Synthetic A Priori Knowledge And Judgment Philosophy Essay

Synthetic A Priori Knowledge And Judgment Philosophy Essay It is common knowledge that we all make judgments. Judgments about people we meet, what we or others should look like, or even judgments about world affairs and nature. Yet what knowledge do we have instilled in us or how is knowledge presented to us that allow us to make the judgments we make. With that in mind, the followed text is comparing analytic and synthetic judgments while holding emphasis on synthetic a priori knowledge as reflected in Kants Critique of Pure Reason. I will then take these ideas a step further by comparing Kants ideas and arguments against Humes as it was he who interrupted his dogmatic slumbers and gave his investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a quite new direction. (Critique of Pure Reason) To begin, Kant had a few issues with the way previous philosophers used the term analytic and synthetic judgment. Based on their use of the terms, he can to the conclusion that they failed to differentiate between the judgments in a way that justifies their use. As defined by Wikipedia, An analytic judgment is a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept. While a synthetic judgment, is a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept. While these two definitions of the judgments have been used in philosophy in many different ways to justify many philosophical arguments or ideas, Kant believed the two judgments were not coextensive so he gave four other logical combinations that he felt should be examined while defining analytic and synthetic judgments. Analytic a posteriori judgments cannot arise, since there is never any need to appeal to experience in support of a purely explicative assertion. Synthetic a posteriori judgments are the relatively uncontroversial matters of fact that we come to know by means of our sensory experience (though Wolff had tried to derive even these from the principle of contradiction). Analytic a priori judgments, everyone agrees, include all merely logical truths and straightforward matters of definition; they are necessarily true. Synthetic a priori judgments are the crucial case, since only they could provide new information that is necessarily true. But neither Leibniz nor Hume considered the possibility of any such case (Kemerling 2). With the definitions and formulations of the judgments aside, Kant believed that it was possible to synthetic a priori judgments because these types of judgments are what most of human knowledge is based from. With Hume in mind, Kant generally believed that Humes view on arithmetic and geometry could be used as the building blocks for natural science. Once the foundations for natural science have been laid, you can then use that information to explain certain events or predict what the future holds in respect to natural science. Hume derived this line of thinking from two different explanations. He believed that ideas come from impressions and relations of ideas which can be shown through mathematics. These impressions and relations of ideas then lay the ground work or foundation for the natural sciences. With the foundation of natural sciences being formed through impressions and relation of ideas, Hume also believed cause and effect played a role, but that experience can never be a source of any of the ideas for natural science. The reason for this is that experience is the clear example of the constant conjunction between cause and effect and it is above all clear that we cannot have knowledge without cause and effect. Thus, cause and effect gives us our impressions and relations of ideas which help form knowledge. The negative portion of Humes analysis-his demonstration that matters of fact rest upon an unjustifiable belief that there is a necessary connection between the causes and their effects-was entirely correct. (Kemerling 2) Humes rationality of cause and effect forces his conclusion that induction has no logical force. That causes have explanations behind them that could be traced back to natural reasons and are above all determined by nature. Kants Critique of Pure Reason shows how reason determines the conditions under which experience and knowledge are based. (Kemerling 1) This means that if I want to buy a car, I must have money and knowledge of what it will cost to buy a car. Without money, I cannot buy a new car or without the knowledge of where to buy a car, I would not know of a car to buy. This is where we take our experience and knowledge and combine them to give us cause and effect as above. When we have concepts of understanding, those ideas will provide us with the ability to connect knowledge together to create a synthetic a priori judgment. Kant believes that all of our knowledge stems from experience, but that our knowledge does not have to stem out of the experience. In other words a priori knowledge is independent of our experiences and senses. With that said, Kant believed that philosophy must stand in the need of a science that will determine the extent of all of it. Mathematics is an example of how far, independently of experience, we can progress in a priori knowledge. (Kemerling 3) So in conclusion, natural science contains a priori synthetic judgments and metaphysics contains a priori synthetic knowledge. Kant believes that pure reason is, That which contains the principles whereby we know anything absolutely a priori. (Critique of Pure Reason) Its like adding and subtracting which brings about a priori answers, once we do that our judgments and concepts stem from an a priori origin. For the analysis, that is, mere dissection of concepts, contained in this or that, is not the aim of, but only a preparation for metaphysics proper, which has its object the extension, by means of synthesis of prior knowledge. For Humes analysis by Kant he stated that all things ultimately exist in space, a priori, before we can sense. The priori of an object is their concept of it. It is more than showing these concepts, but containing a knowledge of their concepts and how it can be arrived as a synthesis, of a priori knowledge. (Jones 2) Overall, both Hume and Kant came to agree that all theoretical sciences of reason have synthetic a priori judgments and are followed in these principles; All knowledge begins with an experience. A priori knowledge is independent of experiences. If we understand and adapt to these principles of synthetic a priori judgment, we may begin to understand everything within a better light especially cause and effect. In respect to both Hume and Kant, I must say I agree with their definitive choices for use of the judgments. While pushing aside analytic judgments, both Kant and Hume make strong arguments for why synthetic a priori judgments are not only the foundation for natural science, but also for the definitive source of almost all human knowledge. I agree with Kant in saying that we can have an idea or impression of something which knowledge can be stemmed from, but I genuinely dont believe we can know something without having experience of it. You can have an idea of something, but not knowledge of something and those two ideals are drastically different in my mind. Overall, Kant does a great job at conforming and revamping Humes ideas on synthetic a priori judgment and without synthetic a priori knowledge, we would defiantly be lacking much knowledge in the human culture.

Relationship of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity

With the rapid development of dynamic global economy, increasingly countries are seeking breakthroughs of their economy development. Stimulated by these ever-increasing competition pressures, exploitation of new ideas and businesses which are of great potential to thrive economies, accordingly, is gainning widespread attention (Mansfield, 1972; Wong et al. , 2005).In consequence, on a global scale, not only some developed countries with strong capability to absorb and implement new ideas, but also some emerging developing countries, are taking measures to inspire entrepreneurship and innovation with purposes of benefiting economic development from these competitive advantages (Stoneman, 1995; Zhao, 2001). It is universally held that entrepreneurship and innovation are complementary and their combination can efficiently contribute to economy performance (Grupp, 2001; Stoneman, 1995).During the transfer from idea creation to eventually economy development, innovation is supposed to be a necessary condition, but it also demonstrates great insufficiency which can be completed by entrepreneurship’s mediating effects (Audretsch, 1995; Camp, 2005). This essay will primarily conduct a brief definition of entrepreneurship and innovation while introduce the role of problem solving and creativity, and thereby observe the synergy between entrepreneurship and innovation. Then theoretical and practical analysis will be made in their repective relationship with economy development.Ultimately, the holistic realtionship between entrepreneurship, in conjunction with innovation, and economy development will be discussed. Entrepreneurship and innovation are inclined to be misinterpreted identical since they both indicate creation and new development, but meanings they rootly represent are distinctive. Innovation is an instrument that intergrates, disperses and upgrades extant techniques and knowledge, then acts as a â€Å"conduit† for achieveing knowledge spillovers and technique invention, and consequently endows existing materials with a new capacity (Drucker, 1985; Drucker, 1994).Creativity, which represents generating new ideas, is the foundation of innovation, since innovation originates from creaticity (Amabile, 1996; Lumsdaine and Binks, 2007). In the initial stage of development, creativity is implemented to generate a wide range of ideas, and in a later period, innovation will rest on these creative ideas and further develop their potential. Entrepreneurship, however, is a type of organizational behavior focusing on opportunities rather than materials (Miller, 1983; Stevenson and Gumpert, 1991).It primarily consists of exploiting opportunities from various innovations, converting them into service or products, thereby commercializing it into market (Johnson, 2001). Problem solving spreads through their relationship and is connected with entrepreneurship in even every situation. It is the basis of generating ideas and then choosing the best for initiating and operating a prosperous business (Lumsdaine and Binks, 2007). In its definition stage, time is spent on searching for root causes and how the problem is inside correlated.Then in the discovery stage, energy will be concentrated on seeking plenty of ideas. In the following determination phrase, possible consequences will be considered by using criteria for success, and convert possibilities into practical application (Kirkham, Mosey and Binks, 2009). Arising from studies dealing with relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation, the synerty between them is generally accepted (Zhao, 2005). Firstly, entrepreneurship and innovation complement with each other (Zhao, 2001; Michael, 2005).On one hand, as Legge and Hindle (1997) have observed, innovation is the special-purpose tool of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs exploit opportunities and seek commercial success resting on creative ideas selected and provided by innovation (Zhao, 2001). Herbig and his colle agues (1994) take similar view and hold that entrepreneurship is one of three primary components of innovation, and presence of entrepreneurship can to some extent guarantee successful manipulation of another two.Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, enables innovation to flourish (Zhao, 2001; Michael, 2005). Schumpeter (1934) originally endeavors to associate innovation with entrepreneurship by identifying innovators as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship enables innovation to realise further value by marketing them as products or services. Second, the development of entrepreneurship and innovation, and mutual effect between them for the successful practicality of innovation, demand support of innovative culture and management (Drucker, 1985; Zhao, 2001).The success of McDonald’s can be taken to confirm this point. Products sold in McDonald’s are not originally invented, virtually, they are just what had been produced in respectable restaurants many years ago. Nevertheless , by adopting a set of innovative management techniques and concepts, McDonald’s has standalized its products and designed specific working process based on which production can be analysed (Drucker, 1985). In consequence, McDonalds opened up a new area and substantially raised revenues.Before considering the relationship between entrepreneurship together with innovation and economy development, it is essential to respectively observe their relationship with economy development. Firstly, innovation is a vital contributor to economic development albeit with its insufficient nature (Grupp, 2001; Stoneman, 1995; Camp, 2005). In the perspective of necessity, Lichtenberg (1993) and Engelbrecht (1997) recognise this by pointing out that inovation can be regarded as a vital source of economy development.Another scholar, Porter (1979), confirms the view in terms of promoting the concept of value-based competitiveness, where innovation initially results in improved productivity, then the enhanced productivity creats higher competitiveness which eventually leads to better economy. For instance, 3M Company is famous for its characteristic of gaining growth through innovation. The company stimulates innovation by setting up the 15% rule-employers are encouraged to utilize 15% of working time to research their own ideas which may convert into new products in the future.As a consequence, a quarter of incomes of the Company are generated by products no more than six years old (Burns, 2005). In addition to the study supporting the necessity of innovation to foster economy development, there are some investigations demonstrating that innovation is not sufficient for continuously economy development (Grupp, 2001; Stoneman, 1995; Camp, 2005). Some scholars criticise that the role of innovation is overlooked and state that staying only in the sphere of innovation can not bring qualitative leap to economy (Allen, 1988; Audretsch, 1995).Camp (2005) approves of the view and h e maintains that many organisations are learning this lesson by experience. Their copious investment paid for innovation does not convert into property and can not continuously sustain economic development. Secondly, entrepreneurship is broadly accepted as a prominent driver of economy development (Schumpeter, 1912; Camp, 2005). As United Kindom Her Majesty's Treasury (2005) declared, entrepreneurship and its profound impact on entreprises have been one of five driving forces of the Nation’s remarkable strategy to promote economy development for the last ten years.Drucker (1985) also accepts the major role of entrepreneurship and he even indicated that present businesses could hardly survive if they do not secure entrepreneurial capacity. In addition, a positive relationship between economic development and entrepreneurship is captured by Braunerhjelm et al. (2009). They examed 20 countries in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for 21 years and eventually came to the conclusion that entrepreneurship could positively affect economic development, with remarkable improvement in the perspective of competitiveness and new firms establishment.Wennekers and Thurik (1999) are in the same line with Braunerhjelm and state that entrepreneurship makes contribution to economy development by some process such as enhancing competitiveness, creating new firms and new jobs, and improving productivity. Besides, with increasingly practice, Schumpeter’s notion (1912), where economic growth and employment are provided and motivated by new businesses and existing firms which result from entrepreneurship, is widely accepted (Reynolds, 1999; Fritsch and Muller, 2004).In addition, statistical research of manufacturing sector by United Kindom Her Majesty's Treasury (2005) demonstrated the essential role of innovation for British economy. As their research result shows, 1. 2 million employments were provided by newly established businesses from 1997 to 2005. However, according to Hoffmann and Junge’s research (2006), UK has still approximately 18 percent less businesses than America, and he maintains that much higher entrepreneurial activity rates in America may interpret this to some extent.Having considered entrepreneurship and innovation’s separate relationship with economy development, it comes to conceive entrepreneurship and innovation as a whole and discuss their holistic relationship with economy development. As have been discussed, innovation and entrepreneurship are complementary. This can also apply to economy development. With the insuffiency of innovation, entrepreneurship plays a mediate role between innovation and ecocnomic development, which will more fully realize the commercial value of innovation and enhance the overall impact (Camp, 2005).Some scholars such as Allen (1988) approve that entrepreneurship should be reagrded as the pricinpal mechanism to convert preliminary-phase innovation into econo mic development. For example, in the 1980s, in the printing industry, a potential market gap existed between conventional printing and office photocopiers. A famous German company, Bayer, responsed to the problem with the development of an innovative technology which can provide quality, price-efficient and small-quantities colour printing for office uses.Nevertheless, the traditional chemical company did not plan to expand into printing area, so no material measures were taken to fill in the gap. But a few years later, the market gap expanded to a large scale which finally attracted Bayer’s attention. In 1988, based on the innovation mentioned above, Bayer established a new enterprise, Xeikon, to produce printers especially for office. Consenquently, by the end of 1998, 160 jobs had been created and the company had captured profits of 45 million pounds (Burns, 2005). Entrepreneurship’s mediating role is apparent in this case.If Xeikon were not founded, the innovative technology might stay in the innovation stage for much longer time and the printing industry might not be able to experience the revolution in that age (Burns, 2005). With the necessary yet insufficient nature of innovation and postitive impact of entrepreneurship on economic development, many regions which have invested a large amount of money in innovation begin to learn the indispensable role of entrepreneurship and find that they need entrepreneurship to further thrive economies and these investments’ ecomoic return (Camp, 2005).Innovation alone can only yield limited economic influence (Camp, 2005). Through the generative process of entrepreneurship, however, more significant economic gains can be captured. For instance, in an investigation by Camp (2005), a rise of approximately 60 percent in average wages was acturalized in the most innovative regions among 382 regions they researched, by enhancing innovation capability through entrepreneurship. The Table 1 below, extr acted from Camp’s (2005) another research, also indicates entrepreneurship’s mediating effects on innovation.Table 1: Tesing the Mediating Effiects of Entrepreneurship on Innovation and Regional Employment (Camp, 2005). Regression Models| Correlation| Coefficient| t-stat| R2| Model1:Total Employment| 0. 723| 512. 8| 4. 67| 81. 1%| Innovation| | | | | Entrepreneurship| 0. 716| 121. 1| 26. 03| | Model2: Entrepreneurship| 0. 611| 16. 4| 18. 95| 48. 0%| Innovation| | | | | Model3:Total Employment| 0. 723| 2,494. 6| 19. 02| 48. 2%| Innovation| | | | |The difference between Model 1 and Model 2, especially the value of R2 which represents impact on employment, indicates that the direct effect of innovation alone (48%) is much lower than the combined effect with the mediating process of entrepreneurship (81. 1%). In other words, the mediating effect of entrepreneurship can provide extra profits for businesses as well as covering the investment on innovation capability (Camp, 2 005). In conclusion, this essay has disscussed the relationship between entrepreneurship, in conjunction with innovation, and economy development, utilizing theories and examples in business.Attention is devoted to the positive relationship between the three issues. Innovation originates from creativity and endows materials with new capacity. Entrepreneurship utilizes innovation as a special tool, and it explores innovation’s potential economic value by selecting and commercialising innovation into market. Entrepreneurship and innovation are thus complementary and the synergy between them significantly benefits each other. Problem solving exists throughout the process from ideas generation to business estabilishment converting possibilities into practical application.In addition, innovation and entrepreneurship are respectively vital contributors to economy development, whereas the insufficient nature of innovation calls for mediating effect of entrepreneurship. Many theories and examples have illustrated this mediating effect which will more comprehensively realize the commercial value of innovation. With good combination of entrepreneurship and innovation, in consequence, economy can be effectively thrived and overall economy development will be achieved. Word Count: 1904

Primary and Support Activities of Value Chain Essay

Raytheon Company has created new software that improves the logistics system of the company by providing constant tracking data of all products in the inventory, which has saved the company nearly $9M. MTrak is a web-based system that includes the Microsoft . Net technology, which is used to capture bar-code scans and combines it with information from the mainframe computer to provide tracking of all inventories anywhere within the company. A lot of stuff got lost, company had to have multiple people sitting by the phones to take the calls asking where the parts were. The creation of MTrak brings Raytheon online with its competitors in the industry. While the system does not create a competitive advantage to Raytheon, it does negate the disadvantage of a bad supply control system. The creation of MTrak contributes to the entire value chain by tracking the products from the beginning of the chain at Inbound Logistics, through Operations, Outbound Logistics, Marketing and Sales, through to the end of the chain at Service. The Technology and Competitive Forces The major problem at Raytheon was lost inventory. The suppliers were not to blame because they were able to account for every piece of property they supplied through their fully automated supply chains. From the beginning, the goal was to create a system that would track all materials used by Raytheon such as resistors, capacitors and customized computer chips from the time of order through receiving, testing, placement in inventory and final use in a military field radio, handheld motion sensor or some other Raytheon product . Whenever Raytheon received calls for a missing delivery personnel would physically search the area to see if the product was still there. In some cases, if the item couldn’t be found the employees would reorder the item so production schedules could be met.. The MTrak is a web-based system that includes such technologies as Microsoft . Net and Biz Talk 2004. These technologies, which captures bar-code scans and other information on incoming deliveries, combine it with other information from the mainframe system such as purchase-order inventory, anufacture-scheduling data. The integration of the MTrak and mainframe computers is possible through the use of software provided by WRQ Verastream. This system lets employees track the status and movement of parts throughout the entire company from a web browser. Competitive Forces-Value Chain The Value Chain consists of five Primary Value Chain Activities and four generic categories of support activities. The primary value chain activ ities are supported by the generic categories. In this case the primary chain activities that are being supported are the Inbound Logistics, Operations, Outbound Logistics, and Marketing and Sales. The supporting category is Technology Development. Raytheon created this technology in-house with publicly available software. Even though integrating the software into the daily business of the company did not create a competitive advantage, Raytheon was able to save money in many areas including lost inventory, delayed production, and outsourcing software development. Supporting the Company The MTrak tracking system provides a state-of-the-art software package that provides Raytheon with the means to track its entire inventory throughout the entire company from a web browser. This technology improves the value chain of the entire company. Though the use of this technology, Raytheon will be on a level playing field with other companies in the industry. It may even spur Raytheon an advantage in the future as the company continues to grow.

The Social and Personal Impediments Against Which Genius...

As a composer, and a performer, there can be no question of Mozarts genius, however, what is genius defined as? The main definition is that genius is a very great and rare innate ability or skill- it is a creative power. It is therefore clear that Mozart was in fact a genius in his music; it does no state anywhere, however, that a genius also has to have a divine personality and behaviour and this is clear as Mozart is shown in Amadeus as a silly, scatological, childish and infantile man. To be a genius in one aspect of the mind, such as music, could mean that other parts of the mind are inhibited, such as social skills. An evident and major theme in Amadeus is exploring how a genius functions in a society and how society hinders and†¦show more content†¦Historically, there is evidence from Mozarts own written letters that there was some sort of antagonism between Salieri and Mozart, If he is allied with Salieri, I wont ever get a thing out of him. Be it jealousy or a differ ence in personality, one cannot say, however, the conflict between Salieris mediocrity and Mozarts genius is evident throughout the play. Salieri himself is musically competent, he has been educated and has learnt the skills of music and so is able to recognise Mozarts greatness, however, he seems to be the only one in Mozarts age to have recognised it, ...my only reward...is to be the sole man alive in this time who shall clearly recognize your Incarnation! He shows his obvious awareness of Mozarts posterity and his own mediocrity. We can see Salieri and Mozart in the light of Nietzsches opposing struggle of the Apollian and Dionysian personalities. Mozart embodies the Dionysian elements of a