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Full Idea
I am a fully paid up-naturalist, but I see no reason to deny that a priori knowledge is possible. My view is that a priori knowledge is unimportant (esp to philosophy). If there is a priori knowledge, it is analytic, true by the structure of our concepts.
Gist of Idea
A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant
Source
David Papineau (Philosophical Insignificance of A Priori Knowledge [2010], §1)
A Reaction
It is one thing to say it is the structure of our concepts, and another to infer that it is unimportant. I take the structure of our concepts to be a shadow cast by the structure of the world. E.g. the structure of numbers reveals the world.
| 13407 | All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience [Papineau] |
| 13406 | A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant [Papineau] |
| 13408 | Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau] |
| 13409 | Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment [Papineau] |
| 13410 | Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept [Papineau] |