more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
It seems natural to claim that light rays moving in straight lines is contingent but a priori. Scientists stipulate that they are the standard by which we measure straightness, but their appropriateness for this task is a contingent feature of the world.
Gist of Idea
Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so
Source
Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.9)
Book Ref
Mares,Edwin: 'A Priori' [Acumen 2011], p.31
A Reaction
This resembles the metre rule in Paris. It is contingent that something is a certain way, so we make being that way a conventional truth, which can therefore be known via the convention, rather than via the contingent fact.
| 17700 | The most popular view is that coherent beliefs explain one another [Mares] |
| 17701 | Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares] |
| 17702 | Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares] |
| 17704 | Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares] |
| 17703 | Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so [Mares] |
| 17705 | Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights [Mares] |
| 17706 | The essence of a concept is either its definition or its conceptual relations? [Mares] |
| 17708 | Maybe space has points, but processes always need regions with a size [Mares] |
| 17710 | Aristotelian justification uses concepts abstracted from experience [Mares] |
| 17713 | After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares] |
| 17714 | Aristotelians dislike the idea of a priori judgements from pure reason [Mares] |
| 17715 | The truth of the axioms doesn't matter for pure mathematics, but it does for applied [Mares] |
| 17716 | Mathematics is relations between properties we abstract from experience [Mares] |