PRIORI VS POSTERIOR KNOWLEDGE The controversial discussion of priori or posteriori knowledge is very difficult to take a I personally lean more towards the posteriori knowledge. I believe that human beings, opposed to other animals, have learned knowledge. A child begins to learn while developing in the mother’s womb. The child learns the mothers voice, reaction to noises, and sucking abilities prior to birth. When the child is delivered, miniscule relationships between the mother and baby have to be developed. The child learns how to feed from her breast, walk, and choreograph its cry in a matter that the mother can relate it to the corresponding need. The concept of good and evil is definitely one of which we have no prior knowledge. As a child grows into the toddler stage, we begin to teach behavior and enforce it. The passing years require the child to take accumulating responsibility of its action either way. We teach them that good behavior can be rewarded, while bad behavior is punished or some kind of reinforcement is applied. Did the child possess any of these traits prior to learning them? I don’t think so. Although the human ability to perceive has no bounds, they are just perceptions that are learned or developed from personal experiences. Earlier, I stated conversely, the possibility of other animals having priori knowledge. Many species possess Nativism, such as baby goats and chicks avoiding visual cliffs while only a few hours old. Humans do not possess this phenomenal knowledge without experience, thereby neutralizing the phenomenon. A human baby, left alone at 1 year old, will die of thirst and starvation even though it is in a room filled with morsels and beverages. This same infant will walk directly off a cliff providing mom or dad is not there to stop it. There are no instincts preventing the child from this behavior, or allowing it. I do believe that humans have some fixed-action p...
