What is a Priori Here is a Posteriori There
Yahya Mohamed
By ‘cognitive priori’ we mean what is more general than the concept of ‘a priori’ mentioned in the philosophical research. The latter concept is usually meant for all prior reasoning of knowledge of sense and experience. The meaning we intend from the term above is every knowledge that precedes the study of the subject in question, whether it is sensory, reasoning, or any other type of knowledge.
For example, if sensory concepts are considered ‘a posteriori’ in philosophical or rational thinking in general, they are, at the same time, considered as cognitive a priori when reading and understanding the religious text. The opposite may happen, which is that the concepts of a posteriori in religious understanding and text reading may become one of the concepts of a priori in knowledge related to external matters.
Thus, the mental activity may be opposite in its practice of the priori compared to the posteriori. For example, religious understanding may be based on scientific, philosophical, or other concepts of priori, and the opposite may also happen, as in the case of the interpretation of scientific and philosophical concepts based on projections of religious priori.
In general, the priori knowledge has various forms of relative structures. The priori may be a religious, realist, purely rational, or revealing and intuitive priori.
These four structures are the subject of disciplined reliance when practicing mental thinking about the concepts in question, and the concepts of posteriori correspond to them, as each of the previous priori has its posteriori, and each of them is characterized by relativity. Priori concerning certain concepts may be posteriori to various other concepts, and vice versa.
The knowledge derived from the same topic presented for research and study is characterized by the concept of posteriori, as it belongs to the same frame of reference for the subject being studied or read without being derived from other points of reference, although it can take the role of a priori to fields of knowledge outside the framework mentioned above.
For example, pure rational knowledge that is deduced from each other - within the reference of the abstract reasoning itself - is considered a posteriori, and at the same time, it can be a priori when it is taken as a reference for other fields of knowledge, such as religious, objective reality, or intuition fields. In traditional philosophy, the rules of the most perfect possibility, emanations, the similarity of levels, and other rules are characterized as being posteriori concerning the abstract philosophical field itself. They are deduced from the principle of homogeneity, which represents the fundamental generator of ontological philosophical thinking, but at the same time, it is one of the priori when it is applied to the religious, realist, or the gustative revelation knowledge.
Likewise, religious knowledge is one of the posteriori within the same religious framework, but it may be one of the accepted priori when thinking about the analysis of reality, reason, or revealing intuition. This applies to knowledge of other forms according to the relativity mentioned above. Realistic or intuitive knowledge may be one of the a posteriori when it is dealt with within the same field to which it belongs, but it can be among the a priori when thinking about the concepts of other fields.
So, what is a posteriori here, is a priori there, and vice versa? And if the priori affects the posteriori, the opposite is also true as well, as the latter can affect the priori and work to change it as long as it is unstable or unfixed in itself.
In principle, the concept presented in the discussion may be classified within the religious concepts, yet priori groups contribute to their understanding due to the realistic, rational, and intuitive structures, collectively and individually. The concept may also be realistic, and yet it is subject to the priori of religious understanding or rational or intuitive thinking. The concept may be rational, but it is subject to the rule of religious priori, realistic, or revealing intuition. Likewise, the concept presented may be a revealing intuition, but its interpretation is subject to the priori of the other three structures (religious, realistic, or rational).
In addition, the posteriori of any form of the four structures mentioned above may affect the priori of others. Religious posteriori, which are deducted from the understanding of the religious, linguistic text, may contribute to changing a number of the priori of the other three forms, as is the case with the realistic, rational, and intuitive posteriori. Each of them has its posteriori that may work to change some of the priori of other unstable structures. This means that just as researchers in religious concepts may be affected by realistic, rational, and intuitive priori when practicing religious understanding, they may reflect - at the same time - in their religious posteriori to the extent that they change their priori related to the three structures mentioned above. In the same way, the situation of researchers in other concepts (realistic, rational, or intuitive) is characterized.
What we may conclude is that priori is not confined to purely rational concepts, unlike the case emphasized by philosophers in their epistemological research regarding the philosophy of general existence, such as what Immanuel Kant spoke about within his transcendental logic. They have justifications for their action within the field of philosophical or mental thinking in general. But when we expand the nature of the concepts and take into account their various overlaps, as some of them are characterized by rationality while others are characterized by sources that have nothing to do with pure reason, thus, in this case, we cannot rely on the transcendental logic that the philosophers presented in their description of the concept of priori and its corresponding posteriori.
Relativism in thinking is an unequivocal phenomenon, and the reality of the human mind takes from the relationship between priori and posteriori sources, some of which influence others, no less than that contemporary physics theory which have undertook the demolition of the fortified wall of priori - as the philosophers built it with their transcendent logic – with the posteriori of their unfamiliar experiences of the common mind and conscience.
It is necessary to distinguish - here - between description and evaluation when dealing with a priori. In terms of description, we realize the status of researchers and their different attitudes towards the accepted priori, and we may not agree with them in terms of evaluation.
However, what matters to us when we treat patterns of cognitive thinking is the descriptive acknowledgment of the existence of relative cases of priori, so what is a priori here is posteriori there, and what is posteriori here is a priori there, while acknowledging the existence of absolute priori that are not subject to such relativism.
Translated by Zaid Kanady
Translation review by Ali al-Inizi
The reference
https://www.fahmaldin.net/index.php?id=2583