All 25 Uses of
a priori
in
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Kant says there are aspects of reality which are not supplied immediately by the senses. These he calls a priori. An example of a priori knowledge is "time." You don't see time. Neither do you hear it, smell it, taste it or touch it.
Part 2 *a priori = self-evident or deducible
- An example of a priori knowledge is "time."†
Part 2
- We sense objects in a certain way because of our application of a priori intuitions such as space and time, but we do not create these objects out of our imagination, as pure philosophical idealists would maintain.†
Part 2
- The a priori concepts have their origins in human nature so that they're neither caused by the sensed object nor bring it into being, but provide a kind of screening function for what sense data we will accept.†
Part 2
- But this is screened out and never gets to our consciousness because we have in our minds an a priori concept that the world has continuity.†
Part 2
- What we think of as reality is a continuous synthesis of elements from a fixed hierarchy of a priori concepts and the ever changing data of the senses.†
Part 2
- We have in our minds an a priori motorcycle which has continuity in time and space and is capable of changing appearance as one moves one's head and is therefore not contradicted by the sense data one is receiving.†
Part 2
- We have in our minds a very real a priori motorcycle whose existence we have no reason to doubt, whose reality can be confirmed anytime.†
Part 2
- This a priori motorcycle has been built up in our minds over many years from enormous amounts of sense data and it is constantly changing as new sense data come in.†
Part 2
- Some of the changes in this specific a priori motorcycle I'm riding are very quick and transitory, such as its relationship to the road.†
Part 2
- Other changes in this a priori are slower: Disappearance of gasoline from the tank.†
Part 2
- It's quite a machine, this a priori motorcycle.†
Part 2
- The motorcycle that I believe in an a priori way to be outside of myself is like the money I believe I have in the bank.†
Part 2
- Similarly, even though my sense data have never brought up anything that could be called "substance" I'm satisfied that there's a capability within the sense data of achieving the things that substance is supposed to do, and that the sense data will continue to match the a priori motorcycle of my mind.†
Part 2
- The bulk of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is concerned with how this a priori knowledge is acquired and how it is employed.†
Part 2
- Kant called his thesis that our a priori thoughts are independent of sense data and screen what we see a "Copernican revolution."†
Part 2
- Or, to put it in Kantian terms, the objective world producing our sense data did not change, but our a priori concept of it was turned inside out.†
Part 2
- What Copernicus did was take the existing a priori concept of the world, the notion that it was flat and fixed in space, and pose an alternative a priori concept of the world, that it's spherical and moves around the sun; and showed that both of the a priori concepts fitted the existing sensory data.†
Part 2
- What Copernicus did was take the existing a priori concept of the world, the notion that it was flat and fixed in space, and pose an alternative a priori concept of the world, that it's spherical and moves around the sun; and showed that both of the a priori concepts fitted the existing sensory data.†
Part 2
- What Copernicus did was take the existing a priori concept of the world, the notion that it was flat and fixed in space, and pose an alternative a priori concept of the world, that it's spherical and moves around the sun; and showed that both of the a priori concepts fitted the existing sensory data.†
Part 2
- If you presume that the a priori concepts in our heads are independent of what we see and actually screen what we see, this means that you are taking the old Aristotelian concept of scientific man as a passive observer, a "blank tablet," and truly turning this concept inside out.†
Part 2
- Once in a while they ask questions that seem to call for a statement of what the hell I'm always thinking about, but if I were to babble what's really on my mind about, say, the a priori presumption of the continuity of a motorcycle from second to second and do this without benefit of the entire edifice of the Chautauqua, they'd just be startled and wonder what's wrong.†
Part 2
- They also depend partly on the a priori images we have accumulated in our memory.†
Part 3
- He speculated that if two people had identical a priori analogues they would see Quality identically every time.†
Part 3
- Are they synthetic a priori judgments, as Kant said?†
Part 3
Definition:
knowledge that is assumed to be true without proof -- often deduced or seen as self-evident, but independent of experience
In philosophy, different thinkers have applied various definitions.