An example of the “synthetic a priori”: On how it helps us to widen our philosophical horizons
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Wojciech Żełaniec
Wojciech Żełaniec (b. 1959) is a professor at the University of Gdańsk 〈zelaniec@aol.com〉. His research interests include social and legal philosophy, metaphysics, and semiotics. His publications include “Sull'idea stessa di regola costitutiva” (2005); and “Perché il ‘veridico’ non è molto meglio che il ‘mentitore’” (2007).
Abstract
A putative example (not Kant-style) of the “synthetic a priori” is examined with a view to, not establishing whether or not it truly belongs to that category but to drawing a philosophical lesson from the fact that it, or a similar proposition, is no longer indisputably empirically true. The example is “No surface is at the same time and for the same observer red all over and green.” An example is provided of how philosophy could deal with such recalcitrant evidence as may crop up and contradict such seemingly self-evident “synthetic a priori.”
About the author
Wojciech Żełaniec (b. 1959) is a professor at the University of Gdańsk 〈zelaniec@aol.com〉. His research interests include social and legal philosophy, metaphysics, and semiotics. His publications include “Sull'idea stessa di regola costitutiva” (2005); and “Perché il ‘veridico’ non è molto meglio che il ‘mentitore’” (2007).
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Approaching the abstract: Building blocks for an epistemology of abstract objects
- The ideal as real and as purely intentional: Ingarden-based reflections
- Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making
- An example of the “synthetic a priori”: On how it helps us to widen our philosophical horizons
- The generality of signs: The actual relevance of anti-psychologism
- Sensory imagination and narrative perspective: Explaining perceptual focalization
- The basic distinctions in Der Streit
- The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction
- Roman Ingarden's theory of reader experience: A critical assessment
- Varieties of intentional objects
- More than an attitude: Roman Ingarden's aesthetics
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Approaching the abstract: Building blocks for an epistemology of abstract objects
- The ideal as real and as purely intentional: Ingarden-based reflections
- Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making
- An example of the “synthetic a priori”: On how it helps us to widen our philosophical horizons
- The generality of signs: The actual relevance of anti-psychologism
- Sensory imagination and narrative perspective: Explaining perceptual focalization
- The basic distinctions in Der Streit
- The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction
- Roman Ingarden's theory of reader experience: A critical assessment
- Varieties of intentional objects
- More than an attitude: Roman Ingarden's aesthetics
