and
Okay, that brings me back to my original quesiton: “[W]hat came first: does a priorism precede the development of sensory awareness in our evolutionary history?”
You seem to be implying that, evolutionarily, before any sensory awareness was useful, there had to be a priori knowledge; that is a logical consequence of your assertion.
I suppose my question is this: what is the difference between thinking in general and a priori thinking?
This is why I say you’re rather clueless about epistemology. I’m not talking about chronological priority. People for a long time have assumed their senses are valid in terms of the data they provide, that it is licit to move from premises to conclusions etc. The question you’re trying to answer pertains to epistemic justification. It is 100% irrelevant to it whether a priori knowledge or a posteriori knowledge came first, especially if people made implicit assumptions regarding the validity of knowledge garnered via the latter that turns out to be a priori. There is no real difference between them. A priori knowledge consists of postulates that must hold true for any knowledge to exist as well as axioms proven because their denial leads to contradiction. And if they cannot be assumed/justified, so much the worse for all knowledge, including empirical. 
You seem to think you can neatly divide empirical and a priori knowledge.
Caley, that doesn’t answer my question! How do I differentiate the two?
For instance, I claim that empirical knowledge includes what is mistaken for aprioristic thinking.
I’m clueless about many things, but epistemology isn’t one of them.
Biological evolution has everything to do with what you’re saying: if a priori thinking didn’t evolve prior to sensory awareness, then sensory awareness was completely useless according to you.
Once again, what is the difference between thinking in general and a priori thinking?
filc, no one has yet furnished an epistemic justification for a priori knowledge; in fact, I have not even be told what the nature of a priori knowledge is. How does “nonempirical” knowledge arise in the mind? How are its truths related to an external world? How do we know with certainty that a priori knowledge isn’t simply thoughts formed within a web of belief, a web that is directly tied to observations (cf. Quine)?
sigh
Why would it be useless? You’re now confusing usage with justification. They are not the same. If you knew anything about epistemology you’d know this, it’s taught even in 101 courses on the topic.
For the sake of fruitfulness, can we simply avoid debates where “You just don’t know any better” is considered an argument. For some reason, people here seem to think that “You are just clueless” is a rebuttal. No matter what topic I am discussing, “You are just uninformed about this, while I am immensely more well-learned” seems to be where most of the reasoning stopcs.
If the disparity of intellects is so great, then sound argumentation should be effective.
It isn’t when you consistently make errors resulting from your ignorance of a topic. I am asking you to furnish an explanation of empirical knowledge without resorting to assumptions that must hold for it to obtain to begin with to maybe get you to think about it and realise how the one depends on the other for its very existence.
Jon Irenicus, I deny a first philosophy. There’s no problem of justification for me.
The problem is yours: you claim that I can’t make heads or tails of sensory awareness without a priori thinking; yet, that would mean sensory awareness was completely useless in our evolutionary history until a priori thinking came along.
You always seem to be an exception to the rule.
Because there is basically no knowledge for you. Just a mish-mash of sensations and nothing morel wait, not even that much, you aren’t assuming the LNC, so you both are and are not experiencing this mish-mash. Glad we cleared that up.
Okay, so here’s what happened. I asked you to explain a priori knowledge to me, but then you ignore that and ask me to explain empirical knowledge, as if I wouldn’t noticed what you dodged. If that’s not an admission of ignorance, I’m not sure what is. Clearly, I asked first.
I do believe cognitive processes make use of sensory input; there is a coding scheme that prevents direct contact with objective reality. In our evolution, this was especially adaptive for prediction and so on. However, I have no sense of what apriorism entails or how one justifies its alleged truths.
If you are simply positing axioms and then deducing consequences, then I fail to see how that is anything special.
Knowledge, or something near enough, does exist. Certainty doesn’t, though. I do believe the brain processes information, after all.
I have to agree with Irenicus that you don’t know what you are talking about. What you call “thinking in general” is “a priorism”. As in ==.
I have to agree with Neoclassical that you have no idea what you’re talking about. That statement proves it.
You are implying that every philosopher that has ever denied a priori knowledge is denying thinking itself! That’s preposterous. W.V.O. Quine, Michael Devitt, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and so many other thinkers that reject apriorism are not rejecting thinking!
At this point, though, you have provided the only positive characterization of what a priori knowledge actually is: all thinking!
Define “knowledge” because little of that made much sense.
Apriorism = belief in truths that are not revisable (not not discoverable, that is a different question) via empirical methods of epistemic justification. These include the law of non-contradiction, the law of identity, and axioms derived in the manner I posited. There is indeed nothing “special” about it, in that there’s nothing unique about how Austrianism employs it. And no, it was not a “dodge”; I am trying to get you to understand that empirical knowledge in turn is wound up with a priori knowledge, hence I wanted you to define it without assuming principles that hold for it (which you didn’t, you assumed knowledge the justification of which is in question, e.g. cognitive science.)
Ludwig Wittgenstein, and so many other thinkers that reject apriorism are not rejecting thinking!
Don’t be so hasty… he does not straightforwardly reject apriorism. I care not for the likes of Quine, Ayer etc. Only whether their arguments hold up. You truly are like Nathyn…
Mine was not an appeal to authority; I was simply strutting out esteemed philosophers that we can infer were not so stupid as to equate all thinking as aprioristic.
If anything, you were the one claiming that my criticisms were “well-known” by your cherished philosophers and thus ineffective.
As for the LNC, I recommend you read this: http://homepage.mac.com/mcolyvan/papers/LNC.pdf. As I’ve stated elewhere, I do not believe logic is aprioristic and non-revisable.
I recommend you make an exposition of the arguments in the paper that you think are meritorious. I’m not going to let you slide off the hook by just linking a paper.
And cut the crap. I am not appealing to philosophers to make my point, unlike you. I am pointing out you do know next to nothing about what you’re trying to critique and have put minimal thought into these matters, your increased snarkiness notwithstanding.
Since when did what philosophers say matter? It is the philosophers that created the vacuous dichotomy to begin with. I don’t care about all philosophers or any philosophers.
Ludwig von Mises of course was a “philosopher”. Don’t you care about what he said?