A Posteriori Meaning – Definition & Synonyms
A posteriori is a Latin expression that can be translated as “from the later. It is an adverbial phrase that refers to what is known after analyzing or reviewing a matter or that refers to a demonstration that is carried out by moving from the effect to the cause.
The usual thing is that the idea of a posteriori appears linked to its opposite: a priori. A posteriori knowledge is related to experience since it is generated or obtained after accessing something. A priori knowledge, on the other hand, maintains a certain independence from experience because it is associated with the universal.
Any judgment made after the fact is empirical and can be verified through experience. For example: “There are people who have red hair. ” This is a posteriori knowledge, which arises after observing an individual who has reddish hair. The same can be said of expressions like “Not all cars are green” and “There are dogs that have long hair. ”
Unlike a posteriori knowledge, a priori knowledge does not need research to demonstrate its veracity. “All parents have or had at least one child” is a priori knowledge: the fact of being a parent implies that, at some point, the person has had a child, whether biological or adopted.
The use of these and other Latin phrases generates diverse responses in people, since on the one hand there are those who really enjoy including terms of foreign origin in their speech, and on the opposite extreme, there are those who prefer cleaner communication, based entirely in one’s own language.
Since this is ultimately a matter of taste and opinion, it is not advisable to further fuel the fire that divides these two groups by saying that one of them is wrong. However, when the desire to combine terms and expressions from different languages leads to incorrect or imprecise use of words, it becomes difficult to encourage this custom, since it undermines communication.
In other words, it is appropriate to ask ourselves what is the reason for using a posteriori and a priori, if we can opt for their equivalents in Spanish. What is the benefit that this linguistic fusion offers us, dangerous if ever, based on the forced inclusion of foreign expressions that usually entail pronunciation and spelling errors, as well as deformations typical of lack of knowledge?
It is known that many people say roughly, modus operandis, modus vivirdis, de ipso facto and de motu propio, instead of roughly, modus operandi, modus vivosdi, ipso facto, and motu proprio, respectively. In this list we can see various errors, such as the deformation of certain terms due to similarity to others in our language (when we change proprio for proper ), the incorrect inclusion of prepositions (such as a and de ), and the placement of an “s” in more at the end of the second term (as in operands and vivirdis ).
This shows us that venturing to include foreign terms in speech is not easy, since it requires very specific knowledge to do it accurately. Therefore, it is recommended to resort to Spanish expressions to avoid any unnecessary errors. Let’s look at two examples in which a posteriori is dispensed with: «Do not rush to draw conclusions; it is preferable to do it at the end «, and « Later, Arturo finally discovered the whole truth».
“A posteriori”, finally, is the title of an album that Enigma released in 2006. The album, which earned a nomination for the Grammy Awards, includes twelve songs whose composer was the Romanian-German Michael Cretu.
