How does Quine show that the notion of a priori knowledge as discussed by Kant is 'a metaphysical article of faith'? Give reasons for your answer.

Kant’s Conception of A Priori Knowledge

Kant distinguished between two types of judgments: analytic and synthetic. Analytic judgments are those where the predicate is contained within the concept of the subject (e.g., ‘All bachelors are unmarried’). These are a priori and certain, but they are also trivial, adding no new information. Synthetic judgments, on the other hand, add new information to the concept of the subject (e.g., ‘All swans are white’). These are a posteriori, derived from experience. Kant’s revolutionary claim was the existence of synthetic a priori judgments – judgments that are both informative and independent of experience. He argued that mathematics and certain principles of physics (like causality) fall into this category. These judgments are possible because they are grounded in the *a priori* structures of our understanding – the forms of intuition (space and time) and the categories of the understanding (e.g., causality, substance).

Quine’s Critique: The Indeterminacy of Translation

Quine’s critique begins with his famous thought experiment, the ‘gavagai’ example. Imagine a field linguist attempting to translate the word ‘gavagai’ uttered by a native speaker when a rabbit runs by. Does ‘gavagai’ mean ‘rabbit,’ ‘undetached rabbit parts,’ ‘rabbit-stage,’ or something else entirely? Quine argues that there is no fact of the matter; multiple, logically incompatible translations are equally compatible with all possible observational evidence. This leads to the indeterminacy of translation – the idea that there is no uniquely correct translation of one language into another.

Rejection of the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction

This indeterminacy of translation has profound implications for the analytic/synthetic distinction. Quine argues that the distinction relies on the idea of synonymy – the idea that two terms have the same meaning. However, if translation is indeterminate, then the notion of synonymy itself becomes problematic. We can only determine meaning through observation and behavioral dispositions. What appears to be an analytic truth (e.g., ‘All bachelors are unmarried’) is, according to Quine, simply a result of our linguistic conventions and our tendency to group things together in certain ways. He contends that even logical truths, like those of mathematics, are ultimately based on empirical assumptions about the world and are therefore revisable.

The ‘Web of Belief’ and Conceptual Schemes

Quine proposes that our beliefs are organized into a ‘web of belief,’ where each belief is connected to others. We constantly adjust this web to maintain coherence with our experience. There is no fixed, foundational set of a priori truths that serve as the starting point for this process. Instead, our entire conceptual scheme – the framework through which we interpret the world – is open to revision. This means that what Kant considered a priori is simply a deeply entrenched part of our conceptual scheme, a set of beliefs that we are reluctant to give up, but which are not logically necessary.

Quine and the ‘Metaphysical Article of Faith’

Because Kant’s a priori knowledge relies on the assumption of fixed forms of intuition and categories of understanding, Quine argues that it is a ‘metaphysical article of faith.’ It’s a belief in something that cannot be empirically verified or logically demonstrated. It’s a commitment to a particular way of organizing our experience, rather than a reflection of the inherent structure of reality. Quine doesn’t deny that we *have* beliefs that seem a priori, but he insists that these beliefs are ultimately based on convention and habit, not on any transcendental necessity. He replaces Kant’s transcendental idealism with a form of naturalism, arguing that philosophy should be continuous with science and should focus on understanding how our beliefs are formed and revised in light of experience.