A posteriori

Richard Fernandez | 5:56 PM on July 01, 2009

The terms “a priori” and “a posteriori” are used in philosophy to distinguish two different types of knowledge, justification, or argument: a priori knowledge is known independently of experience, and a posteriori knowledge is proven through experience. So what is the answer to the question: “are taxes going to be raised on people who make less than $250,000 a year?

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Now to the more interesting epistemological question: why did so many believe that taxes were not going to be raised on people making less than $250,000? A totally cynical person might argue that it was in the candidate’s best interest to shade the truth, but why was it in the voter’s interests to buy into it?

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