more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
There are no pictures that are true a priori.
Gist of Idea
No pictures are true a priori
Source
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 2.225)
Book Ref
Wittgenstein,Ludwig: 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Pears)', ed/tr. Pears,D. /McGuinness,B. [RKP 1961], p.10
A Reaction
This is part of the growing modern doubts about the scope or possibility of a priori knowledge. A 'picture' here is the mental model which is the meaning of a proposition.
Related Idea
Idea 23481 Propositions assemble a world experimentally, like the model of a road accident [Wittgenstein]
| 24138 | Strongly believed a priori is not certain; it may just be a feature of our existence [Nietzsche] |
| 23485 | No pictures are true a priori [Wittgenstein] |
| 9338 | Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science [Horwich on Quine] |
| 9337 | Science is empirical, simple and conservative; any belief can hence be abandoned; so no a priori [Quine, by Horwich] |
| 9340 | Logic, arithmetic and geometry are revisable and a posteriori; quantum logic could be right [Horwich on Quine] |
| 20961 | What is considered a priori changes as language changes [Habermas, by Bowie] |
| 18272 | Platonism defines the a priori in a way that makes it unknowable [Coffa] |
| 9356 | The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt] |
| 19564 | Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt] |
| 13476 | The failure of key assumptions in geometry, mereology and set theory throw doubt on the a priori [Hart,WD] |
| 9384 | We may have strong a priori beliefs which we pragmatically drop from our best theory [Boghossian] |