a prior and a posteriori cont...

In the book Kant goes a little further into the distinction between a priori and a posteriori and analytic and synthetic judgments. According to Kant All analytic judgments are a priori, this is because they are in the breakdown of the concept itself. While synthetic judgments can either be a priori or a posteriori. Kant then goes into classifying synthetic judgments into three types, judgments from experience, mathematical judgments, and metaphysical judgments.

Simply put judgments from experience are a posteriori because they are just the combining together objects of experience. This would be taking into effect what had happened in previous experiences to judge what is going to happen in this case. Mathematical judgments are a priori judgments. Kant says the concept of 7+5 contains the idea of the two numbers but does not contain the idea of 12. We have to think about it and associate the two numbers with the idea of 12. Lastly metaphysics also consists of synthetic a priori judgments since metaphysics is made up largely of analytic judgments since these are the only things that metaphysicians can agree upon. Though there are synthetics judgments that are built upon these analytic judgments.

a priori and a posteriori

In the summary of Kant's book he gives a description between the differences of a priori and a posteriori knowledge. A priori knowledge according to Kant is anything we derive from pure reason while a posteriori knowledge is things we derive from experience. He then goes on to draw a even more important destinction between analytic and synthetic judgment. According to Kant the predicate of the analytic statement is in the object itself. For example all bachelors are unmarried men. It contains in the word bachelor that they are unmarried men and does not add anything to the statement. While the predicate of the synthetic on the other hand adds something to the statement. For example all swans are white you may not know before hand that all swans are white. So by hearing this information you gain some information about the idea of swans.

Philosophical vocabulary

In the later part of section 2 Hume talks about the philosophical vocabulary between the term impression and the term idea. As he states earlier in the section for the use of the words an impression is are clear and exact, things that we percieve with our senses, taste, touch, and so on. Ideas are less vivid, faint and some times obscure and unlike impressions we are likely to suffer error in remembering them. So when talking about an idea in philosophical terms we may ask by what impression did this idea come from. If it were to not come from an impression it would then be useless and meaningless.

Shades of blue

In section 2 Hume talks about a contradiction between ideas and impressions. Earlier he talks about how impressions are the things we see, hear, smell and so on. Basically everything all things that we perceive through our senses. While ideas are the compounding of these impressions like remembering how and apple tasted or looked (remembering the color). In this contradiction Hume talks about how if he had seen a few shades of blue he believes he could imagine other shades of blue without ever seeing them.

I am not completely sure about this idea, maybe we could imagine some different shades in which we believe we have not seen. Though i would have to say that we probably did see those shades in some form someone else before and just did not remember it. So i would still have to say that we could not imagine something that we have not seen before.

Relation of Ideas vs Matter of Fact

In section four Hume talks about the distinction between "relations of ideas" and "matter of fact". According to Hume relations of ideas are a prior knowledge. These type of things would include all logical statments like all "men are batcholors" and 6+6=12. He then goes on to say that relation of ideas are certain and can't be thought of different, if you were to it would be a contradiction. It like saying 2+2=5 or 2+2=chair we know that is wrong just by the simple idea of relations of ideas thus we know 2+2=4.
Hume then moves on to talking about "matters of fact" which deal with experience. Matters of fact are things like the sun is shining, it is going to storm tommarrow, these are things we learn posteriori. These are also things in which we do not fear because of contradiction. So if i were to say there is a clown outside, it is pretty easy for someone to go outside and see if there is or not and prove me wrong. Hume also talks about how we know matters of facts about things in which we have not observed through a process of cause and effect. I know that my friend is in France though i have not seen it myself, through a letter i can draw that conclusion.

Causation

In the latter sections of the second part, Kant discusses Hume's ideas about causation. He says that Hume was right when he said that we cannot comprehend the possibility of causality by reason or experience, but he does not feel that this concept is the result of habit or custom. Kant says that maybe we can only know how things appear to us by the form that our senses give to those things and that we know nothing about these things in themselves. Kant is basically saying that experience is more than simple impressions and that everything we experience happens in space and time and they are not impressions or sensations; they are pure intuitions.He goes on to say that pure intuitions and concepts organize experience for us and give it form.

I like how Kant seems to find a middle ground between the empiricist and rationalist views by saying that we can have a priori knowledge relating to experience and that this knowledge does not tell us anything about things in themselves. He says that innate faculties give form to what we perceive and that even though they determine the patterns according to which the world appears to us, they do not tell us anything about what the world is really like.

Judgments: Perception vs. Experience

In the second part of Prolegomena, Kant discusses the difference between judgments of perception and judgments of experience. He says that judgments of perception are only "subjectively valid" and that they "only require the the logical connection of perception in a thinking subject." (sect. 18) He goes on to say that all of our judgments are "at first merely judgments of perception; they hold good only for us." (sect. 18) Kant then discusses judgments of experience and says that if they have objective validity, then they are empirical judgments. He says that those judgments always require special concepts originally generated in the understanding, which make the judgment of experience objectively valid.

Kant is basically showing the difference between things in themselves and our perceiving mind. Judgments of perception are joining and associating two or more intuitions with each other and making a connection between them. They deal with our senses. He says that we turn judgments of perception into judgments of experience by using concepts of pure understanding because empirical intuitions in themselves cannot be generalized.