

To quote Kant:

"This schematism of our understanding with regard to appearances and their mere form is a hidden art in the depths of the human soul, whose true operations we can divine from nature and lay unveiled before our eyes only with difficulty."

I'd perhaps add: not unveiled at all. Or if that's too strong: at least at the depths we would like.

The science for dispositional states is too far off, we don't really have an inkling how concepts arise nor how ideas work, other than some very weak "theories" pertaining to neuroscientific brain imaging or worse, the occasional evolutionary storytelling, which doesn't shed any light on this topic.

But if ideas don't exist in a dispositional matter, we could not explain how all of us experience the world in an extremely similar manner. We never see perfect triangles in the world, we see curved lines connecting, but interpret them as a triangle. Same with straight lines.

When we reach the level of trees or rivers, things are much more complex, but the mechanism must be similar.

So yes, it all comes from the brain interacting with the world, but we know so little of both, we cannot provide a scientific theory of how this works. Something like Kant's program is the best we can do, provide a detailed outline of some of the operations we can tease apart.

Sure. But what I had in mind is something like Schopenhauer's version or maybe even Mainlander, though I have to read him more closely to see if he does simplify Kant. — Manuel

Schopenhauer simplifies Kant in that he thought the categories were baroque and overcomplicating things. He thought that all we needed to consider for transcendental conditions were space, time and causality. With that basis everything else follows according to his "Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason". Everything can be grounded in statements of becoming, knowing, being, and willing.

Our knowing consciousness...is divisible solely into subject and object. To be object for the subject and to be our representation or mental picture are one and the same. All our representations are objects for the subject, and all objects of the subject are our representations. These stand to one another in a regulated connection which in form is determinable a priori, and by virtue of this connection nothing existing by itself and independent, nothing single and detached, can become an object for us. ...The first aspect of this principle is that of becoming, where it appears as the law of causality and is applicable only to changes. Thus if the cause is given, the effect must of necessity follow. The second aspect deals with concepts or abstract representations, which are themselves drawn from representations of intuitive perception, and here the principle of sufficient reason states that, if certain premises are given, the conclusion must follow. The third aspect of the principle is concerned with being in space and time, and shows that the existence of one relation inevitably implies the other, thus that the equality of the angles of a triangle necessarily implies the equality of its sides and vice versa. Finally, the fourth aspect deals with actions, and the principle appears as the law of motivation, which states that a definite course of action inevitably ensues on a given character and motive. — E. F. J. Payne concisely summarized the Fourfold Root

Also I think this speaks to the criticism of Kant's notion of "pure notions" which you were discussing. Pure notions is kind of an oxymoron as they need to have the empirical information to construct it, and is an iterative process:

This is a great quote:

Having sought to find an a priori cognitive faculty corresponding to every empirical [a posteriori] one, Kant remarked that, in order to make sure that we are not leaving the solid ground of perception, we often refer back from the empirical [a posteriori] abstract idea [concept] to the latter [the perception]. The temporary representative of the idea [concept] thus called forth, and which is never fully adequate to it, he calls a 'schema,' in contradistinction to the complete image. He now maintains that, as such a schema stands between the empirical [a posteriori] idea [concept] and the clear sensual perception, so also similar ones stand between the a priori perceptive faculty of the sensibility and the a priori thinking faculty of the pure understanding. To each category, accordingly, corresponds a special schema. But Kant overlooks the fact that, in the case of the empirically [a posteriori] acquired ideas [concepts], we refer back to the perception from which they have obtained their content, whereas the a priori ideas [concepts], which have as yet no content, come to the perception from within [cognition] in order to receive something from it. They have, therefore, nothing to which they can refer back, and the analogy [of the a priori schema] with the empirical [a posteriori] schema falls to the ground. — Kant's philosophy as rectified by Schopenhauer by Michael Kelly "

Category (Causality), can not be applied as a concept (Causation) without the content to begin with! There is nothing "pure" about the use of "cause" in and of itself without its content in empirical content!

Yep! I am rather familiar with it, though I could perhaps use a brush-up or two. But it will be a while, since I've read him more than any other.

While I may disagree or be unsure of one point or another pertaining to his metaphysical system, I do believe something along those lines, is what is needed with Kant.

It's a bit hard to defend him exactly as he wrote his system over 200 years ago, we have updated science he did not have, which would've forced him to modify his form of sensible intuition, for instance.

Not to mention advances in linguistics which play an important role in our cognitive capacity. So, modifications of his system is in order. As would be the case with almost all the classics, obviously.

It's a bit hard to defend him exactly as he wrote his system over 200 years ago, we have updated science he did not have, which would've forced him to modify his form of sensible intuition, for instance. — Manuel

I mean, let's just skip the idea of pure conception then. I don't think his system completely falls without it. Categories allow for judgements once input from sensible data / intuitions of time and space interact. We don't need the addition of "pure notions and empirical notions" as some mediator or distinction between empirical judgements and faculties of the mind, it would seem.

Causality (the category of), interacts with sense data as seen through our intuitions of time/space can thus allow us to make judgements of a priori synthetic statements.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to suggest that Kant's system fails or falls apart, it's very good.

Spacetime is indeed a form of synesthetic a priori judgments (which go beyond propositions as is the case with statements). But I don't see how a bunch of other things are considered synthetic and a priori too.

For instance, color.

It would be replied that color requires experience of an object, so it's not synthetic a-priori. But that's misleading, objects do not give us color, we add colors to objects via the innate apparatus we have, namely the eyes and the brain. The objects merely "open" or "awaken" our capacities.

Likewise, with spacetime, if we had no sense-data at all, how can we say these would still be synthetic-a-priori? We would need a world to apply this framework to, otherwise it's kind of useless.

Same with music and sound, and many other things.

As for causality, that is indeed a big problem. I was an ardent defender of Schopenhauer in almost all instances but reading Hume a few times makes me question Schopenhauer's confidence and Kant's "solution".

We can say, Kant (and Schopenhauer) argue how causality is an innate property of the mind as it deals with objects.

This does not guarantee that our notion of causality actually applies to external objects. We could be miss-attributing the moment of causality and in any case, the way we interpret causality may not be the way it works in the world.

There are even arguments that there is no causality in quantum mechanics, things just happen. I think this specific formulation is wrong, but it gets very murky very quickly. Note I amnot denying the existence of causality, but our application of it and our confidence in it on several occasions.

It would be replied that color requires experience of an object, so it's not synthetic a-priori. But that's misleading, objects do not give us color, we add colors to objects via the innate apparatus we have, namely the eyes and the brain. The objects merely "open" or "awaken" our capacities.

Likewise, with spacetime, if we had no sense-data at all, how can we say these would still be synthetic-a-priori? We would need a world to apply this framework to, otherwise it's kind of useless. — Manuel

I think Schopenhauer does not agree with Kant, especially this kind of thing:

In order to prevent the emptiness of "thoughts without contents,"[25] it is "necessary to make our concepts sensible, i.e., to add an object of intuition to them."[25] In order to test whether a concept is sensible, we sometimes " … go back to perception only tentatively and for the moment, by calling up in imagination a perception corresponding to the concept that occupies us at the moment, a perception that can never be quite adequate to the (general) concept, but is a mere representative of it for the time being. … Kant calls a fleeting phantasm of this kind a schema." — Wiki - Schema (Kant)

You can see where it starts to get precarious and ripe for ridicule. I mean, he is making a valiant attempt at bridging his a priori categories with contents to make an abstraction. And that begs the question really, "what" is abstraction? It seems like a mid-ground, for Kant, between the pure categories and sensible content that is kind of "imagination".

To be fair, this could be all considered "representation". That is to say, perceptions, conceptions, and imaginations (abstractions) are all architecture. The things-in-themselves are only known through the "furniture" of this representational stage. The furniture needs the interaction though. One can never have pure abstraction without the things-in-themselves running through the stage and its furniture transforming the sense-data into representation.

And this is the aspect that is emphasized by Schopenhauer and how he differs perhaps. He emphasizes that you can never have an object without a subject and vice versa, lest you get caught in the "furniture" and not the objects that interact with it.

For Schopenhauer, it seems to be that representation is always going to have subject for object all the way down such that you can’t have purely abstract concepts unless this condition exists that a subject exists for an object and an object for a subject.

To be fair, this could be all considered "representation". That is to say, perceptions, conceptions, and imaginations (abstractions) are all architecture. The things-in-themselves are only known through the "furniture" of this representational stage. The furniture needs the interaction though. One can never have pure abstraction without the things-in-themselves running through the stage and its furniture transforming the sense-data into representation.

And this is the aspect that is emphasized by Schopenhauer and how he differs perhaps. He emphasizes that you can never have an object without a subject and vice versa, lest you get caught in the "furniture" and not the objects that interact with it. — schopenhauer1

I think this is quite fair, in that we can do away with some of what Kant emphasizes in the simple number of categories he uses to render objects manifest: "unity", "apperception" and so on.

Granted, one picks and chooses, his idea of "intuition" is rather important, I think. I tend to prefer Hume on the imagination, as he gives a more robust account, though I would have to read Kant more in-depth to see how he articulates the topic.

And for sure, I think Schopenhauer's idea of us being subjects and objects is quite sensible and rational.

All good.

I read an article about Hegel, the author stated that "synthetic a prior knowledge regards the formal cognitive structures which allow for experience." is this really right??
My reading of Kant....I never thought that "synthetic a priori knowledge" “makes experience possible,” but basically gives us (makes possible) a lot of human knowledge (mathematical, geometrical, and metaphysical judgments, etc.). — KantDane21

The quote is correct as far as I know. synthetic apriori knowledge makes experience possible. It is what is pre-given in every possible experience. Time, space, quantity, quality, etc are necessary for us to have experience at all though the categories themselves are not analytic. That is the whole Copernican turn no? (Sorry to jump in)

edit: maybe I should say "makes experiential knowledge possible". I do not know if that is the same as experience per se. Kant does ground his empirical realism in his transcendental idealism. The ideality of the categories allows us to acquire knowledge and ascertain its truth at least intersubjectively.