Joseph Pallattil
In his famous work, ‘the Critique of pure reason’, Immanuel Kant makes two important distinctions. One is between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. The other is between analytic and synthetic judgments. Kant underlines the main differences between priori and a posteriori understanding and between synthetic and analytic resolution. A posteriori means after the experience. This is the knowledge we gain from experience. The apriori knowledge is the necessary and universal knowledge. This is independent of experience. Example for apriori knowledge is our knowledge of mathematics. In an analytic judgment, the concept in the predicate is contained in the concept in the subject. When it comes to the analytical part, one must understand that the predicate must “describe” the concept in the subject. For instance, in the judgment, ‘a bachelor is an unmarried man.’ In this case the predicate is contained in the subject. In a synthetic judgment, the predicate concept contains information not contained in the subject concept. It’s clear that posteriori knowledge is complementary to the synthetic judgments and the priori knowledge is associated with analytic judgments. Kant argues that mathematics and the principles of science contain synthetic a priori knowledge. For example, ‘6 + 4 = 10’ is apriori because it is a necessary and universal truth we know independent of experience. It is synthetic because the concept of ‘10’ is not contained in the concept of ‘6+4’. Kant argues that the same is true for scientific principles such as, ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’. Because it is universally applicable. It must be a priori knowledge. Because a posteriori knowledge only tells us about particular experiences.
The connection between synthetic and a priori knowledge stands to reason that the universal truths add to the overall mind-set. The fact that we are capable of synthetic a priori knowledge suggests that pure reason is capable of knowing important truths. Immanuel Kant suggests that much of what we consider to be reality is shaped by the perceiving mind. The mind does not passively receive information provided by the senses. Rather, it actively shapes and makes sense of that information. If all the events in our experience take place in time, that is because our mind arranges sensory experience in a temporal progression, and if we perceive that some events cause other events that is because our mind makes sense of events in terms of cause and effect. Kant’s argument has a certain parallel to the fact that a person wearing blue-tinted sunglasses sees everything in a bluish light: according to Kant, the mind wears irremovable time-tinted and causation-tinted sunglasses, so that all our experience necessarily takes place in time and obeys the laws of causation. Therefore, “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”
