On Kitcher’s Definition of A Priori Knowledge

Abstract

In his book Interpreting Modern Philosophy, James Collins notes that concern with the priori has preoccupied twentieth century philosophers of every sort. He explains: It is central to the works of Frege and Quine, C. I. Lewis and Wittgenstein, Carnap and Ayer, Husserl and Dufresne. This major problem crosses the frontiers of every kind of contemporary philosophy. For it raises basic theoretical difficulties for naturalistic, analytic, and phenomenological thinkers alike, and affects their conceptions of scientific law, metaphysical statements, and ethical reasoning. Kitcher's Analysis In his article A Priori Knowledge, Philip Kitcher proposes the following as the conditions required for apriority in knowledge. X knows priori that IFF X knows and X's that was produced by process (a) which is an priori warrant for it. (1) is an priori warrant for X's that IFF is process such that, given any life e, sufficient for X for then (a) some process of the same type were to produce in X that (b) if the process of the same type were to produce in X that then it would warrant X in believing that (c) if process of the same type were to produce in X that then There are some ambiguities in Kitcher's analysis that require treatment before continuing. The more obvious is the employment of the term belief as warranting and especially a priori which, by virtue of its undeniability, is kind of knowledge par excellence. This is hardly characteristic normally associated with and so it is unclear how one can progress from states to any kind of knowledge. One may start with as motivation, but it would appear that some additional epistemic experience is required to move from into knowledge. That an unequal status exists between them is arguable from the fact that it makes perfect sense to say know that I believe that 'p' is but not believe that I know that 'p' is -unless one is referring to something one had known but is now forgotten or unclearly remembered. Adding claim to something clearly known contributes nothing to making it more certain. If one knows p to be true (one's name, to whom one is married, etc.) appending line of beliefs (I believe I know 'p' to be true, believe that I believe that I know 'p' to be true-and so on) adds not single iota of additional certitude to the original knowledge claim. But if one has in p on the grounds of someone else's testimony or on the basis of vaguely formed inference about facts that are certainly known and comes to acquire evidence for the truth of p, one no longer employs the term belief to describe the conditions of accepting its truth, but rather knowledge claim about the truth of p. Belief then holds an inferior epistemic status to knowledge. Possibly Kitcher could have used term such as awareness in place of belief and avoided the terminological difficulty. The second clarification that Kitcher's analysis requires is unpacking the meaning of eany life experience(s). Does he mean single experience or range of experiences, or would such an experience be sets of possible ranges of experiences? It would most likely have to be the latter as it is difficult to imagine that one solitary experience could result in clearly articulated claim whose a-priority would be obvious and undeniable. While objections might be leveled at interpreting Kitcher in this matter, it is necessary if we are to undertake what Kitcher does not do in his article, namely, to examine specific claims variously held as being priori. The furthest Kitcher himself goes is to present what he labels as some promising examples for such knowledge propositions that there are objects ... that some objects have shapes, and other similar propositions. …