Why does Kant believe analytic statements are a priori? Isn't experience being formally identical to itself experiential "verification" of the law of identity, A = A?
Trust me, I get what he's going for, but I'm still not convinced Kant's system doesn't derive from experience, even if we're talking its most esoteric aspects.
He is a crypto-Catholic, thus wrong.
Kant never experienced the pleistocene (or knew about it), but he still denied it
get back in the zone
because the relation the term batchelor has to the term unmarried is known without appeal to experience, you would never have to confirm that each batchelor is unmarried. For instance, the term cow and white do not have the same relation, because in experience you can find a black cow, the statement "all cows are white" is only true based on your experience of cows
I get that, I don't need to experience bachelors being unmarried to understand the statement, since it's just a statement of identity
But why does identity have to be an a priori feature of experience, well, I get why, but still
If you get why then I don't know what to say
>Why does Kant believe analytic statements are a priori?
Because they are already contained in the concept, and the latter might be either pure or empirical. Basically, when you think that concept (i.e. when you think about "body", which is an empirical concept) you're a priori thinking about what determines that concept for you, those determinations don't come AFTER the concept. This become even more obvious if you read the first 2 sections of the Trascendental Deduction: synthesis is always prior to analysis, and as such the multiplicity kf determinations of a concept are prior to the formation of the synthetic unity of said concept.
I get it, but in what sense is the a priori prior to experience at all? I need to experience things for those things to disclose their structure of appearing. Aren't they mutually disclosed, experience and its pre-experiential structure? I'm sure Kant says the same thing
auto zone
reading him will help you formulate opinions that are not shit, user
>I get it, but in what sense is the a priori prior to experience at all?
As I've said, synthesis comes prior to analysis. Every possible object of your experience has already been synthetised before you get aware of it.
>I need to experience things for those things to disclose their structure of appearing.
Yes, but when you think about them they have already been synthetised. You seem to be making a distinction between experience through analysis and experience through synthesis. Again, try to go through the first 2 sections of the Trascendental Deduction, Kant explains there why he thinks what he says in the Introduction.
>Aren't they mutually disclosed, experience and its pre-experiential structure? I'm sure Kant says the same thing
I don't know what this means, can you reformulate this question?
Keep reading, autodidact.
Also let me add that analytic statemens being a priori does not mean that they're true, or that they refer to empirical reality a priori. You can formulate analytic statements of (probably) non-existing entities (i.e. if I take the concept of unicorn as it is meant generally, "unicorn have one horn" would be an analytic statement, since if I don't think about the unicorn as something having an horn, then I'm not thinking about unicorns, rather I'm merely calling "unicorn" something that is not an unicorn - I've used the concept of "unicorn", but as you can see this can apply to every other possible class of concepts).
Because the only 'experience' needed to understand the definition of bachelor is hearing the definition. You don't need to experience being a bachelor or ever meeting one to understand what a bachelor is. Maybe your point is that you need to experience the definition as in learning what it means?
I'm saying there is no synthesis without a transcendental structure, and no transcendental structure without synthesis (the output = experience).
Not necessarily, I'm not saying the content of an experience proves an a priori statement, but its form. Experience is formally identical to itself, but that form is not itself an item of experience.
I suppose I'm just repeating Kant's insights then
It really doesn’t matter. Anything true without reference to experience has nothing to tell us about experience.
>
I'm saying there is no synthesis without a transcendental structure
Yes, but said trascental structure is contentless: it merely operates the synthesis. Kant deals with it in the third section of the TD, it's called synthetic unity of apperception.
>no transcendental structure without synthesis (the output = experience)
Nope, the synthtic unity of apperception comes prior to synthesis, and as such we cannot experience it.
Kant is a swampy little ditch of quicksand. People wallow around in it pretending they can swim. Those of us who refuse to indulge in a muddy dip are confronted with the schoolboy game of being yelled at:"Kant! Kant!" to which we have to reply, "Won't! Won't!"
proves
I know it's contentless, that's why I distinguished between content and form of experience.
I suppose what I'm saying then is there'd be no CONCEPT of a transcendental synthesis itself, but that synthesis is necessarily operative whether it is for Kant or for Joe schmoe.
I suppose I don't really have any questions then.
Not really, Kant is not that swampy. Also everything I've said is literally contained in the first 100 pages of the first critique. I'm not even going that deep into the system
By forms of experience you mean pure intuitions? In that case, they're contentless too.
>I suppose what I'm saying then is there'd be no CONCEPT of a transcendental synthesis itself, but that synthesis is necessarily operative whether it is for Kant or for Joe schmoe.
Pretty much, as long as Joe has an intellect (the 12 categories are shared by every possible finite rational being according to Kant, infinite rational being would intead think in relation to intellectual intuitions).
wtf are you yapping about
user, you need to be very aware of discursive analytical statements that are pure and those that needed experience of which then a priori an analytical statement can be made.
Body has expansion is a empirical analytical statement a priori. so is 2 = 2. pure synthetic statement that needs no experience but the knowledge that identity with itself is the same is a pure analytical statemnt that is true which 2=2 needs to base on to be true. These a priori pure truths are very few (to some only identity being the one) on which all other statements need to base on; for them to be true necessarily they need to be prior to Any experience. The only thing you could say is of these necessary statements (verstandesbegriffe) is that you can only know of them After experience since they are empty on their own and need content to mend by their form, so possibly we only know them by what we have experienced.
no spacial or temporal statement is pure analytical a priori though it may rely on a pure analytical a priori necessary statement.