Types of A Priori?

[wilderness]

@E. R. Olovetto

A couple things I have read recently have me confused. I guess that I just want to see people’s opinions. First from the introduction to Barry Smith’s book on Austrian Philosophy (vs. German and this isn’t talking about Austrian Economics), a characteristic of the Austrians:

(v) A special relation to the a priori, conceived not however in Kantian terms but in terms of a willingness to accept disciplines such as phenomenology and Gestalt theory which are, as Wittgenstein expressed it, ‘midway between logic and physics’. (The question as to how such apriorism can be consistent with a respect for empirical science will be one of the issues to be addressed below.)

This ‘midway between logic and physics’ is Aristotelian. In some of Smith’s other works he discusses this point, especially in terms of who that book is titled after. He was the influence of Carl Menger and it is Aristotelian through and through. Any divergences from Aristotelian would be too fine of a point for me to know at this given time by Brentano, Menger, or even Wittgenstein and phenomenology.

But this post is definitely in the direction I’ve been headed too when it comes to my recent studies as noted in the recent thread I opened on this similar vein of thought.

@E. R. Olovetto quoting a source

The development of this idea would lead to a completely different apriori discipline, which however does not, just as Reinach’s apriori theory of right does not, go in the direction of realizing the fundamentally mistaken idea of a “natural law.” For this apriori discipline (of “right law”) can only bring out formal norms of right, and from these one can no more extract a positive law than one can get definite truths in the natural sciences out of formal logic. No one who is interested in a strictly scientific philosophy of right, in a definitive clarification of the basic concepts which are constitutive for the idea of any possible positive law (a clarification which, it is clear, can be achieved only by phenomenologically penetrating into the pure essence of our consciousness of right)

I really don’t understand these kinds of assertions, yes, pointed at natural law. A natural law understood in praxeologic conditions isn’t void of the individual, ie. marginal utility, nor void of the rest of world, ie. objects preferred. Natural law of human nature is categorically ‘what the intellect apprehends in reality’. In other words, if it is reality being described it is natural law, and natural law being such an old traditional concept for ‘a reality apprehended by an individual’s own intellect’ thereby drips with human action. Thus why it is commonly recognized that Aristotle discussed action, even pertaining to the individual. Barry has even described or maybe it was him quoting somebody else, but none the less he had agreed, that science is what hangs together logic and the rest of the world in a theoretical sense (meaning science is theory in form whereas common sense, ie. individually founded, is more ad hoc in it’s application in everyday life, but is not isolated from any scientific theorizing unless the individual prefers to isolate him or her self from science but an individual may ignore their own common sense too so this isn’t that pertinent but to move on…).

If there is this search for a “right law” that is based on logic and experience at any given time, then the interpretation of the natural law dealing with human nature, ie. property rights based on scarcity, etc…, such an interpretation has cultural pressures. Common law seems to be such natural law interpretations for any given time era, if practiced. Common law can change but what remains is logic to decipher any current circumstances. I don’t see any conflict between natural law and common law. Principles, ie. natural law, are not isolated from epistemological short-comings. Theories change. Revisions are needed at times. And that’s common law - it changes with the times but logic doesn’t suddenly disappear.

By the way, what was your confusion?