| 释义 |
‖ a posteriori, advb. (and adj.) phr.|eɪ pɒˌstɛrɪˈɔəraɪ, ɑː pɒˌstɛrɪˈɔːrɪ|
[L. ā posteriōri ‘from what comes after’ (as opposed to ā priōri ‘from what is before’).]
1. A phrase used to characterize reasoning or arguing from effects to causes, from experience and not from axioms; empirical, inductive; inductively.
1624Francis White Replie to Fisher sig. C4v, Your other argument..is, à posteriori, from an example of the..French King, Henry the fourth, to whom you wish his Maiestie to bee a parrallell. 1647H. Hammond Power of Keyes sig. A3v, This, I conceive, is not by me magisterially dictated, but already demonstrated à posteriori, by the experience which the few last moneths have yeelded us. 1710Berkeley Princ. Hum. Knowl. §21, I think arguments à posteriori are unnecessary for confirming what has been..sufficiently demonstrated à priori. 1834Penny Cycl. II. 199/1 In common language, we reason à priori when we infer the existence of a God from the general difficulties in the supposition of the existence of what we then call the creation on any other hypothesis; but we reason à posteriori when we infer the same from marks of intelligent contrivance in this particular creation with which we are acquainted. 1836–7Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. xxi. (1870) II. 26 Knowledge a posteriori is a synonym for knowledge empirical, or from experience. 1873H. Spencer Study Sociol. vii. 174 Accounts of existing uncivilized races..show us à posteriori, what we might infer with certainty à priori.
2. Facetious. From behind, on the back, on the buttocks. Cf. posterior B. 2.
1762Smollett Sir L. Greaves ix. 200 One of them clapped a furze-bush under the tail of Gilbert, who, feeling himself thus stimulated a posteriori, kicked and plunged and capered. 1837Carlyle Fr. Rev. II. iii. v. 182 Accelerated..by smitings, twitchings,—spurnings, a posteriori, not to be named. 1861Temple Bar Nov. 534 A golden cross sewn on à posteriori. |