O PRINCÍPIO DA INÉRCIA É RELATIVAMENTE/FUNCIONALMENTE A PRIORI? aspectos constitutivos do conhecimento científico e a teoria funcional do a priori

Abstract

The aim of this article is to do a rational reconstruction and critical appropriation of the characterization of the status of the principle of inertia given by Arthur Pap’s functional theory of the a priori (1943, 1944, [1946] 1968). The goal is to revitalize the author, someone who stayed overlooked in a debate in which his work shows itself to be fertile. We present the functional theory of the a priori in general lines, as well as the debate that characterizes the knowledge of the more basic principles of the natural sciences as functionally/relatively a priori. After some background, we characterize the principle of inertia in a contextual manner: in the context in which the principle of inertia is taken as a criterion to determine “real movements” of objects, the Newtonian physics, such principle is functionally a priori. In the sense of a condition to cognitive access or intelligibility, it functions as if were a priori (in other words, it is constitutive of the known objects).