I’m trying to get through an introduction to Kants critique of pure reason. Is there a helpful mnemonic or trick to keeping the two straight?
I know A priori is reasoning through deduction, and that a posteriori is reasoning through experience or observations. But I have to keep looking it up to keep it straight when I read it.
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Basically, *a priori* things are things that must be true, even without evidence. A triangle has three sides. Something exists. They’re essentially pure logic at work, and should apply no matter what the state of the universe is if logic is correct.
*A posteriori* reasoning is figuring out something from the evidence you have available. Gold weighs 19.2 grams/cc. Dogs have four legs. Fire is hot.
The big difference is that things reasoned *a priori* must be true, if logic is right. Things derived from *a posteriori* reasoning may be true if the measurement of those things is correct and the reasoning about them is correct.
You might find a three-legged dog, or some odd isotope of gold that’s more dense than the norm, or fire that’s cool to the touch. You will never find a two-dimensional closed geometric figure with three angles but five sides.
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