Introduction.

I. Of the difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge

THERE can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

ترديدي نيست كه همه معرفت ما باتجربه شروع ميشود.

 For how should our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impressions into that knowledge of objects which is entitled experience? In the order of time, therefore,

 we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all our knowledge begins.

ما معرفتي مقدم بر تجربه نداريم و با تجربه  است كه همه معرفت آغاز مي شود

But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience.

اما اگر چه تمام معرفت با تجربه آغازميشود، اين نتيجه نميشودكه همه آن شناخت از راه تجربه بدست آيد.

For it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge (sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself.

چرا كه ممكن است حتي معرفت تجربي ماتشكيل شده باشد از آنچه كه ما از راه انتباعات حسي دريافت ميكنيم و از آنچه كه خود فوه شناخت ما از خودش عرضه ميكند. (انتباعات حسي تنها بعنوان يك عامل معد- مهياكننده – عمل ميكنند).

 If our faculty of knowledge makes any such addition, it may be that we are not in a position to distinguish it from the raw material, until with long practice of attention we have become skilled in separating it.

اگر قوه شناخت ما اضافاتي چنين ميسازد ايم ممكن است ( به اين خاطر باشد كه) ما در شرايطي نباشيم كه تشخيص دهيم آن اضافات را از ماده خام (اصلي ) تا اينكه با تمرين همراه با توجه طولاني مهارت كسب كنيمدر جداسازي آن .

This, then, is a question which at least calls for closer examination, and does not allow of any off-hand answer:

اينجا يك پرسش وجود دارد كه حد اقل بررسي دقيقتري ميطلبد و اجازه نمي دهد هيچ پاسخ بي مطالعه اي ارائه شود.

whether there is any knowledge that is thus independent of experience and even of all impressions of the senses.

آيا هيچ معرفتي وجود داردكه مستقل از تجربه و حتي مستقل ازهمه تاثرات حسي باشد؟       

Such knowledge is entitled a priori, and distinguished from the empirical, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience.

چنين معرفتي پيشيني ناميده ميشود و متمايز است از شناخت هاي تجربي كه سرچشمه هاي آنها پسيني است يعني در تجربه است.

The expression 'a priori' does not, however, indicate with sufficient precision the full meaning of our question.

با اين وجود  اصطلاح پيشيني به اندازه كافي و دقيق معناي پرسش ما را روشن نمي كند.

For it has been customary to say, even of much knowledge that is derived from empirical sources, that we have it or are capable of having it a priori, meaning thereby that we do not derive it immediately from experience, but from a universal rule -- a rule which is itself, however, borrowed by us from experience.

زيرا معمولا عادت شده كه حتي در باره بعضي شناخت ها كه از سرچشمه هاي تجربي مشتق ميشوند، بگويند كه ما آنها را به نحو پيشيني داريم يا ميتوانيم داشته باشيم چرا كه آنها را بي واسطه از تجربه اخذ نمي كميم بلكه از يك  قاعده كلي كه با اينحال خود آن قاعده را از تجربه وام گرفته ايم ، مشتق مي سازيم .

Thus we would say of a man who undermined the foundations of his house, that he might have known a priori that it would fall, that is, that he need not have waited for the experience of its actual falling. But still he could not know this completely a priori.

بنا بر اين ما ممكن است بگوييم كه يك شخصي كه پايه هاي خانه اش را نقب مي زندبايد به نحو پيشيني بداند كه آن خانه خواهد افتاد.به اين  معنا كه او نياز ندارد كه منتظر بماند براي تجربه واقعي افتادن آن خانه .اما او هنوز نميتوانداين امر را كاملا به نحو پيشيني بداند.

 For he had first to learn  through experience that bodies are heavy, and therefore fall when their supports are    withdrawn.

چرا كه اول او بايد از راه تجربه بياموزد كه اجسام سنگين هستند و بنابر اين مي افتند آنگاه كه تكيه گاهشان برداشته شود.

In what follows, therefore, we shall understand by a priori knowledge, not knowledge independent of this or that experience, but knowledge absolutely independent of all experience.

بنا براين در آنچه كه خواهد آمدما از معرفت پيشيني آن معرفتي را منظور نمي كنيم كه مستقل از اينم يا آن تجربه باشد بلكه كمنظور معرفتي است كه بطور مطلق مستقل از همه نوع تجربه باشد.

Opposed to it is empirical knowledge, which is knowledge possible only a posteriori, that is, through experience. A - priori modes of knowledge are entitled pure when there is no admixture of anything empirical.

در برابر آن (معرفت پيشيني) معرفت تجربي قرار دارد . معزفتي كه تنها به نحو پسيني ممكن است يعني از راه تجربه . انواع معرفت پيشيني " محض (ناب) ناميده ميشوند اگر هيچ آميختگي با هيچ امر تجربي نداشته باشد .

 Thus, for instance, the proposition, 'every alteration has its cause', while an a priori proposition, is not a pure proposition, because alteration is a concept which can be derived only from experience.

بنا براين بعنوان نمونه :  گزاره هر دگرگوني علتي دارد ، اگر چه يك گزاره پيشيني است . اما گزاره ناب يا محض نيست زيرا دگرگوني مفهومي است كه تنها از تجربه مي تواند اخذ شود.

II. We are in Possession of Certain Modes of A Priori Knowledge, and even the Common Understanding is Never Without Them

ما همگي انواع معيني از معرفت پيشيني را دارا هستيم و حتي فهم همگاني هيچگاه بدون آن نيست.

What we here require is a criterion by which to distinguish with certainty between pure and empirical knowledge.

آنچه ما در اينجا نيازداريم معياري است كه بوسيله آن با يقين تمايز قائل شويم  ميان معرفت تجربي و معرفت پيشيني .

 Experience teaches us that a thing is so and so, but not that it cannot be otherwise.

تجربه به ما مي آموزد يك شيء چنين و چنان است ،‌ اما نمي آموزد كه وجود ديگري نميتواند باشد.

First, then, if we have a proposition which in being thought is thought as necessary, it is an a priori judgment; and if, besides, it is not derived from any proposition except one which also has the validity of a necessary judgment, it is an absolutely a priori judgment.

پس در وهله نخست اگر ما يك  گزاره اي داشته باشيم  كه در انديشيدنش  به نحو ضروري  انديشيده انديشيده شود آن يك حكم پيشيني است .بعلاوه اگر يك گزاره (حكم) از هيچ گزاره اي  گرفته نشده باشد بجز از گراره اي كه آن نيزبه نحو ضروري اعتبار دارد، آن گزاره يك حكم مطلقا پيشيني است .

 Secondly, experience never confers on its judgments true or strict but only assumed and comparative universality, through induction.

دوما ، تجربه هرگز به ما حكمي به راستي و مسلمي كلي نمي دهد بلكه تنها كليتي مفروض و نسبي به ما عطا مي كند.  از راه استقراء(ازكل به جزء)

We can properly only say, therefore, that so far as we have hitherto observed, there is no exception to this or that rule.

ما تنها مي توانيم به شايستگي بگوييم ،‌  تا جاييكه مشاهده كرديم هيچ استثنايي براي اين و آن قاعده وجود نداشته .

 If, then, a judgment is thought with strict universality, that is, in such manner that no exception is allowed as possible, it is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely a priori.

پس اگر حكمي با كليت راستينش انديشيده شود، يعني به اين معنا كه هيچ استثنايي همچون يك امر ممكن در آن راه نداشته باشد، آن حكم ازتجربه گرفته نشده است بلكه مطلقا اعتبار شيء به نحو پيشيني است .

 Empirical universality is only an arbitrary extension of a validity holding in most cases to one which holds in all, for instance, in the proposition, 'all bodies are heavy'.

كليت تجربي تنها ارتقاء خودكامه ( قراردادي) آن اعتباري است كه در بيشتر مواردمعتبر است ، آنچه در مورد همه موارد هست . بعنوان نمونه اين گزاره كه اجسام همه وزن دارند و سنگين‌اند.

When, on the other hand, strict universality is essential to a a judgment, this indicates a special source of knowledge, namely, a faculty of a priori knowledge.

از سوي ديگر هنگامي كه كليت مسلم براي يك حكم اساسي باشد كه اين منبع خاص از معرفت را نشان ميدهد،به نام قوه معرفت پيشيني .

Necessity and strict universality are thus sure criteria of a priori knowledge, and are inseparable from one another.

ضرورت و كليت مسلم بنابر اين ، دو معيارمعين معرفت پيشيني هستند و ازيكديگر جدا نشدني .

 But since in the employment of these criteria the contingency of judgments is sometimes more easily shown than their empirical limitation, or, as sometimes also happens, their unlimited universality can be more convincingly proved than their necessity, it is advisable to use the two criteria separately, each by itself being infallible.

پاراگراف بالا ترجمه شود

Now it is easy to show that there actually are in human knowledge judgments which are necessary and in the strictest sense universal, and which are therefore pure a priori judgments.

اكنون بسيار آسان است كه نشان دهيم كه واقعا در معرفت بشر احكامي است كه ضروري و به معناي تمام كلي است و در نتيجه احكامي پيشيني و محض هستند.

 If an example from the sciences be desired, we have only to look to any of the propositions of mathematics; if we seek an example from the understanding in its quite ordinary employment, the proposition, 'every alteration must have a cause', will serve our purpose.

اگر مثالي از علوم بخواهيم ما تنها ميتوانيم به گزاره هاي رياضي  نگاه كنيم ، اگر ما نمونه اي از عادي ترين كاربرد فهم بخواهيم ، گزاره هر پديده اي بايد علت داشته باشد اهداف ما را برآورده خواهد ساخت.

In the latter case, indeed, the very concept of a cause so manifestly contains the concept of a necessity of connection with an effect and of the strict universality of the rule, that the concept would be altogether lost if we attempted to derive it, as Hume has done, from a repeated association of that which happens with that which precedes, and from a custom of connecting representations, a custom originating in this repeated association, and constituting therefore a merely subjective necessity.

در مثال اخير هر مفهومي از علت ، آنچنان آشكارا (بوضوح) مفهوم ضرورت پيوند با معلول و كليت طبيعي قاعده را در خود گنجانيده است كه معناي علت به تمامي اتز ميان ميرفت اگر مانند هيوم آن را "ازيك تداعي  مكررآنچه رخ مي دهد" (پديده اول)، با آنچه كه از پيش از آن مي آيد" (معلول) و نيزاز "عادت ناشي از پيوند دادن تصورات" ، مشتق مي كرديم .

Even without appealing to such examples, it is possible to show that pure a priori principles are indispensable for the possibility of experience, and so to prove their existence a priori.

حتي بدون تمسك به چنين مثالهايي اين امكان هست كهنشان دهيم اصول پيشيني (ماتقدم) محض براي امكان تجربه اجتناب ناپذيرند . و در نتيجه اين امكان هست كه وجودشان را به نحو پيشيني اثبات كنيم.

 For whence could experience derive its certainty, if all the rules, according to which it proceeds, were always themselves empirical, and therefore contingent? Such rules could hardly be regarded as first principles.

پس تجربه ازكجا قطعيت خودش را كيب مي كند، اگر همه قوانيني كه مطابق آن تجربه به پيش ميروندهميشه تجربي و در نتيجه احتمالي تصادفي باشند؟آن قواعد (قوانين تجربي ) به سختي مي تواننداصول اوليه يا پيشيني قلمداد شوند.

 At present, however, we may be content to have established the fact that our faculty of knowledge does have a pure employment, and to have shown what are the criteria of such an employment.

پاراگراف بالا ترجمه شود.

Such a priori origin is manifest in certain concepts, no less than in judgments.

وضوح منشأ اصول پيشيني در مفاهيم كمتر از احكام نيست.

 If we remove from our empirical concept of a body, one by one, every feature in it which is [merely] empirical, the colour, the hardness or softness, the weight, even the impenetrability, there still remains the space which the body (now entirely vanished) occupied, and this cannot be removed.

اگر ما از مفهوم تجربي مان ازجسم ويژگيهايي را كه تجربي هستند يكي يكي كنار بگذاريم مثل رنگ ،  سختي و نرمي ، وزن يا حتي نفوذ ناپذيري ، هنوز مكاني باقي ميماندكه آن جسم (كه به كلي محو شده است) آن را اشغال كرده اسصت و اين يكي را نميتوانيم كنار بگذاريم.

Again, if we remove from our empirical concept of any object, corporeal or incorporeal, all properties which experience has taught us, we yet cannot take away that property through which the object is thought as substance or as inhering in a substance (although this concept of substance is more determinate than that of an object in general).

ونيزاگر ما از مفهوم  تجربي مان در باره هر شيء چه جسماني و چه غير جسماني همه ويژگيهايي را كه تجربه به ما آموخته است كنار بگذاريم ما هنوزنميتوانيم ويژگي را كه به واسطه آن شيء بعنوان جوهر يا لوازم جوهر انديشيده ميشود كنار بگذاريم .( اگر چه اين مفهوم جوهر به مراتب ازآن شيء به نحو كلي متعين تر – خاص تر- است).

Owing, therefore, to the necessity with which this concept of substance forces itself upon us, we have no option save to admit that it has its seat in our faculty of a priori knowledge.

بنابر اين بواسطه اينكه ضرورت همراه با اين مفهوم جوهر خودش را بر ما تحميل ميكندما هيچ چاره اي نداريم ( گزينه اي نداريم) مگر اينكه بپذيريم كه جوهر جايگاهي در قوه شناخت پيشيني ما دارد.