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Full Idea
The whole idea of the a priori is too obscure for it to feature in a good explanation of our knowledge of anything.
Gist of Idea
The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything
Source
Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §3)
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology', ed/tr. Steup,M/Sosa,E [Blackwell 2005], p.111
A Reaction
I never like this style of argument. It would be nice if all the components of all our our explanations were crystal clear. Total clarity about anything is probably a hopeless dream, and we may have to settle for murky corners in all explanations.
| 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] |