A prioriknowledge: intuitive knowledge that we know prior to sense experience.
A posterioriknowldge: Knowledge through sense impressions, that can be doubted.
Analytic truth: tautologies, facts that are true by definition.
Synthetic truth: Non-analytic truths that can reasonably be presumed to be the opposite, e.g. the grass is green, though it may be blue.
Necessary truth: Truths that must be true - would be the same in a parallel universe
Contingent truth: Truths that aren't necessary - could be different in a parallel universe
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EMPIRICISM
We are born with our minds as a tabula rasa, or blank slate.
Knowledge is gained through experience.
Our ideas are copies of sense impressions, e.g. we have an idea of snow being white and cold.
We can have complex ideas, e.g. a gold mountain, which are based on our experiences of numerous simple ideas, e.g. the colour gold and a mountain.
Not all of our ideas/knowledge can be traced back to sense experience. We must already have knowledge in order to experience other things, e.g. we can see a pen, close our eyes and assume it will still be there.
Experience alone doesn't give us knowledge as empiricism implies. We can get knowledge from our community through a common knowledge, or we can be taught.
We cannot all have the same sense impressions so we cannot share ideas. My words stand for my sense impressions so how can you understand me when we are communicating?
How do we know we're experiencing the same things? What I see isn't necessarily what others see, e.g. what may be green to me may look purple to someone else.
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