Prismatic567 wrote:To understand the whole, one must understand the parts and their differences and how they are interdependent within the system.
Note for example Yin-Yang within the Tao, one must know understand the principles of each element. You can insist there is no difference between Yin and Yang.
It is the same Kant to differentiate between a priori and a posteriori and explain how they are interdependent with each other to enable knowledge to emerge. You have to read up Kant to understand [not necessary agree] before you critique his views.
Yin is the north, dark side of the mountain while yang is the south, sunny side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang#Meanings
The only way I can see a priori being a requirement for posteriori is if a priori engenders the subject (brain) through evolution which then enables the subject to view the object (empiricism, deduction). But the way Kant defines it makes no sense to me since he divides the object (empiricism, deduction) into 2 parts for no obvious reason other than to complicate matters.
So it would seem that Kant has ignored yin, then proceeded to divide yang into two parts and achieved notoriety for it, though not for his blunder.
I tried Kant once and it was so incredibly boring that I gave up on it. It reminds me of sitting in a tree waiting for a deer to walk by. It's far easier to simply ask you

Our concern here is with humans not lizards.Yes but not all brains can realize the a priori that other brains can which presents yet another slippery slope. Can a lizard grasp the concept of a quantity? But on the other hand plants can apparently perform complex calculations that estimate the amount of sugar that needs to be stored for the night until the sun is expected to rise the next morning. https://grist.org/living/plants-can-do-math/
Obviously a computer doesn't perform magic in computation, but is a series of switches that operate in a deterministic fashion like dominoes falling against each other. Likewise viewing a tree is a similar deterministic process of chemistry and is absolutely no different than the mathematical calculations performed by plants.
The only way to have a REAL distinction between a priori and posteriori is to conjure magic and insist there is some aspect of humanity that is not native to this universe, otherwise it's all chemical bubblings and happenings within a continuum with no discontinuities.
Well then define humans. When did the first human come about? Evolution is a smooth continuous transition and there was never a point where we could say here is a human which came from this non-human. It's just like asking what was the day when you became old? It's another slippery slope since we can trace our ancestry back to a protoplasm globule and in fact, if you, for instance, believe the big bang, then we could say that we are the big bang still coming on. That singularity is grandpa.
To understand why humans accept seeming blindly why 1 + 1 = 2 we need to understand and differentiate between a priori and a posteriori.
What if 1+1=10? (binary) What if 1+1=1? (1 lump of clay added to another lump is 1 lump of clay.) And if 1+1=2 is so easy to understand, then which animals understand it and which do not? Does a gazelle realize there are 2 lions chasing it rather than 1? If so, is that empiricism or deduction?
If you throw a box of toothpicks on the floor and Rainman instantly knows the quantity of toothpicks, is it by empiricism or deduction? When idiot savants multiply ridiculously large numbers together in their heads, is it by empiricism or deduction? The only reason I know 7x7=49 is that I memorized it because I had to write it down a bazillion times in 3rd grade. To my knowledge, I have never deduced 7x7.
For a long time, humanity had no concept of zero because you can't have zero cows. If you have no cows, there is no need to write it down. https://www.livescience.com/27853-who-i ... -zero.html So is 1-1=0 a priori or not? After all, there are currently zero pink elephants chasing me.
To understand and resolve Hume's Problem of Induction, we need to understand and differentiate between a priori and a posteriori.
There are many other philosophical issues that require the differentiation between a priori and a posteriori.
Yes, in order to have a debate about what forms life, we need to have a differentiation between life and nonlife because the debate absolutely depends on such differentiation. Isn't that silly? Let's divide the room just so we can argue about who gets which side. Have philosophers gotten so bored that they're resorting to such?