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There are two kinds of knowledge: a priori and a posteriori.
A priori knowledge consists of propositions that are knowable independently of experience of the world.
e.g. An octagon has eight sides.
I can know this by simply thinking about the concepts in question. If I understand what an octagon is, then I know that is has eight sides.
A posteriori knowledge consists of propositions that are known on the basis of empirical experience of the world.
e.g. Smoking is correlated with lung cancer.
To know this I need to make an empirical investigation.
Let's try a practice exercise...
Sort the white boxes into categories according to whether the propositions they contain are a priori or a posteriori.
Drag this image onto the workspace to proceed. You must be using the inbuilt browser in Rationale 1.3 or later.
After you've finished this exercise drag this thumbnail onto the workspace to see the model answer:
This material has been developed independently of the International Baccalaureate, which in no way endorses it.
© Austhink 2013. Rationale Exercises version 0.1, Jan-13
