analytic vs. synthetic



Domain:: epistemology

Canonical Formulation: Kant in the Introduction to the _Critique of Pure Reason_: "In all judgments in which the relation of a subject to the predicate is thought..., this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as something which is (covertly) contained in this concept A; or B lies outside the concept A, although it does indeed stand in connection with it. In the one case I entitle the judgment analytic, in the other synthetic...The former, as adding nothing through the predicate to the concept of the subject, but merely breaking it up into those constituent concepts that have all along been thought in it, although confusedly, can also be entitled explicative. The latter, on the other hadn, add to the concept of the subject a predicate which has not been in any wise thought in it, and which no analysis could possibly extract from it; and they may therefore be entitled ampliative."

Kant's Examples:
"All bodies are extended." -- analytic
"All bodies are heavy." -- synthetic

[From Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, pg. 48 (A7,B11), translated by Norman Kemp Smith, New York: St. Martin's, 1965.]

Classical Challenge:

Willard Van Orman Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in _From a Logical Point of View_, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard, 1961. Quine's position is summarized neatly in the "Quine" entry in the _Encyclopedia of Philosophy_, vol. 7, pg. 53, edited by Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1972. For example, "No bachelor is married," seems to be analytically (although not logically) true. However, "[i]f we replace 'bahelor' with the synonymous 'unmarried man,' we have a logical truth, and it would thus appear that an analytic statement either is a logical truth or is reducible to one by interchange of synonyms...However, according to Quine, an account of anlyticity that depends on the notion of synonymy is unsatisfactory...[because we cannot help but]...give an account of synonymy in terms of interchanging expressions in certain contexts. But because these contexts cannot be specified without reference to analyticity or some equivalent notion, we cannot, without circularity, use the notion of synonymy in giving an account of analyticity."

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