The Constitutive A Priori

The question of the a priori—can an adequate epistemology be developed without appeal to a non-empirical source of justification?—is a core issue running throughout the history of philosophy, and recent decades have seen some provocative and potentially epochal work on the issue. Arthur Sullivan provides a clear-headed evaluation of the upshot of these developments. He argues that the notion of the constitutive a priori provides the best means, all things considered, of accommodating these recent developments into a coherent, compelling view. The constitutive a priori is most commonly known as a position within the philosophy of science, holding that one of Kant’s signature moves provides the means to incorporate unforeseen drastic shocks into existing theory. This book shows that this notion of the constitutive a priori provides not merely a satisfactory epistemological framework, but, further, a compelling way to accommodate and integrate some of the most significant lessons learned in twentieth century philosophy. Its distinctive contribution lies in the case it builds for taking this constitutive a priori orientation as a good means of integrating and consolidating certain epochal insights of Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Kripke, and Kaplan.

In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current debates over conceptual change and the constitutive elements in science. Stump emphasizes the unique epistemological status of the constitutive elements of scientific theories, constitutive elements being the necessary preconditions that must be assumed in order to conduct a particular scientific inquiry. These constitutive elements, such as logic, mathematics, and even some fundamental laws of nature, were once taken to be a priori knowledge but can change, thus leading to a dynamic or relative a priori. Stump critically examines developments in thinking about constitutive elements in science as a priori knowledge, from Kant’s fixed and absolute a priori to Quine’s holistic empiricism. By examining the relationship between conceptual change and the epistemological status of constitutive elements in science, Stump puts forward an argument that scientific revolutions can be explained and relativism can be avoided without resorting to universals or absolutes.

The most influential rationalist model of scientific knowledge is arguably the one formulated recently by Michael Friedman. The central epistemic claim of the model concerns the character of its fundamental principles which are said to be independent from experience. Friedman’s position faces the modern empiricist challenge: he has to explain how the principles could still be a priori if they change under empirical pressure. This book provides a contemporary account of the epistemic character of the principles, addressing recent work on the a priori in modern analytic epistemology. Its main thesis is that at least some principles within natural science are not empirically but a priori revisable. A Priori Revisability in Science formulates a general notion of epistemic revisability and extracts two kinds of specific revisabilities: the traditional empirical one and the suggested novel a priori revisability. It presents the argument that the latter is as vital as the former and even so within natural science. To demonstrate this, the author analyzes two case studies – one from the history of geometry and one from the history of physics – and shows that the revisions were a priori. The result of this is two-fold. First, a genuine alternative of empirical revisability is developed, and not just for traditional a priori domains like mathematics, but for the natural sciences as well. Second, a new mechanism for the dynamics of science is suggested, the a priori dynamics, at the core of which the scientific knowledge sometimes evolves through non-empirical moves.

This book deals with questions about the nature of a priori knowledge and its relation to empirical knowledge. Until the twentieth century, it was more or less taken for granted that there was such a thing as a priori knowledge, that is, knowledge whose source is in reason and reflection rather than sensory experience. With a few notable exceptions, philosophers believed that mathematics, logic and philosophy were all a priori. Although the seeds of doubt were planted earlier on, by the early twentieth century, philosophers were widely skeptical of the idea that there was any nontrivial existence of a priori knowledge. By the mid to late twentieth century, it became fashionable to doubt the existence of any kind of a priori knowledge at all. Since many think that philosophy is an a priori discipline if it is any kind of discipline at all, the questions about a priori knowledge are fundamental to our understanding of philosophy itself.

This volume contains ten new essays on a priori knowledge by authors from Canada, the United States, Australia, & Europe Topics addressed include the nature, explanation, & indispensability of a priori knowledge, its connection with analytic truth, its place in mathematics, in logic, & in empirical theory, & the contribution of Kant & Quine to these topics. The focus is on twentieth-century contributions to these issues, but most essays also address earlier discussions at some length, & the essays that focus on Kant also relate his views to more recent discussions. Contents: Introduction. A Rationalist Manifesto. Analyticity, Undeniability, & Truth. Analyticity & the A Priori. The Doubtful A Priori. Some Remarks on Indiscernibility. The Constitutive A Priori. Kant's A Priori Methods for Recognising Necessary Truths. EPR as A Priori Science. Gaps, Gluts, & Paradox. An Essay on Material Necessity.

Reframing Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: The Roots of Desire, edited by Elodie Boublil, investigates the works of French philosophers who have been relegated to the margins of the canon, even if their teachings and writings have been recognized as highly influential. The contributions gather around the concept of “desire” to make sense of the French philosophical debate throughout the twentieth century. The first part of the volume investigates the concept of desire by questioning the role of reflexivity in embodiment and self-constitution. It examines specifically the works of three authors—Maine de Biran, Jean Nabert, and Jean-Louis Chrétien—to highlight their specific contribution to twentieth-century French philosophy. The second part of the volume explores desire's pre-reflective and affective dynamics that resist objectification and reflexivity by analyzing the contributions of lesser-known thinkers such as Simone Weil, Sarah Kofman, and Henri Maldiney. The last part of the volume focuses on three philosophical endeavors that aim to positively rethink the foundations of phenomenology and French philosophy: Jacques Garelli, Marc Richir, and Mikel Dufrenne.

Addressing a wide range of topics, from Newton to Post-Kuhnian philosophy of science, these essays critically examine themes that have been central to the influential work of philosopher Michael Friedman. Special focus is given to Friedman's revealing study of both history of science and philosophy in his work on Kant, Newton, Einstein, and other major figures. This interaction of history and philosophy is the subject of the editors' "manifesto" and serves to both explain and promote the essential ties between two disciplines usually regarded as unrelated.