The Distinction between a Priori and a Posteriori Knowledge - Admission/Application Essay Example

A posteriori knowledge follows a proposition in reference to ‘matters of fact’ which may be sought through sensory experience. Besides sole reason, an a posteriori argument requires observation and non-demonstrative inference as in observing the break of dawn so everybody knows and accepts it as incidental truth occurring at each start of the day.

            Hume claims: “Even after we have experience of the operations of cause and effect, our conclusions from that experience are not founded on the reasoning of any process of the understanding.” That is why causal beliefs may not be treated an a priori for perceptions by sense establish a strong basis around a contingent truth that relies heavily on ‘matters of fact’ which are directly observed and can beyond contradictions be denied. Beliefs regarding matters of fact, hence, determine genuine progress for explicating that no self-evident relation exists when ideas bear apparent distinctions and separability within their number. For Hume, we possess no knowledge of such factual matters since connections in beliefs presupposed by cause and effect can only be yielded after experiencing cases with similar characteristics that not even inferential validity of previous encounters would do alone to make adequate explications of these same beliefs.