SECTION SEVEN
THE FORCES PRESENT IN A PRIORI REASONING
CHAPTER 1
What we mean by a priori reasoning
1378. I have distinguished the form of knowledge from knowledge in the strict sense,(260) and shown that the former is innate, and the latter acquired.
Knowledge is initially direct, and then reflective. Reflective knowledge of first reflection (popular knowledge) adds the notion of new entia to direct knowledge,(261) while knowledge from further reflection (philosophical knowledge) adds nothing - we simply acquire greater light about the objects we know, and a strong persuasion of truth deep within our spirit. This gives a kind of satisfaction which is as it were a foretaste of the happiness produced by truth itself when it is fully revealed to us.
Knowledge, whether direct or reflective of first reflection, which terminates in new objects, can be called 'fundamental'.(262) Hence knowledge of further reflection contains nothing which is not in fundamental knowledge. The analysis of fundamental knowledge will therefore be sufficient for us to distinguish a priori from a posteriori knowledge.
1379. Fundamental knowledge, like all other knowledge, is composed of two elements: 1. the idea of being, and 2. the mode of being. The idea of being contains possibility, which is the source of all that is necessary and universal in human knowledge. But a priori knowledge is qualified by necessity and universality (cf. vol. 1, 304-309). Therefore anything contained a priori in human knowledge is included in the idea of being in all its universality. All other knowledge shares a priori knowledge only in so far as the idea of being is present in it (cf. vol. 2, 408 ss.).
Any knowledge which is a mixture of the idea of being in all its universality and of the determinations or modes of being is not entirely a priori; it is mixed, and exists only when the two elements composing it are present. It needs sensible perceptions, and a kind of first attention devoted to them. This kind of knowledge can be said to acquire its existence a posteriori. We must therefore return to the idea of being where alone pure, a priori knowledge is found.
1380. Etymologically, the expressions 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' were coined to indicate reasoning rather than knowledge as such. They mean: 'an argument deduced from what is anterior', and 'an argument deduced from what is posterior'. What is anterior was generally understood as cause; what is posterior, as effect. Thus, reasonings which moved from cause to effect were called 'a priori', and those from effect to cause, 'a posteriori'. But I take 'a priori knowledge' in a stricter sense, where it means knowledge contained not in the efficient or any other cause of the thing under discussion, but in the formal cause of knowledge and of reason (or deduced from this formal cause alone). A formal cause is the first fact, anterior to all others in the order of acts of knowledge. This explains why a priori knowledge, taken in this sense, is qualified by necessity and universality.(263)
But is a priori reasoning possible in this sense? And if it is possible, what is its extent and bounds? These are the questions I now propose to discuss, to which the teaching I have already presented will serve as an introduction.
Notes
(260) Philosophical language still lacks perfect determination. We sometimes have to use a single word with different meanings; perhaps the limited nature of language and the affinity of ideas do not permit us to do otherwise. Hence, when we use a word to which usage has given different meanings, we must note the meaning given in each place. I myself have sometimes included even the form of thought in the word 'knowledge', but I add the phrase 'in the strict sense' to note that the word is being used to mean knowledge obtained by a judgment. In general, people do not speak of the form of reason to distinguish it from everything else; when they do speak of it, they tend to call it 'light of reason'. If the etymology of the word 'intellect' shows they recognise in the power of understanding something essentially understood (intellectum), they never, as far as I know, use the word 'knowledge' to name what is first understood by the spirit. This explains the certain, universal persuasion found in antiquity (except for the few philosophers who stood out from the rest) that all cognitions are acquired through the senses.
(261) These entia are the cause of the universe, and generally speaking are invisible powers. But, as I have shown, we have only negative knowledge of them.
(262) Fundamental knowledge is composed of perceptions which contain some kind of positive knowledge, and of reasonings which give some kind of negative knowledge.
(263) Kant took a priori knowledge in a similar sense, as I indicated in vol. 1 (cf. 306, footnote 1). But there is a difference between Kant and myself in the definition of a priori knowledge, and only clarity in discussion will indicate this difference. According to Kant, a priori knowledge has the two characteristics of necessity and universality as its distinguishing marks. My a priori knowledge also has these two characteristics, which however are the result of a previous characteristic that forms the essence of this knowledge. In fact, Kant finds a priori knowledge in the forms added by the spirit's own action to the perceptions of sensible things. Thus his a priori knowledge is properly speaking acquired, although it originates in the spirit whose forms are simply powers or special activities which of themselves add nothing to what is actually understood by the spirit. I affirm however that the spirit essentially understands something (being in all its universality). My a priori knowledge therefore is essential to the spirit because it is being in all its universality and everything being contains, although not in a state of analysis or of advertence. Hence Kant begins the development of our spirit with an accidental act of the spirit - I begin its development with an essentially understood object preceding all its accidental acts.