Philosophy 2500F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Baruch Spinoza, A Priori And A Posteriori, Radical Empiricism
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Given any straight line segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as centre. Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. This is the second part of your discussion question. Start with principles that are self-evident arrive at generalization: use deductive inference rather than inductive. I know that i have ten fingers because i can see that i have ten fingers. I know that smoking causes cancer because i have seen the statistics. Some of our knowledge is justified by appealing to experience. We know contingent features of the world a posteriori, i. e, by consulting experience. It could have been the case that human beings were normally born with twelve fingers; it could have been the case that smoking is good for you. Other things that we know seem to be justified by means of thought alone. An equilateral triangle can be constructed on any straight line.