Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16August 2007, pp.

51-68
2007 Soochow University
51
The Limits of the Relative A Priori

Christopher Pincock

Abstract
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notion has some chance of success.

Proofreaders: Donald James Sturgeon, Ya-Ting Yang, Kuan-Jung Kao

Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, U.S.A.

Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
52
I. Situating the Relative A Priori
Debates about the a priori have been dominated by two camps, which we
could call the absolutists and the nihilists. Nihilists about the a priori, like
Quine, argue that there is no interesting collection of a priori justified beliefs.
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beliefs that were said to have been a priori justified turned out to be false.
1
Here we might think of claims about the Euclidean structure of space or the
conservation of mass. Absolutists about the a priori have usually responded by
adopting a fallibilist conception of a priori justification. On this approach, we
may sometimes be mistaken when we make judgments concerning a priori
justification for this or that belief. It may seem justified, but actually be
unjustified and even false. Still, the absolutists continue, unless we can
articulate some defensible collection of a priori justified beliefs, widespread
skepticism results (Peacocke, 2004).
A key strategic move made by some absolutists is to shift from talk of
justification to the broader notion of an epistemic entitlement.
2
,Q %XUJHV
influential formulation, an entitlement to a belief by an agent at a time has
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ULJKWV RU ZDUUDQWVQHHG QRW EH XQGHUVWRRG E\ RU HYHQ DFFHVVLEOH WR WKH
VXEMHFW DW WKDW WLPH RU DW DQ\ WLPH LQ WKHLU OLIH %XUJH, 1993: 458). Among
other things, a focus on a priori entitlement makes it clearer how we could
1
See also Kitcher (2000).
2
Bonjour (1998) rejects this based on a more general form of epistemic internalism.
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
53
make mistakes about which beliefs are genuinely a priori.
My topic today, though, is on a much more radical proposal concerning
the a priori than anything that absolutists like Burge or Peacocke have offered.
This is the claim that there are relative a priori beliefs. In his Dynamics of
Reason and elsewhere, Michael Friedman has argued that Quinean nihilism
about the a priori can be defeated by focusing on the role that certain beliefs
have in a given scientific theory. Here he draws on Reichenbach and Carnap,
who argued that the lesson to be drawn from radical scientific change is that
the collection of beliefs that are a priori will change from theory to theory. For
Friedman, this change does not undermine the importance of these a priori
beliefs or the need to clarify their special significance.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the beliefs that Friedman focuses
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epistemic sense. Again, appealing to Burge, an entitlemHQW LV D SULRUL LI LWV
justificational force is in no way constituted or enhanced by reference to or
reliance on the specifics of some range of sense experience or perceptual
EHOLHIV %XUJH, 1993: 458). It is hard to see how any a priori entitlement could
be relative to a scientific theory. If it is a priori, it is not constituted by
experience, perception or any more generous notion of experimental testing.
And if we have an entitlement, then it seems like, other things being equal,
3
we have a timeless and context-independent right to the belief. If we introduce
entitlements that are relative to a theory, it seems a short step to a full blown
relativism about epistemic notions like warranted belief and even knowledge.
3
See Peacocke, 2004: 8-10, for the need for this qualification.
Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
54
This is, after all, where Carnap endeG XS LQ (PSLULFLVP 6HPDQWLFV DQG
2QWRORJ\ &DQ )ULHGPDQ GR DQ\ EHWWHU"
It seems to me that he can, but the costs are higher than Friedman or
anybody else defending the relative a priori has realized. All I can argue here is
that there is a defensible account of the relative a priori according to which it
seems that there are relative a priori entitlements. A definitive argument that
these entitlements exist must be pursued elsewhere. But in addition to
clarifying what relative a priori entitlements require, I also want to argue that
there is no relative a priori entitlement for pure mathematics. In future work I
hope to argue that absolute a priori entitlements exist here, but that they are not
sufficient to ground our scientific knowledge without the aid of experience and
relative a priori entitlements.
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Theories
Friedman begins to articulate his notion of the relative a priori using a
distinction from an early work of Reichenbach, The Theory of Relativity and A
Priori Knowledge:
Reichenbach distinguishes two meanings of the Kantian a
priori: necessary and unrevisable, fixed for all time, on the one
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>VFLHQWLILF@ NQRZOHGJH RQ WKH RWKHU 5HLFKHQEDFK DUgues, on
this basis, that the great lesson of the theory of relativity is that
the former meaning must be dropped while the latter must be
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
55
retained (Friedman, 2001: )ULHGPDQV LQWHUSRODWLRQ
Unfortunately, the notion of constitution here is very opaque. To try to make it
clearer, Friedman isolates three parts for each scientific theory: (i) a wholly
mathematical theory that includes the background geometry along with
whatever is needed to articulate and solve the equations of the theory, (ii) a set
of coordinating principles that relate this mathematics to physical structures,
(iii) candidate empirical laws that can be tested experimentally. In Newtonian
mechanics we could put Euclidean geometry and some version of the calculus
in (i). Friedman argues that the coordinating principles of Newtonian
PHFKDQLFV DUH 1HZWRQV WKUHH ODZV
(1) The law of inertia: Every object in a state of uniform
motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an
external force is applied to it.
(2) F = ma
(3) For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
)LQDOO\ WKH HPSLULFDO ODZV DUH FODLPV OLNH 1HZWRQV ODZ RI XQLYHUVDO
gravitation. For any two objects a and b,
(4) F = G m
a
m
b
/ d
2
That is, there is a force of attraction between the two objects that is given by
the product of their masses, divided by the square of the distance between
them, and multiplied by some constant fixed by the units. Other physical
theories are said to have a similar tripartite structure.
Once this structure of physical theories is isolated, Friedman offers the
Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
56
following response to Quine. Against the Quinean claim that testing proceeds
via a simple conjunction of mathematics, scientific hypotheses and auxiliary
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dLIIHUHQW HOHPHQWV RI WKLV 1HZWRQLDQ V\QWKHVLV DFWXDOO\ IXQFWLRQ )ULHGPDQ,
2001: 35). First, the coordinating principles presuppose the mathematics:
[T]he mathematics of the calculus does not function simply as
one more element in a larger conjunction, but rather as a
necessary presupposition without which the rest of the putative
conjunction has no meaning or truth-value at all. The
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elements of the language or conceptual framework, we might
say, within which the rest of the theory is then formulated
(Friedman, 2001: 36).
Most obviously, (2) is given in terms of acceleration, which is the
instantaneous rate of change of velocity, which is in turn the instantaneous rate
of change of position. Without the mathematics of the calculus, (2) would be
impossible.
Second, the empirical laws presuppose the coordinating principles. A law
like (4) is meant to apply in a restricted class of reference frames called the
inertial frames. It can be more perspicuously rendered as the claim that there
exists an inertial reference frame and that in all such frames, (4).
4
So, the law
is consistent with apparent motion due to a different kind of force law as long
4
The existential commitment ascribed to this law is debatable, but will prove useful later on in
clarifying these presupposition relationships.
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
57
as these apparent motions are with respect to a non-inertial frame. As this
privileged class of reference frames is specified by the coordinating principles,
[W]ithout the Newtonian laws of mechanics the law of
universal gravitation would not even make empirical sense, let
alone give a correct account of the empirical phenomena. For
the concept of universal acceleration that figures essentially in
this law would then have no empirical meaning or application:
we would simply have no idea what the relevant frame of
reference might be in relation to which such accelerations are
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physics are not happily viewed as symmetrically functioning
elements of a larger conjunction: the former is rather a
necessary part of the language or conceptual framework within
which alone the latter makes empirical sense (Friedman, 2001:
36-37).
5
Instead of a Quinean, holistic conjunction we get a stratified picture of theories
divided into these three levels, where the lower, empirical level presupposes
the higher levels.
Friedman argues that this stratification gives us all the resources we need
to reject Quinean holism, and so to defend some more modest version of a
priori justification. For in any given case where an empirical law has led to a
5
Absolute acceleration is acceleration with respect to any inertial frame and is an essential
feature of Newtonian mechanics. Absolute velocity turns out to be dispensable. For further
discussion see Friedman (1983).
Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
58
prediction that turns out to be incorrect, we are justified in adjusting our claims
at the empirical level, and not at the levels of the mathematics or the
coordinating principles. To be sure, there are crises in the history of science
where revisions in the mathematics and coordinating principles are considered,
but these changes are not prompted by the failure of this or that empirical law
to get the phenomena right. Instead they result from more fundamental
misgivings about the adequacy of the entire framework. For Friedman, such
crises end by the adoption of a new mathematics/coordinating principles
framework, which allows the process of ordinary empirical testing to resume.
At any given stage, then, Friedman insists that there is a serviceable distinction
between the relatively a priori parts of the theory and its empirical claims.
Ordinary testing is sufficient to rationally adjust the empirical claims, while
only a scientific revolution can displace what was once relatively a priori
(Friedman, 2001: 45-46).
III. Presupposition
Two big questions remain, though. First, what exactly is the
presupposition relation that Friedman has in mind here and are there genuine
instances of beliefs standing in this relation? Second, what grounds our
entitlement to the beliefs that are presupposed by a given theory? Again
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these questions suggest an unholy mixture of semantic and epistemic elements.
We see this in Carnap, when he says that the a priori parts of his frameworks
are presupposed by the other parts because they constitute a linguistic
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
59
framework. Friedman also clearly has a semantic relation in mind when he
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one and only one present King of France, in the sense that the
proposition in question lacks a truth value if its accompanying
presupposition does not hold. Similarly, in our example from
Newtonian physics, the law of universal gravitation essentially
employs a concept absolute acceleration which has no
empirical meaning or application (within the context of
Newtonian physics) unless the laws of motion hold. Within the
context of Newtonian physics, that is, the only way in which
we know how to give empirical meaning and application to the
law of universal gravitation is by presupposing that the laws of
motion are true: if the latter principles are not true (in the sense
that there exists a frame of reference in which they hold) then
the question of the empirical truth (or falsity) of the law of
universal gravitation cannot even arise (Friedman, 2001: 74).
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Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
60
invocation of this example as a way of explaining what he takes the
presupposition relation to be.
Something has gone wrong, though, as the following simple objection
demonstrates. According to Friedman, (4) presupposes (1)-(3) in the sense that
without (1)-(3), (4) would lack a truth-value. This appears to mean that (4)
would lack a truth-value if (1)-(3) were not true. But (1)-(3) are not true. As
Friedman admits in this passage, the combination of (1)-(3) assert the
existence of a certain kind of frame of reference. But there is no such frame of
reference. So, (4) must lack a truth-value. But I hope it is not too controversial
to insist that (4) does have a truth-value, namely false. That is, far from it
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arise and scientists have answered it by saying that the law is false.
6
This is
especially obvious if we take the content of the law of universal gravitation to
include the claim that there is an inertial frame. If this is removed, then the law
takes on a hypothetical character: in all inertial frames, (4). Then the law will
come out vacuously true and so will still have a truth-value.
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a series of semantic assumptions about the relationship between the meanings
of sentences and the coordinating principles of frameworks. He may think that
(4) as uttered by us expresses a different proposition than what a Newtonian,
who accepts (1)-(3), would express by uttering the same sentence. Such a tight
link between meaning and framework principles entails a strong form of
6
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have interpreted the proposal in terms of ordinary truth and falsity.
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
61
semantic incommensuraELOLW\ RI WKH VRUW IDPLOLDU IURP .XKQV PRUH H[XEHUDQW
SURQRXQFHPHQWV DERXW RXU LQDELOLW\ WR XQGHUVWDQG D VFLHQWLILF SDUDGLJP IURP
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approaching semantics, so it is hard to know if he would take this line. In the
absence of any new arguments I think it is fair to dismiss semantic
incommensurability in light of our manifest ability to understand scientific
theories that depart in dramatic ways from our own best theories. In fact,
without believing that Newtonian mechanics is true, I can honestly say that I
understand it much better than the general theory of relativity, which I believe
to be our best theory of large-scale physical phenomena.
7
Among other things,
I can understand the notion of an inertial frame and at the same time know that
there are no such frames.
Once we set aside these semantic assumptions we arrive at a more
traditional picture of sentences expressing language-independent propositions.
These propositions can be grasped by scientists who possess the relevant
concepts and it is of course possible to understand all these propositions in
advance of determining whether or not they are true. Is there any space left for
relative a priori entitlements? In his perceptive critical QRWLFH RI )ULHGPDQV
book Lange notes two potential presupposition relations that fit with
)ULHGPDQV SXUSRVHV LQFOXGLQJ WKH RQH ZH MXVW GLVFXVVHG %HVLGHV WKLV
semantic relation, Lange also articulates an epistemic presupposition relation:
$FFRUGLQJ WR Friedman, our observations can count as evidence for or against
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7
Friedman does discuss a neo-Newtonian theory that is available from within the mathematical
framework of general relativity theory, but this is not what I have in mind here.
Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
62
PRWLRQ DV FRRUGLQDWLQJ SULQFLSOHV /DQJH, 2004: 703). Although he says on
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704), I take this to be a promising presupposition relation between propositions.
On this approach, A presupposes B when being entitled to A requires that we
believe B. The entitlement to believe A is only available to someone who
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only if someone believes the laws of motion, and so actually believes that what
he is observing relates to an inertial frame, that empirical testing of (4) is
possible. In this theoretical context, the observations can tell in favor of (4).
Outside of this context, no entitlement to (4) exists.
To make this presupposition claim more plausible, consider an example of
testing within the Newtonian framework. In 1705 Halley made the prediction
that a certain comet would return in 1758. To make this prediction Halley
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laws of motion. Crucially, this entitled him to the belief that the frame of
reference centered on the Sun approximates an inertial frame. Using the law of
universal gravitation along with some parameters like two points on the known
trajectory of the comet, Halley then was able to predict when it would return.
Later, when the prediction turned out to be correct, based on observation O,
this law received a boost in confirmation. I think there is a clear sense in which
this empirical test could not have been implemented by someone who did not
believe the mathematics and the coordinating principles. The calculations and
the intermediate result about the frame centered on the Sun would simply not
have been available to contribute to the confirmation of the law. More
schematically, O by itself does not constitute a reason to believe (4). It is only
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
63
a reason to believe (4) for someone who also believes (1)-(3), as only they are
able to ascertain the link between O and (4).
So far we have been discussing the sense in which the empirical laws
presuppose the coordinating principles. What about the alleged presupposition
relation between the coordinating principles and the mathematics? If the
current epistemic account of presupposition is to work we must argue that
there can be no entitlement to believe the coordinating principles unless we
believe the relevant mathematics. This seems incorrect, at least if we think of
the coordinating principles in a certain natural way. According to Friedman,
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frames. These frames are specified using their mathematical properties as well
as their physical properties, such as spatio-temporal relations. But there is no
need to use exactly the same mathematics that Newton did in claiming that
these frames exist. In fact, the mathematics used to present Newtonian
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Principia through to its most sophisticated presentation in what is often called
analytic mechanics.
8
This suggests that the relationship between the
mathematics and the coordinating principles is much looser than the
relationship between the coordinating principles and the empirical laws. While
the empirical laws presuppose those very coordinating principles, the
coordinating principles can occur along with a wide variety of mathematical
theories.
9
To see the implications of this variability, we need to get clearer on
the basis of our entitlement to the coordinating principles.
8
Cf. Lange, 2004: 706.
9
So the semantic presupposition relation defended by Friedman also fails here.
Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
64
IV. Entitlement to Relative A Priori Beliefs
Suppose that everything I have said so far is correct and that there is an
epistemic presupposition relation between some empirical laws and
coordinating principles. Still, our entitlement to believe the coordinating
principles may be nonexistent or may turn out to be empirical. For example, an
absolutist about a priori entitlement may insist that what entitled Newton to
believe his laws of motion was a complicated inference to the best explanation
using the empirical data assembled by earlier scientists like Kepler. If this is
right, then the entitlement to the laws of motion is empirical and not relative to
a theoretical context in any interesting sense. For the mathematics, the
absolutist will either insist on traditional absolute a priori entitlements or opt
for empiricism here as well.
It remains unclear to me what Friedman would say to answer this
question, and I take it that the reason he does not face this issue is because he
has not isolated a workable presupposition relation. Can we at least articulate
an account of entitlement here that is consistent with some kind of relativity?
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questions and practical reasoning. For Carnap, genuine theoretical reasoning
can occur only for internal questions, and so only after the adoption of a
linguistic framework. What entitles us to choose this or that linguistic
framework is the practical point that it is only by adopting some framework
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our purposes here.
Suppose our goal is to understand some well articulated physical domain
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
65
like the motions of the planets or the patterns of the tides. On our picture so far
the propositions accounting for these phenomena are accessible independently
of our belief in any given package of coordinating principles. Still, belief in
some package is necessary in order to have access to any entitlements that
might exist for one or more of these propositions. In such a situation I claim
that an agent is entitled to believe one of these packages of coordinating
principles. This entitlement obtains at least until the putative law is
disconfirmed via ordinary empirical testing. At that time, the agent may
reasonably stick with that set of coordinating principles and test another
candidate empirical law, or else shift to another set of coordinating principles
that is needed to test some different kind of empirical law.
Is the entitlement in question a priori? It passes the letter, if perhaps not
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constituted or enhanced by reference to or reliance on the specifics of some
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justificational force turns on the practical goal of confirming this or that
empirical law. The epistemic presupposition relation obtains independently of
the empirical contingencies that Burge mentions, and so it is a priori. But, then,
in what sense is this a priori entitlement relative to a theoretical context? It can
happen that a package of coordinating principles has been so thoroughly
explored that a wide range of candidate empirical laws that are confirmable
within that framework have been disconfirmed by experiment. With this
historical record at our disposal, I claim that we are no longer entitled to
believe this package of coordinating principles. As a practical means to the end
of confirming some empirical law that will account for the phenomena, this
Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
66
package has failed. This is, after all, how we think of NewtonV ODZV RI PRWLRQ
As coordinating principles, Newton and his immediate successors were entitled
to believe them. But we have lost this entitlement.
V. Mathematics is not Relative A Priori
Entitlement to believe this or that package of coordinating principles is
relative, then, in the sense that the accumulation of the historical record can
indicate that believing this package is a poor means to the end of empirical
testing. Nothing like this is available for mathematics, and until Friedman or
somebody else can explain their account of mathematics, it seems clear that
entitlements in mathematics are either absolutely a priori or empirical.
In favor of mathematical entitlement being absolutely a priori, it is first
important to notice that mathematical revolutions lack many of the features of
scientific revolutions. Even when Euclidean geometry was discarded as a
theory of physical space, it was still retained as a genuine mathematical theory
that we know to be true. This knowledge rests on entitlements tied to
mathematical proofs. It remains unclear what the basis of our entitlement to
the axioms and logic that allow these proofs is. But it is not plausible that they
rest on the role of mathematics in scientific experiment (Pincock, 2007).
Friedman himself seHPV WR DJUHH ZLWK WKLV SRLQW ZKHQ KH VD\V WKDW WKH WKHRU\
RI 5LHPDQQLDQ PDQLIROGVUHPDLQV D SXUHO\ DEVWUDFW GHVFULSWLRQ RI FHUWDLQ
mathematical structures, whose distinctive theorems and principles are
MXVWLILHG SXUHO\ PDWKHPDWLFDOO\ )ULHGPDQ, 2001: 80). Here, then, we see that
a defensible notion of relative a priori entitlement may rest on a core of
The Limits of the Relative A Priori
67
absolute a priori entitlements.
If this is right, then, what is the presupposition relation between the
PDWKHPDWLFV RI 1HZWRQLDQ SK\VLFV DQG 1HZWRQV ODZV of motion? While I
argued earlier that no particular mathematical theory is required to have an
entitlement to believe the coordinating principles, I suggest that some
minimally strong mathematical theory is epistemically presupposed. Once this
minimal mathematics is in place, we obtain the entitlement based on the
practical reasoning sketched above. Without the mathematics, this practical
reasoning breaks down and the entitlement evaporates.
Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies, No. 16
68
References
Bonjour, Laurence (1998). In Defense of Pure Reason. Cambridge.
Burge, Tyler (1993). Content Preservation. Philosophical Review, 102:
457-488.
Friedman, Michael (1983). Foundations of Space-Time Theories. Princeton.
Friedman, Michael (2001). Dynamics of Reason. CSLI.
Kitcher, Philip (2000). A Priori Knowledge Revisited. In Boghossian &
Peacocke (Eds.), New Essays on the A Priori (pp. 65-91). Oxford.
Lange, Marc (2004). Review Essay on Dynamics of Reason by Michael
Friedman. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 68: 702-712.
Peacocke, Christopher (2004). The Realm of Reason. Oxford.
Pincock, Christopher (2007). A Role for Mathematics in Physical Theories.
Nous, 41: 253-275.