Anfang Zurück Weiter Ende Index Homepage Text
kants terminology.jpg (50310 Byte)

9 of 21

- List of terms and their meaning (my interpretation)

- A priori / A posteriori

- Middle Age:

- a demonstration 'a priori' procedes from the causes to the effects, i.e. from what comes first by nature (universal) to what comes first for us (sensation);

- a demonstration 'a posteriori' procedes from the effects to the causes: from sensation to the universal

- Aristoteles:

- wisdom (philosophy) as the science of FIRST (superior, highest) principles and causes

- a priori = 'what precedes by nature and is most distant from sensation': the universal

- a posteriori = 'what precedes for us and is nearest to sensation: the individual

- Kant:

- [B1]: experience as the (product of the) processing ('verarbeiten') of the raw material of sensible impressions;

- [B1]: but even the product of this 'experiential' processing ('Erfahrungserkenntnis') may well be (hypothesis, solution) an assembly

- from what we receive through impressions

- from what our own faculty of knowledge (merely initiated, triggered by sensible impressions) supplies from itself ('was unser eigenes Erkenntnisvermögen ... aus sich selbst hergibt').

- [B XXIII]: nothing in a priori knowledge can be ascribed to objects except what the thinking subject takes up from itself ('in der Erkenntnis a priori den Objekten nichts beigelegt werden kann, als was das denkende Subjekt aus sich selbst hernimmt)

- 'a priori knowledge' = what our own faculty of knowledge supplies from itself

- 'a priori mode of knowing' = how our own faculty of knowledge supplies what from itself (see 'transcendental')

- [B2]: knowledge (product that our faculty of knowledge supplies from itself) independent of the products and even of the raw material of 'experiential' processing ('von der Erfahrung und selbst von allen Eindrücken der Sinne unabhängiges Erkenntnis').

- Transcendental

- of knowledge which is about our 'a priori' mode of knowledge, i.e. about 'how our own faculty of knowledge supplies <something> from itself and what does it supply'

- [B 25]: I call transcendental all knowledge which deals not so much with objects as in general with our mode of knowing ('Erkenntnisart') objects in so far as this mode is to be possible a priori.

- Anschauung

- [Russel 1948/1984, p.679]:"...means literally 'looking at' or 'view'. The word 'intuition', though the accepted translation, is not altogether a satisfactory one."

- my translation:

- Anschauug = Framing, anschauen = to frame, anschaulich = framed

- special cases: spatiotemporally framing

- dictionary entries

- Framing: frame, framework [Webster 1984]

- Frame: 1. those parts of a structure that support the other parts and to or over which the other parts re fixed or fastened [Oxford 1948]

- Frame: 3a. an open case or structure made for admitting, enclosing or supporting something [Webster 1984]

- Framework: that part of a structure that gives it its shape or support [Oxford 1948]

- Framework: 1a. a skeletal, openwork or structural frame [Webster 1984]

- Empirical

- of knowledge obtained in the 'a posteriori' mode [B2]

- of framings (frames) and concepts: when they contain sensation [B74]

- Pure

- of knowledge: in a compound (claim, judgment) the boundary 'a priori'/'a posteriori' may not be so rigid, so that compounds declared as a whole 'a priori' may contain 'a posteriori' elements; but a compound may also be completely made of 'a priori' elements: such a compound is termed 'pure'

- of framings and concepts: when they do not contain any sensation [B74]

- Vorstellung

- idea (Locke)

- mental product (best translation because of 'Empfindung'), a product of mental activity;

- except for 'Empfindung': mental construct

- special cases: mental presence, mental focus

- Knowledge

- [A97]: a whole made of compared and connected mental products ('...ein Ganzes verglichener und verknüpfter Vorstellungen').

- Manifold

- the raw material, the stuff on which the understanding can operate

- [EvG 1995 p.40]: "William James (1892) called it 'one big blooming buzzing confusion'. In present-day neurophysiology one would say, it is the totality of electrochemical impulses continuously generated by the sensory organs of the system.... they cannot convey qualitative information, because qualitatively they are all the same."

- Ding an sich

- an empty concept without experiential object (entity of reason, 'Gedankending' [B348]) that serves as follows (heuristic function of this fiction):

- [B XXVI-XXVII] though we cannot have experience (know) of things as things in themselves, we must yet at least ba able to think things as things in themselves, otherwise we would have the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears. ... the distinction, which our Critique has established as necessary, between things as objects of experience and those same things as things in themselves ...

- heuristic: serving as an aid to problem solving