English

Alternative forms

• a priorism

Noun

apriorism ‎(countable and uncountable, plural apriorisms)

1. (philosophy) The idea that some knowledge of the physical world can be derived logically from general principles.
   • 1982, Dan I Slobin, in Eric Wanner & Lila Gleitman, Language Acquisition, p. 128:

     The linguistic apriorism of Chomsky has stimulated some psychologists to search for nonlinguistic roots of language development.

   • 2006, Philip Ball, The Devil's Doctor, Arrow 2007, p. 51:

     What was needed for modern science to take shape was a renunciation of their bookish a priorism, with its Aristotelian notion that all things can be deduced by logical, abstract argument from (ultimately arbitrary) first principles.

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