The apriorism Past and Present Outlook, n Buletinul Institutului Politehnic din Iai, Seciunea

tiine Socio-Umane, Tom. XLVIII (LII), Fasc. 1-4, Iai, 2002, pp. 109-117.

THE APRIORISM -PAST AND PRESENT OUTLOOK

BY
BOGDAN POPOVENIUC

The topic of this paper consists in the analysis of the Kantian outlook on the a priori
structures and it represents an attempt at demonstrating that the new conceptions on the a priori do
not constitute a misinterpretation of his view but, on the contrary, a developing and an addition to
it. For this purpose, we shall try to point out the problems which I. Kant did not set up or
sufficiently argued, and to make relevant the ideas dogmatically introduced and those aspects or
consequences of his outlook that might make it appear as incomplete. In this manner, we hope to
express the essential continuity between the Kantian conception on the a priori and the
contemporary approaches involving the new scientific achievements.

For the beginning, let us consider what Kant might understand through a priori
sententence. R. G. Swinburne makes a distinction among the three meanings of the a
priori notion that can be inferred from Kants exposition and using of the term:
(a) A proposition is a priori if and only if it can be known to be true by an agent
who has had no experience at all.
(b) A proposition is a priori if and only if it can be known by an agent to be true, his
claim to knowledge being irrefutable by any (coherently describable) experiences.
(c) A proposition is a priori if and only if it is necessary and can be known to be
necessary. [1]
Among these, the (a) meaning is the strongest, but at the same time, the most
useless as a delimitation criterion of the a priori sentences for the supposition of an
independent knowledge, both chronological and genetic, is not even accepted by Kant.
There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. For how should
our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses []
In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with
experience all our knowledge begins. [2] Kants identification criterion of the a priori
sentences, strict necessity and universality, also rejects, in the end, the second
acceptation of the a priori because experience never confers on its judgments true or
strict but only assumed and comparative universality, through induction [2, p. 52].
Therefore, the independence on the experience involves the adoption of the third
acceptation for the a priori genuine enunciation. But the necessity criterion leads us to
analysis. Because, how could we recognize a synthetic sentence as being absolutely
necessary, if there were not a way of deduction or reduction to the evident truths of
reason. And this very possibility of reduction makes it appear as analytic. A rational
being off sufficient ability could always come to know of an analytic proposition that it was
 110

analytic. [] That all analytic proposition are a priori (though man may well be unable
ever to detect the analyticity of some analytic proposition). [1, p. 189]
The reduction of these synthetic sentences in the Kantian acceptation is made in
the evidences imposed by our specific manner of knowledge. But the evolution of
knowledge has shown that the analysis should not be understood as a formal tautological
equivalence, but as one based on the forming of our own structures of knowledge. At the
same time, at the level of the modern logic the division of judgments in analytics an
synthetics has [] a relative meaning, is legitimitate only if we do not connect the
definition of the analytic to the extensive interpretation of logic and to the subjective-
predicative form of the judgment [3].
This means that it is possible to confer a larger significance to the term of analytic
enunciation, so that it should also include that part of the enunciation that Kant considers
to be a priori synthetic. It can be easily noticed that Kants arguments for the advocating
of the necessity of these judgments applies to the analytic enunciations considered in this
broad meaning. At the same time, the constitution of our cognitive mechanism proper to
the finite beings who must calculate in time as the Kantian view well emphasizes
explains the paradox that mathematics and logic give us the necessary truths, but these
ones appear as different to the initial data (the axioms and the definitions). The true
explanation is very simple. The power of logic and mathematics to surprise us depends,
like their usefulness, on the limitation of our reason. A being whose intellect was infinitely
powerful would take no interest in logic and mathematics. [cf. 4] For he would be able to
see at a glance everything that his definitions implied, and accordingly, could never learn
anything from logical inference which he was not fully conscious of already. [5] As it has
been shown, Kants explanation of the a priori is not appropriate to express the real
process of knowledge.
The judgments considered by him as being a priori synthetic have just apparently
this quality. They will be a priori only when they do not prescribe anything to the
experience. A priori is independent of experience not because it prescribes a form which
the data of sense must fit, or anticipates some pre-established harmony of experience whit
the mind, but precisely because it prescribes nothing to experience. [6] What he
anticipates is not the datum but the attitude towards him, the categorial ways of action, as
Josiah Royce says. This thing can be noticed in the case of the logical and mathematical
truths, which are above all considered a priori. As long as they should be admitted as
truthful in order to be proved, they cannot be derived from the experience. But they do not
impose on the experience any real limitation. What experience could prove the principle of
non-contradiction, according to which anything can be and not be in the same time? But at
the same time, the laws of logic are purely formal; they forbid nothing but what concern
the use of terms and the corresponding modes of classification and analysis. The law of
contradiction tell us that nothing can be both white and non-white, but it does not and
cannot tell us whether black is non-white, or soft or square is non-white. To discover what
contradicts what we must always consult the character of experience. [6, p. 16].
It is a common place that through transcendental Kant goes up from the Humes
psychological point of view to the logical point of view, on the fist time in the history of
 111

human thought by raising the problem of the fundaments validity and, implicitly, the
knowledge validity. So, the transcendental for Kant has autonomy in regards to both
the empirical and the psychological, even in regard with the ontical (transcendent). It
determine a priori the form, logical necessary structure of the object and the objectivity of
the knowledge, which is obvious one of the Critiques tasks: the search, presentation and
deduction of transcendentals factors which form the ensemble of the conditions of the
possibility of science. [7] A priori does not appear neither innate, nor evolutionist [8], but
as logical, because the subject is the unique efficient cause of the formal matter of
knowledge. It is at the same time, a transcendental condition, that is a condition that is
independent on the experience or the world, and it has not value but inside the conditioned
experience built by reason. Space, time, causality, etc. are a priori, that means independent
on the experience, and therefore, necessary, but they are valid only within the experience
which gives it the necessity.
But it seems that only apparently, Kant surpasses Hume for the mere reason that he
places himself on the transcendental plan, which cannot be derived from the experience,
through the fact that the transcendental conditions and constitutes the experience. Hume
knows only the plan of the experience without necessity of the individual consciousness.
Kant believes that has discovered the transcendental plan of the pure reason, the
spontaneous capacity of synthetic unification, a priori, that is necessary and universal.
Kant doubles the individual consciousness with a universal generic consciousness,
which he postulates, but he cannot justify. [9] Thus, the Kantian theory of the
mathematics and logic truths, does not represent a solution to the problem that the
empirism faces in explaining their value but only pushes the mystery a stage further
back [5, p. 28].
Third, we do not have to forget that, for Kant, the access to the a priori structures is
guaranteed by the transcendental knowledge. I entitle transcendental all knowledge
which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects
in so far as this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori. [2, p. 66] But we deal
implicitly with a non-empirical knowledge, therefore transcendental. Kant is not
rigorously interested in what the consciousness generally might be or what its basis is and
why we acknowledge by its means as we do, because these are transcendental questions.
In what way is it possible that the specific feature of the sensitiveness, or that of the mind
and of necessary apperception, which lies at the basis of mind and any reflection? at this
question we cannot anymore give an answer, because for every answer and every
reflection of objects we have always need precisely this feature. [10] But this means that
what it intended to be a conclusion of the Critics is not in fact but one of its premises.
Kant accepts, or better, postulates, or, even better, he places the existence of a pure
subject with its specific features, his ways of understanding, this is we have no more a
transcendental knowledge, in this case but a transcendental postulate. And the
transcendental knowledge do not give me this postulate, but only, once this placed, its
exercise is possible by reference to experience. [11] Or if the existence of a subject
connoisseur and of an object to be known represents the archimedic point of any critical
approach, the postulation of a pure subject with certain qualities is just a presupposition
little compatible with the Kantian method. The fundamental principle of the critical
 112

Kantian philosophy is that the thinking must and can examine itself to justify itself and
establish till what point it is able to be a instrument of the pure consciousness. Kant
granted a value entirely dogmatic of this principle and he did not count that the exam
made was vicious because it was itself submitted to the created critic. [12] In other words
the possibility of analyze our possibility to knowledge required an analysis from a
more critical perspective. How can you analyze science without analyzing the analyst?
At the same time even Kants conception that the logical formal is an a priori
form of our intellect, which has no substance, is impossible to be upheld. For, first if any
knowledge appears with these two faces and there is no knowledge without matter and
form - it is not obvious which of the two is the form and the matter for the a priori forms
of the intellect, or it is possible a knowledge of these pure a priori forms without matter.
[12, p. 171] As we cannot define a priori the empirical objects and the a priori concepts
and we cannot but describe them and this description is always debatable because we
could have not ended the discussion on the object or the given concept. [13] Any claim of
systemizing and founding the architectural of our structures of knowledge ends.
The acceptation of the a priori forms as empty forms of the intellect, also raises
another major problem, they do not explain the reason for which the substance accepts its
introduction into the subjective forms of the intellect. If these forms belonged exclusively
to the human intellect, the substance should have at least a skill in its nature, in order to be
mounded in the formally subjective frame of the categories, ideas etc. In other words, the
subjective forms cannot be so subjective if the matter accepts them. This changes totally
the problem and the thesis of the complete subjectivity of the intellect forms cannot be
admitted. [14]
All these considerations compel us to a more attentive analysis of the meaning that
the transcendental perspective has in the Kantian work. What does this really mean? The
criticist acceptation of the knowledge reveals an extremely important distinction, which
Kant does not seem to specially insist on, between the possible experience, the one we
could name the real possibility of the experience, the experience that can be effectively
realized in sensitiveness, and the possibility of the experience (in generally), which we
could call the transcendental possibility (not transcendent) of the experience. [15] Kant
himself does not always seem to make the distinction, although his reasoning often
involves it and he even uses differently the two syntagms in his exposition. In this way,
when he speaks about the concepts of the intellect he relates them to the possible
experience. There can be no a priori knowledge, except of objects of possible experience.
(CRP 158-159) This happens because categories do not afford us any knowledge of
things; they do so only through their possible application to empirical intuition. In other
words, they serve only for the possibility of empirical knowledge (CRP 142). In
exchange, when he talks about the principles of the intellect, he relates them to the
possibility of the experience which is what gives objective reality to all our a priori
modes of knowledge. (CRP 183) this for they are not themselves grounded in higher and
more universal modes of knowledge, because they are the subjective sources of the
possibility of knowledge of an object in general (CRP 179).
 113

We should understand from this that actually, only the theme of the principles of the
intellect fits totally in what would mean a transcendental perspective, because they are
completely independent of what would signify empirical material. But although the
categories of the intellect have the same feature of the transcendental, they cannot be free
from any interference of the experience either in their application or in their genesis. Why
do we consider that? The two acceptations of the meaning of the experience stand actually
at the basis of the two conceptions that found the knowledge: the transcendental idealism
and the empirical realism. Thus, the transcendental idealism marks the possibility of the
experience, and the empirical realism has meaning only by centering itself on the possible
experience. And the paradoxical idea, which gives depth and originality to the criticism,
consists in the following: the transcendental idealism does not exclude the empirical
realism. But in this fact is to be found the core of the problem. For only the transcendental
idealism, which marks the possibility of the experience, is the one to truly represent the
transcendental perspective. This occurs because it is the one to mark the possibility of the
experience in a manner independent from any reference to any empirical contents. The
empirical realism introduces instead, in an illicit manner for the transcendental
perspective, elements of the reality that cannot be determined a priori. The empirical
realism presupposes a thing in itself and has an active role on the act of knowledge. The
transcendental idealism does not exclude but it cannot either justify or found the empirical
realism. In an analysis of knowledge the two perspectives remain heterogeneous and
something more than a belief and or a postulation is needed in order to unite them. Not
any kind of matter can enter any a priori structure. It must be compatibility between
content and container.
So far our analysis has pointed out the following problems raised by the way Kant
conceives the nature and the role of the a priori structure: what right does Kant have in
postulating the identity of the physical space with the geometrical one and in sustaining
that space, time and the categories being subjective factors of consciousness have as
such, generality and necessity for anything that can become object of the subject. Kant
himself asserts that any knowledge is made of two factors, the nature of the subject and the
affections the one suffers. How can they be clearly separated? Kant himself says: the
natural particular laws couldnt be derived from pure intelligence; experience is needed
too. If the experience is needed for the determination of the gravity law, why shouldnt it
also be for the causality law; if it is necessary for the geographical and astronomical
localization, why shouldnt it be for the idea of space? It follows that in accordance with
the environment, the intellect may take multiple forms of intuition and reasoning.
And so, a problem that did not seem relevant for the Kantian system, but it did for
the origin of the a priori synthetical forms, becomes fundamental for the creation and the
coherence of this one. What Kant said that the mere existence of the metaphysics (the
metaphysics treatises) does not justify the existence of Metaphysics, it is now applied
mutatis mutandis to the a priori forms. The simplicity with which this one (Kant) imagines
the forming of the intuition in space, is not a truth anymore for the nowadays biologists
and psychologists (the biologists which follow Larmark and Ch. Darwin search the place
and the laws of the evolution in life). An a priori space is a space without evolution,
without life. The space as intuition of the living individuals conscious
 114

ness had to form itself genetically; it had to accompany the evolution of the surviving
individual [16].
Beginning with the article published in 1900 by Fr. Staudinger Der Streit um das
Ding an sich until today there have been numerous attempts of deduction of the a priori
structures from the experience [17]. In a manner that reminds us of the Humes theory, E.
Schrdinger, for example, points out that: the key of the problem can be found out in the
following well known facts. Any succession of events, where we participate through
sensations, perceptions and sometimes actions, if it often repeats itself in the same way,
leaves gradually the field of consciousness. But it is immediately dragged into the region
of consciousness, if in the act of repetition, the reason which generated it or the
environmental conditions where it develops, differ from its previous premises. But even if
things are like this, at least in the beginning, only the modifications or the differences
which mark the new form of the mentioned succession from the previous ones, penetrate
into the field of consciousness; therefore, there are recommended reconsiderations. [18]
E. Morin attempts at exceeding Kants apriorism, staring with the natural and
cultural evolution which was the basis of the founding spirit (with its a priori categories),
through involving the principle of autoecoorganization. According to Morin this principle
would permit: to assert a creative evolution which integrates and transforms the ordering
and organizing powers, ecological, biophysical and cosmically into psycho-intellectual
ones organizing Knowledge [19]. Poincar reduces the a priori to a function or
functioning and it is unlikely to speak about an innate idea in a structural sense. K.Lorenz
substitutes to Kants rigid and static frames the idea of a gradual approximation, not
because of an accumulation of experience, but of a perfectioning of the hereditary
cognitive instruments.
J. Piaget shows that the cognitive functions (and especially the a priori ones)
extend the organically adjustments and they represent a different organ for the adjustment
of the exchanges with the exterior [20]. According to the French psychologist from the
genetic point of view, it seems evident that any elaborate construction should suppose
early internal conditions, and in this situation, Kant is right. [21] At the same time, the
psycho-social side of these structures is emphasized. The forms of the kantian sensibility
on time and space have, for the human being, an evident bio-social origin. The sense of
time passing, whose first conditioning is biological, is in relation with the calendar
divisions, holidays and ceremonies, the rhythms of rituals (E. Durckheim, Hubert, Mauss)
the human psychological space is not an homogeneous and uniform space; it varies not
only according to the individual bio-social experience, but it will take affectional values,
of social origin. [22]
Knowledge will always involve the intellects act of elaboration and hence, the great
problem of epistemology: how can this creation of novelties be conciliated with the double
fact that, on formal ground, they are accompanied by necessity as soon as they have been
elaborated, and that on real ground, they allow (being the only ones to allow) the gaining
of the objectivity. Mind contributes to experience the element of order, of classification,
categories, and definition. Without such, experience would be unintelligible. Our
knowledge of the validity of these is simply consciousness of our own
 115

fundamental ways of acting and our own intellectual intent. Without this element,
knowledge is impossible, and it is here that whatever truths are necessary an independent
of experience must be found. But the commerce between our categorical ways of acting,
our pragmatic interests, ad the particular character of experience is closer than we have
realized. O explanation of any one of these can be complete without consideration of the
other two. [6, p. 24]
If indeed, as Kant asserts, our knowledge is not just a passive reflection of the
environment, but it involves an activity of construction and ordering of the material of the
senses, in accordance with structures specifically humane, this does not mean that these
structures are genetically independent of the reality that must be known through them.
Kants assertion that experience is not something received passively, but a product of our
sensibility and intellect, is completely entitled. One can also say: the intelligence itself
produces nature, as sum of the phenomena connected among them. But one should add, it
produces it totally in the same way, through observation and reflexion. In an effort of
thousands years, the human mind has produced nature, that is the icon of the world as it
saw it at that time, through perception and reflexion, explorations and historical and
philological researches. [23]
At the basis of the agreement between the a priori formal structures and the
empirical material of the reality only the permanent accordance between the creation of
the spirit and the experience can stand. The laws of nature, which the physicians work
with, are not extracted from the experience, but they are ideas, discoveries of great
thinkers. But they are verified through experience, that is an experience of huge
proportion. [24] The spontaneity of the intellect is not arbitrary, but is built on previous
knowledge resulted in its turn, from a conjugated labor of the reason and the reality and
they are through this connected, more or less to the experience. And also, the possible
constructions of the reason will not be unconditionally applied to experience, but a sorting
of these ones will take place when consulting it. This is where Kant seems to have
mistaken. It exists a fundamental difference between the proper laws of nature which can
be deduced a priori from the laws of thinking and the features of matter which are not
laws of thinking. [25] And the elements of the physical reality cannot be determined
trough a priori philosophical considerations; they have to be found on the basis of the
experimental results and measurements (Einstein) [26].
According to this one, the a priori forms are in conformity with the thing in itself,
for the gap between subject and object is not irreducible. In the logics of the Kantian
system it is impossible that the subjective conditions of knowledge should not have
objective value, for they have formed in the interaction medium-organism (Kant is the
author of the well known cosmogonical hypothesis, the spirit will have a natural history,
once they have been formed these forms impose their censorship on the reality) which did
print on us the features of the objective reality. The forms of the sensibility and the
categories of the intellect have an intersubjective value, that means they are valid for all
the individuals, but they have just an objective value, as they result from the interaction
medium-organism.
It would be impossible that the human species subsist if their subject forms distorted
constantly and totally the data of the objective world [27].
 116

The famous physician S.W. Hawking asked himself what guarantee the scientific
objectivity still had as a result of the laicisation process of the Universe. If we are the
demiurges of the Universe as it appears, than whom or what will guarantee the truth of the
human knowledge? What are the laws with which we bind the universe in order to know
and subject it? These are questions, which the contemporary man must answer to,
guaranteeing for their truth through the force of reason, without appealing to other
transcendent instance. If we begin by supposing that the universe is not arbitrary, but is
governed by definite laws, we must be able to combine the partial theories in a unified
complete one, which will describe everything in the universe. But on this step we will
encounter a fundamental paradox The ideas concerning the scientific theories [...] are
supposing that we are rational human beings, free to notice the universe as we like and to
infer logical conclusion from what we see. In tat kind of scheme it is reasonable to
suppose that we could develop more to the laws that govern our universe. However if
would exist in reality a complete unified theory, it would probably and our actions too.
And the theory itself would establish the result of our study over it [28]. And why does it
have to determine us that we should draw the appropriate conclusions in the end? Could it
not determine as well to draw the wrong ones? Or no conclusion at all?
The only answer which I can give to this problem it is based on the natural
selection principle of Darwin. The idea is that in every population of self-reproduction
organisms will exist variation of genetic material and education that have different
individual. Those differences will mean that some individuals are more capable than
others to infer fair conclusion concerning the surrounding world and to act properly. It will
exist a higher probability that those individuals to survive and reproduce and their way to
behave and think to become dominate. In the past it was true that what we name mind and
scientific discovery represent an advantage for surviving. However if universe evolved in
a regular way, we could expect that the thinking aptitudes which natural selection has
given as to be justified in a research of a complete unified theory and thus not to lead us to
the wrong conclusions. [28, p. 27]
If this seems to be the answer to the connection between the logical and
mathematical structures (a priori) and the experience into the scientific knowledge, as
regards the existence and the significance of the a priori for the human being, it still
remains an open problem. Although it did not seem at first sight, the problem of the a
priori has, next to the theory of knowledge, deep implications for the place and role of the
human being in the Universe. It is intimately connected to what is called The
Cosmological Anthropic Principle. It appears that between the existence of physics and
physicist, the bound could be more tied that we have suspected [29].

tefan cel Mare University of Suceava

Departament of Philosophy, Socio-Human
and Pedagogic Sciences

REFERENCES

[1] Swinburne, R. G., Analyticity, Necessity, and Apriority, in Paul Moser (ed.), A Priori
Knowledge, Oxford University Press, 1987, 185.
[2] Kant, Immanuel, Critica raiunii pure, IRI, Bucharest, 1994, 49-50.
 117

[3] Boboc, Al., Kant i neokantianismul, tiinific Publishing House, Bucharest, 1968, 55-56.
[4] Hahn, H., Logik, Mathematik and Naturerkennen, Einheitswissenschaft, Pt II p. 18. Ein
allwissenders Wessen braucht keine Logik und Keine Mathematik.
[5] Ayer, A. J., The A priori, in Paul Moser (ed.), A Priori Knowledge, Oxford University Press,
1987, 40.
[6] Lewis, C. I., A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori, in Paul Moser (ed.), A Priori
Knowledge, Oxford University Press, 1987, 16.
[7] Boboc, Al., Semnificaia istoric a criticismului kantian, in Immanuel Kant 200 de ani de la
apariia Criticii Raiunii Pure, R.S.R. Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1982, 10.
[8] Falkenstein, L., Was Kant a Nativist?, Journal of History of Ideas, oct-dec (1990).
[9] Florian M., Recesivitatea ca structur a lumii, Eminescu, Bucharest, 1983, vol. II, 107.
[10] Kant, I., Prolegomene la orice metafizic viitoare care se va putea nfia drept tiin,
tiinific i Enciclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1987, 106.
[11] Noica, C., Problema lucrului n sine la Kant, in Concepte deschise n istoria filosofiei,
Humanitas, Bucharest, 1995, 193.
[12] Anton, D., Valoarea metafizic a raiunii, Grinta, 2001, 43.
[13] Onicescu, O., Consideraii asupra filosofiei naturii la Kant, in Immanuel Kant 200 de ani de
la apariia Critica raiunii pure, R.S.R. Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1982, 21.
[14] Dumitriu, A., Teoria logicii, R.S.R. Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1973, p. 171.
[15] I enlarge this problem in my work The Mathematic-transcendental Antinomies and their
Destinies in Contemporary Philosophy and Science, unpublished, chapter The Possible Experience
vs. The Possibility of the Experience.
[16] Rdulescu-Motru, C., Elemente de metafizic pe baza filosofiei kantiene, Casa coalelor,
Bucharest, 1928, 173.
[17] Flonta, M., Cognitio. O introducere critic n problema cunoaterii, All, Bucharest, 1994,
especially chapter Inborn and a priori, 120-131.
[18] Schrdinger, E., Ce este viaa, Spirit i materie, Politic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1980,
120.
[19] Morin, E., La connaissance de la connaissance, Seuil, Paris, 1986, 212.
[20] Piaget, J., Biologie i cunoatere, Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 1971, 386.
[21] Piaget, J., Epistemologia genetic, Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 1972, 99.
[22] Biberi, I., Principii de psihologie antropologic, Didactic i Pedagogic Publishing House,
Bucharest, 1971, 130.
[23] Paulsen, Fr., Introducere n filosofie, Casa coalelor, Bucharest, 1920, 560.
[24] Born, M., Fizica n concepia generaiei mele, tiinificPublishing House, Bucharest, 1969,
326.
[25] Henderson, L. J., The Order of Nature, Havard University Press, 1917, 146.
[26] Prvu, I., Existen i realitate n tiin i filosofie, Politic Publishing House, Bucharest,
1977, 35.
[27] Joja, A., Studii de logic, R.S.R. Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1971, vol. III, 190.
[28] Hawking, Sth. W., Scurt istorie a timpului, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1994, 26.
[29] Barrow, D. J., Tipler, D. F., Principiul antropic cosmologic, Tehnic Publishing House,
Bucharest, 2001, 302.

APRIORISMUL DE IERI I DE AZI

(Rezumat)
Subiectul prezentului articol l constituie analiza concepiei kantiene asupra structurilor a
priori n intenia de a arta c noile concepii asupra a priori-ului nu constituie o denaturare a
concepiei sale ci dimpotriv o dezvoltare i o completare a ei. Pentru aceasta vom ncerca s
evideniem care sunt problemele n ceea ce privete aceste structuri pe care I. Kant nu le-a ntemeiat
sau argumentat suficient, care sunt ideile introduse dogmatic precum i acele aspecte sau consecine
ale concepiei sale care o arat ca fiind incomplet. n acest mod sperm s relevm continuitatea
de esen ce exist ntre concepia kantian despre a priori i abordrile contemporane ce implic i
noile cuceriri ale tiinelor.