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Single Idea 9338

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 11. Denying the A Priori ]

Full Idea

Quine's arguments provide no reason to doubt the existence of a priori knowledge outside the domain of science.

Gist of Idea

Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science

Source

comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §10

Book Ref

'New Essays on the A Priori', ed/tr. Boghossian,P /Peacocke,C [OUP 2000], p.166


A Reaction

This rather ignores Quine's background view of thoroughgoing physicalism, so that the domain of science is the domain of nature, which is the domain of everything. See his naturalising of epistemology, for example. Maths is part of his science.


The 11 ideas with the same theme [there is no possibility of real knowledge a priori]:

Strongly believed a priori is not certain; it may just be a feature of our existence [Nietzsche]
No pictures are true a priori [Wittgenstein]
Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science [Horwich on Quine]
Science is empirical, simple and conservative; any belief can hence be abandoned; so no a priori [Quine, by Horwich]
Logic, arithmetic and geometry are revisable and a posteriori; quantum logic could be right [Horwich on Quine]
What is considered a priori changes as language changes [Habermas, by Bowie]
Platonism defines the a priori in a way that makes it unknowable [Coffa]
The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt]
Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt]
The failure of key assumptions in geometry, mereology and set theory throw doubt on the a priori [Hart,WD]
We may have strong a priori beliefs which we pragmatically drop from our best theory [Boghossian]