Is a priori knowledge possible?

i think the two types of knowledge do not refer to one thing over which scholars differ, but rather two different areas of knowledge, the priori knowledge is that knowledge that does not need learning for example if i you know that i am Polaris you do not need some one to teach you that i am not Crux. you just know it. Posteriori refers to whatever that is learnt after being exposed to a certain experience

This is what she meant

Most of the knowledge transfering today is more like a fortiori

i don't think instinctive action should be called priori knowledge, because instinctive action is a fixed pattern of innate behavior, whereas priori knowledge refers to the things that are so obvious you can learn  them by yourself

Polaris



Exactly.



Knowledge of a priori is a knowledge i.e. discourse, built upon notions. Any imaginations of feelings can be helped here.

Knowledge by a priori is a knowledge of a common things, so that close to ideas, metaphysically things. Anything else, including intuition or instincts based on physical body itself, that's why we can rely on them. Knowledge of a priori is a knowledge to be trusted.

Leibniz was the first (probably; it's a matter of discussions) who invented/discovered that some simple propositions like "p implies q" (i) where 'p' is a 'specie' than 'q' is a 'genus'. So, propositions of type (i) are always true; these propositions are a priori.

lamburk



Vice versa, all a priori statements are necessary. Well, it's not easy for me to explain, since I'm not highly good deal with English.

Ok, if we put in dictionary the word 'human', and said that 'human is an animal, a mammal...', then if you say that 'every human is an animal', it will be necessary truth, because the 'animal' is a genus (larger capacity...) and the 'human' is a 'specie' (smaller capacity). Another example, (I shall call it 'a set game') there's a set A {a, b, c, d} and there's another called B. B is the English alphabet. So, it's necessary that B contains A, or A implies B.

The other question - how can we be sure about 'general' character of something in our head; how can we separate 'ideas' from just 'impressions'? These questions, among many others, were being solving by Hume in his 'Tractatus'. He would agree with you in your doubts of a priori nature of propositions, because he denied possibility of synthetic a priori judgements. For example, he wrote:

"In common life it is established as a maxim, that the straightest way is always the shortest; which would be as absurd as to say, the shortest way is always the shortest, if our idea of a right line was not different from that of the shortest way betwixt two points" ('A Treatise of Human Nature')

Our usual view can seem so solid and not ruined, but it can also be just an illusion. So, according to Hume we can object a connection between our experience and our notions, but if we use 'a set game' like I've described above, we can't be disagree of necessity of such propositions.