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Topic: | Re:Complex Visual Concept in the Pigeon |
Posted by: | Leslie Smith |
Date/Time: | 2010/4/3 18:08:44 |
pigeons, training and their powers Anything due to training is thereby not a priori. Nor can anything innate be a priori without an extra rationale showing why this is so. Accounts about innate structures and similar [Chomsky etc] simply posit a structure or module or whatever without the extra rationale. Here is where I stand: Kant on a priori knowledge is "knowledge absolutely independent of all experience"?whose criteria are "necessity and strict universality". His examples fitting these criteria included mathematical truths such as?"7 + 5 = 12" and principles such as "everything that happens has its cause". Unless alternative criteria are provided with a good rationale, I side with Kant. And Piaget apparently did so too. But that leads to the question in my previous email: what is the formation of a priori knowledge? Of course, things would be easier if there were no such thing. Apparently, though, there is. |