On the Impossibility of Real A Priori Knowledge-Print Page 1 of 2

On the Impossibility of Real A Priori Knowledge - By: Dean Railton

A priori knowledge is knowledge gained without, or prior to, any experience of the external world. This is in
contrast to a posteriori knowledge, which is gained after some sort of subjective experience, on the part of the
knower, of the external world. By external world I refer to the world outside of the knower’s mind, a total denial of
which constitutes the solipsist position. In this paper I will be arguing that true a priori knowledge is only possible in
a way such that any belief formed totally a priori will be merely trivially true.

As well as the a priori-a posteriori divide, there is also a distinction often made between analytic and synthetic
statements. I will be using this distinction because I will be arguing that analytic statements, when true, are not true
in the same sense as synthetic statements, and that knowledge of an analytic statement is conceptually empty; it is
because of this that a priori knowledge is not possible in any real or practical sense. Analytic statements are merely
true in virtue of the definitions of the terms used; the usual example of this is bachelors are unmarried men. These
terms are synonymous because the words bachelor and the term “unmarried man” refer to the same concept, they are
defined in exactly the same way. It is worth noting that synonymous terms can often have connotative differences,
and perhaps in day-to-day life the term “bachelor” may be genuinely less appropriate than “unmarried men” in some
sentences. This explains the intuition many people have that saying “bachelors are unmarried men,” informs us
somehow about the meaning of both words, or adds new content, but in a strictly functional, and not pragmatic
sense, they are identical.

In contrast to analytic statements are synthetic statements: these are usually in subject-predicate form and add new
information about the subject via means of the predicate. An example of this could be “it is dark outside”. This adds
information about it being dark to the subject “outside”. The majority of useful sentences are synthetic, as being
synthetic allows the addition of information about an already familiar subject, and as language is used to pass
information, this is entirely suitable for the job.

“It is dark outside,” should also be a posteriori, as in order to gain this knowledge one would expect to have to get an
indication of the light outside through the use of sight. Useful sentences are also usually a posteriori as having
experience prior to forming a belief that is to become a candidate for knowledge gives that belief a foundation, and
allows it to refer to something direct and certain, even if entirely subjective.

Of course not all synthetic sentences are directly founded by our immediate experience, the information that
originates from some sense datum could be then used to infer a new synthetic sentence. An example of this could be
if you were in a room with no walls, you have a clock and you are aware, through experience that it is dark outside at
23:00. Although you have no direct sense data, your powers of inference allow you to deduce that it is dark outside.

Although this knowledge is inferentially justified, it is founded in experience, not reason, first comes the direct,
personal, subjective and certain sense data, then the human powers of reason allow a probabilistic inference to be
made, which renders a belief that a certain situation is likely to be true. This sort of knowledge is entirely possible,
and this is how most human beliefs are structured.

As most synthetic beliefs are a posteriori, so are most analytic beliefs a priori, but before I tackle analytic a priori
knowledge, which is possible but trivial, first I will deal with synthetic a priori knowledge, the most controversial of
the four possible concepts.

There have been multiple candidates for synthetic a priori knowledge; I will be discussing two of these; Descartes
famous cogito argument and mathematical statements.

Firstly the cogito is often construed as a synthetic a priori statement, as it is reasoned without any experience of a
non-subjective world and adds new information. Kant argued that this is an example of deductive argumentation
rendering new information without any external input of information first. This is however a misconception of how
the cogito argument works. I think therefore I am is not strictly speaking logically valid, this was famously argued
by Russell who concluded that the best we can actually get is “there are thoughts”, as the “I” in the conclusion is an
assumption.

The argument is indeed synthetic, but is not a priori, which is where the apparent hocus-pocus of conjuring content
from an argument with no input is revealed. The reason it is an a posteriori argument is that the premise “I think” is

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describing an experience, thinking is a direct and felt experience much like seeing the colour red or hearing a piece
of music. Whether or not this argument is valid is irrelevant, because the reason it is not a useful a priori statement is
not because it is invalid and therefore not useful, it is because it is not a priori at all.

Another more popular example of synthetic a priori statements is 2+3=5. Here we have three apparently distinctly
defined terms interacting via relations with premises and a conclusion. This is the opposite of the cogito
conceptually as it is indeed a priori, even if experience is useful in grasping the concepts to which mathematical
statements refer, it is not a necessary part of them. It is not however synthetic as it appears on the surface. It is
entirely analytic.

In order to grasp why this is, it is useful to look at another typical analytic statement, why it is analytic and compare.
Unmarried men are bachelors, is grammatically similar to the mathematical statement, equating two terms when
combined with a third term that is a conclusion. The reason this is analytic is because the definitions of the terms,
connotative qualities aside, are entirely encapsulated by each other. By this I mean that the term's definitions can
relate in such a way that either term’s definition can be used to define the other. Consider another example,
'bachelors are not married', where the definition of married is manipulated by the term “not” to render it the same as
bachelor, this statement is also analytic because it adds no new information not already contained within the
definitions of the terms.

Also bear in mind that it may never have occurred to you that this is the case, you may not have realised that
bachelors could be said to be unmarried, even though it is contained in the definition. This is because thinking is an
active process, a task that must be done before beliefs are formed, and although the information was available, you
have to think it to access it. The reason I am emphasising this slightly strange point is because the mathematical
example is the same in that a given mathematical statement, such as say ((5+5)-1)x2=18, may appear to be a new
truth, knowledge previously unachieved, but this does not change the fact that the truth of the statement is contained
in the definitions of the terms used.

Mathematics is an entirely internally defined language where the terms are all defined in terms of each other, i.e. 2
only makes sense in virtue of the meaning of 4, which one makes sense in virtue of the meaning of 17 etc. The
term’s definitions refer only to other terms in the language, and because of this the knowledge is analytic, not
synthetic.

I have argued in this paper that for knowledge to be useful, and avoid being conceptually empty, it must be
synthetic. I have also argued that a priori knowledge is never synthetic as the two common candidates for synthetic a
priori knowledge are either not synthetic or not a priori respectively. I will conclude with a slight retraction from the
position that a priori knowledge is practically useless. Knowledge before experience is useless, but as the cogito
demonstrates, we only need a little experience, like that sensation of thought, and with our a priori constructs of
reason we can derive whole new knowledge. If we were to me “knowledge without further experience” by a priori,
then this would be the key to the most useful knowledge available. Epistemic systems work best when we take an
input from the world in the form of experience and then use reason to analyse it.

In this paper I will be arguing that true a priori knowledge is only possible in a way such that any belief formed
totally a priori will be merely trivially true.

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