A priori

Expressions researched:
"a priori"

BG Chapters 1 - 6

BG 4.37, Purport:

Perfect knowledge of self and Superself and of their relationship is compared herein to fire. This fire not only burns up all reactions to impious activities, but also all reactions to pious activities, turning them to ashes. There are many stages of reaction: reaction in the making, reaction fructifying, reaction already achieved, and reaction a priori. But knowledge of the constitutional position of the living entity burns everything to ashes. When one is in complete knowledge, all reactions, both a priori and a posteriori, are consumed. In the Vedas (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.22) it is stated, ubhe uhaivaiṣa ete taraty amṛtaḥ sādhv-asādhūnī: "One overcomes both the pious and impious reactions of work."

Philosophy Discussions

Philosophy Discussion on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz:

Śyāmasundara: Yes. He divides it into two classes. One is there are logically necessary principles, the truths of reason as innate knowledge, just like the three sides of a triangle equal 180 degrees. That is innate knowledge, or logically necessary truth. This is also called a priori knowledge, or knowledge that exists independently. Then he says that there is knowledge acquired by experience, or a posteriori, accidental knowledge—just like snow is white, but it could be red; it's possible that it could be red—this type of truth which comes from our experience but it's accidental and it is not necessary.

Prabhupāda: So real truth is that God has got a plan, and one who knows it, that is real truth. One who hasn't got to be taught by another man but by nature, he knows it; that by nature he knows it, that is a symptom of his life, true life. And one who does not know it, that is not. That is explained in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, nitya siddha kṛṣṇa bhakta. That truth is there already, but he has forgotten it. Therefore by this propaganda of devotional service, chanting and hearing, he simply revives the truth. The truth is there, that I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore the conclusion should be anyone who is cognizant of this truth that I am eternal servant, that is symptom of this truth. There is no other symptom.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: Today we are discussing Immanuel Kant. Basically, his philosophy seeks to trace the relationship between a priori ideas, or those ideas of the mind which are independent of sense experience, and the a posteriori ideas, or sense impressions. He wants to unify these two positions. So he wrote The Critique of Pure Reason, in which he asks the fundamental question, "How are a priori synthetic judgments possible?" In other words, how can we decide anything, judge anything? Where does this facility come from? What is the source of knowledge?

Prabhupāda: Intelligence. The source of knowledge is intelligence. Intelligence acts through mind, and then some conclusion comes. Man is mortal, so here is a man, intelligence; he must be mortal. This a priori idea means "I know man is mortal; therefore here is a man, he must be mortal." A priori means before. And what is the other?

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: A posteriori means after; sense impressions. So he developed this process for attaining knowledge in three steps. The first step he calls he transcendental aesthetic, and this is the basic stage which synthesizes sense experience through concepts of time and space. In other words, the mind acts upon sensory perceptions and applies time and space relations to them. So he says that this knowing of time and space is a priori; it's an internal creation of the mind. Before we sense anything, we have an idea of time and space. So as soon as we sense something, we can apply time and space ideas.

Prabhupāda: He said something transcendental?

Śyāmasundara: He calls it the transcendental aesthetic.

Prabhupāda: Transcendental means it is not in my experience, but I get the experience from higher authority, paramparā.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Prabhupāda: Transcendental means beyond your sense experience. That is the real meaning. You can see the dictionary. Transcendental is that which transcends.

Śyāmasundara: "Transcendental: of an a priori character, not based on experience; intuitively accepted; innate in the mind; superrational; supernatural; consisting of or dealing in or inspired by abstractions.' The way he is using "transcendental" is simply he is trying to understand knowledge through abstraction, by abstracting.

Prabhupāda: Transcendental knowledge means knowledge received from a source which is beyond the reach of my material senses. That is transcendental. Just like we are reading Bhagavad-gītā. So we have no knowledge that there is a spiritual world, but Kṛṣṇa says that there is another nature, a spiritual nature, beyond this material nature. So we understand through the source of transcendental knowledge.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: To go back to this idea of cause and effect, Kant says that just as time and space are a priori concepts or mental creations—in other words, before we have any sense experience, we still have an idea of time and space—just as this is so, so also cause and effect is a priori category of human understanding.

Prabhupāda: So a priori existence is there, time and space.

Śyāmasundara: Time and space, and cause and effect.

Prabhupāda: I take my birth and at a certain time time. So time was existing before my birth, and after my death time will continue to exist. Similarly, space. But, temporarily, I take some time. That is the duration of my life. Or I am occupying some space. This is temporary. Time and space are eternally there. At least time is eternally there, because space is also born in time.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: This is just what Kant is saying. He says, no, still we are born with an idea of cause and effect. This is a priori...

Prabhupāda: No. This is fact: cause and effect is always there.

Śyāmasundara: He says that intuitively, when we see something, we understand what is cause and what is effect.

Prabhupāda: You cannot understand what is the cause, but there must be cause. There must be cause. Without cause, nothing can happen. That is his imperfect knowledge, that something may happen without cause. No. That does not happen.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Prabhupāda: What is that law in the mind, you may think or may not think, the law will act. (laughter) Simply speculation. It has no meaning. It is called jugglery of words, that's all. To some foolish men, he is accepted as a great philosopher, but it is simply jugglery of words, that's all.

Śyāmasundara: He says because the mind imposes a priori these laws upon nature as both necessary and universal, that proves that the mind is creative and that it's not a blank slate or tabula rasa.

Prabhupāda: Mind is creative, that's a fact. Creative. He is creating and again rejecting. That is the mind's business, saṅkalpa-vikalpa.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Prabhupāda: You say that material senses cannot reach transcendence. Then what is the meaning of reasoning? If your senses are imperfect, so if you put some reason by the senses, then that is also imperfect.

Śyāmasundara: He says that reason acts a priori, or separate from the senses, independent of the senses; that reason can understand that there is God, there is soul, etc., without use of the senses.

Prabhupāda: That is possible.

Śyāmasundara: In fact he recognizes three such ideals of pure reason: one is the soul, two is the ultimate world or reality, and three is God. He says that these three ideals are a priori to the reason. They are born with us. We know these things.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: After Kant finished this analysis of the pure reason, then he began his Critique of Practical Reason, of reason applied to practical living, to try to find out what were the limits of that study. This is his idea: moral laws are necessary and universal objects of the human will, which must be accepted as valid for everyone. He calls this his categorical imperative. That means that there are certain moral commandments which are universal, and which must be applied to everyone, and which everyone must obey without exception. Now, he says that we know these moral laws a priori, by intuition, and that the individual fact and the situations have no bearing, and there is no consideration of what I want or what I desire, but what I must do, what I ought to do.

Prabhupāda: No. Morality varies according to the development of the particular society. There are so many immoral things going on in the particular type of society which are very, very immoral, but they do not care for it; they do it.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Prabhupāda: You do not know what is morally right! Therefore you have to take instruction from Kṛṣṇa, or His representative. You do not know.

Śyāmasundara: A priori we are not born with knowledge of what is right?

Prabhupāda: No. A priori, in this sense, that imperceptively I have got obedience to Kṛṣṇa, or God—everyone. That is manifested even in uncivilized men. Whenever they see a thunderbolt, they offer prayer. Just like these Africans, they are coming here, offering obeisances. That is inborn. Although we say they are not civilized, but that thing is there, that we are sādhus, or here is God. So that is there. But it is not very much manifest.

Śyāmasundara: So we don't really know, but we have some idea.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Śyāmasundara: Much before him, about 150 years ago. He takes as the absolute first principle the self-consciousness or the evil(?), "I am", the awareness that I exist as an absolute a priori first principle.

Prabhupāda: That is Vedānta. We are studying what I am. That is Vedānta philosophy, to study what I am. And the answer is given by us, Vaiṣṇava philosophers, that you are eternal servant of God. This is Vedānta. Everyone is searching what I am, we are giving the answer: "You are eternal servant of God." Now let them refute this that he's not servant, he's absolute(?). Our answer is there. Athāto brahma jijñāsā, to inquire about Brahman, the spirit soul. What is this spirit soul, what I am. What is the supreme.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Śyāmasundara: If he combines rational thought with willing...

Prabhupāda: So wherefrom the rational thought comes?

Śyāmasundara: That is an a priori fact, that I think therefore I am.

Devotee: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: But we cannot..., pure thought process, I cannot do anything more than think myself. I can think that I think therefore I am.

Prabhupāda: You can think, but if you are helped by somebody else who knows the way, then it becomes easier. You are thinking of driving a car. If somebody expert... (break) ...that is practical. Yes.