Which do you think is more valid and applicable to our life, a priori/analytical or an empirical/synthetic statement?
Is it possible for Mathematics to be empirical i.e. they can be obtained from experience?
Do you believe in the idea of “processed space”?
If “truths are independent of any human contribution,” are axioms even supposed to exist?
5. How do you feel
about the very last sentence of this chapter? "Truths had to
be independent of any human contribution, like diamonds
dug out of the earth". (116)
6.
Being in natural science, it is
difficult to conceive a science that "...escape the tedious
and troublesome task of collecting experimental facts," like
Euclidean geometry. Does this make Euclidean geometry more
than mathematics? Why or why not?
7. Can you think of a
statement that is either a priori or analytic but not both?
8. Of the
categories in Figure 101 (pg 110), where do most scientific
theories lie? How about the discoveries discussed in this
class such as Periodic Law, Atomic Theory, and The Big Bang?