Analytic–synthetic distinction  

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The analytic–synthetic distinction (also called the analytic–synthetic dichotomy) is a conceptual distinction, used primarily in philosophy to distinguish propositions into two types: analytic propositions and synthetic propositions. Analytic propositions are true simply by virtue of their meaning, while synthetic propositions are not. However, philosophers have used the terms in very different ways. Furthermore, philosophers have debated whether there is a legitimate distinction since Willard Van Orman Quine's critique of the distinction in his 1951 article "Two Dogmas of Empiricism".

Kant

Conceptual containment

The philosopher Immanuel Kant was the first to use the terms "analytic" and "synthetic" to divide propositions into types. Kant introduces the analytic/synthetic distinction in the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1998, A6-7/B10-11). There, he restricts his attention to affirmative subject-predicate judgments, and defines "analytic proposition" and "synthetic proposition" as follows:

• analytic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept

• synthetic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept

Examples of analytic propositions, on Kant's definition, include:

• "All bachelors are unmarried."
• "All triangles have three sides."

Kant's own example is:

• "All bodies are extended," i.e. take up space. (A7/B11)

Each of these is an affirmative subject-predicate judgment, and in each, the predicate concept is contained with the subject concept. The concept "bachelor" contains the concept "unmarried"; the concept "unmarried" is part of the definition of the concept "bachelor." Likewise for "triangle" and "has three sides," and so on.

Examples of synthetic propositions, on Kant's definition, include:

• "All bachelors are unhappy."
• "All creatures with hearts have kidneys."

Kant's own example is:

• "All bodies are heavy," (A7/B11)

As with the examples of analytic propositions, each of these is an affirmative subject-predicate judgment. However, in none of these cases does the subject concept contain the predicate concept. The concept "bachelor" does not contain the concept "unhappy"; "unhappy" is not a part of the definition of "bachelor." The same is true for "creatures with hearts" and "have kidneys"; even if every creature with a heart also has kidneys, the concept "creature with a heart" does not contain the concept "has kidneys."

Kant's version and the a priori/ a posteriori distinction

In the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant contrasts his distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions with another distinction, the distinction between a priori and a posteriori propositions. He defines these terms as follows:

• a priori proposition: a proposition whose justification does not rely upon experience

• a posteriori proposition: a proposition whose justification does rely upon experience

Examples of a priori propositions include:

• "All bachelors are unmarried."
• "7 + 5 = 12."

The justification of these propositions does not depend upon experience: one does not need to consult experience to determine whether all bachelors are unmarried, or whether 7 + 5 = 12. (Of course, as Kant would have granted, experience is required to know the concepts "bachelor," "unmarried," "7", "+" and so forth. However, the a priori / a posteriori distinction as employed by Kant here does not refer to the origins of the concepts, but to the justification of the propositions. Once we have the concepts, experience is no longer necessary.)

Examples of a posteriori propositions, on the other hand, include:

• "All bachelors are unhappy."
• "Tables exist."

Both of these propositions are a posteriori: any justification of them would require one to rely upon one's experience.

The analytic/synthetic distinction and the a priori/a posteriori distinction together yield four types of propositions:

1. analytic a priori
2. synthetic a priori
3. analytic a posteriori
4. synthetic a posteriori

Kant thought the third type is self-contradictory, so he discusses only three types as components of his epistemological framework. However, Stephen Palmquist treats the analytic a posteriori not only as a valid epistemological classification, but as the most important of the four for philosophy.

The ease of knowing analytic propositions

Part of Kant's argument in the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason involves arguing that there is no problem figuring out how knowledge of analytic propositions is possible. To know an analytic proposition, Kant argued, one need not consult experience. Instead, one need merely to take the subject and "extract from it, in accordance with the principle of contradiction, the required predicate..." (A7/B12) In analytic propositions, the predicate concept is contained in the subject concept. Thus, to know an analytic proposition is true, one need merely examine the concept of the subject. If one finds the predicate contained in the subject, the judgment is true.

Thus, for example, one need not consult experience to determine whether "All bachelors are unmarried" is true. One need merely examine the subject concept ("bachelors") and see if the predicate concept "unmarried" is contained in it. And in fact, it is: "unmarried" is part of the definition of "bachelor," and so is contained within it. Thus the proposition "All bachelors are unmarried" can be known to be true without consulting experience.

It follows from this, Kant argued, first: all analytic propositions are a priori; there are no a posteriori analytic propositions. It follows, second: there is no problem understanding how we can know analytic propositions. We can know them because we just need to consult our concepts in order to determine that they are true.

The possibility of metaphysics

After ruling out the possibility of analytic a posteriori propositions, and explaining how we can obtain knowledge of analytic a priori propositions, Kant also explains how we can obtain knowledge of synthetic a posteriori propositions. That leaves only the question of how knowledge of synthetic a priori propositions is possible. This question is exceedingly important, Kant maintains, as all important metaphysical knowledge is of synthetic a priori propositions. If it is impossible to determine which synthetic a priori propositions are true, he argues, then metaphysics as a discipline is impossible. The remainder of the Critique of Pure Reason is devoted to examining whether and how knowledge of synthetic a priori propositions is possible.

The logical positivists

The origin of the logical positivist's distinction

Over a hundred years later, a group of philosophers took interest in Kant and his distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions: the logical positivists.

Part of Kant's examination of the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge involved the examination of mathematical propositions, such as

• "7 + 5 = 12" (B15-16)
• "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line." (B16-17)

Kant maintained that mathematical propositions such as these were synthetic a priori propositions, and that we knew them. That they were synthetic, he thought, was obvious: the concept "12" is not contained within the concept "5," or the concept "7," or the concept "+." And the concept "straight line" is not contained within the concept "the shortest distance between two points." (B15-17) From this, Kant concluded that we had knowledge of synthetic a priori propositions. He went on to maintain that it was extremely important to determine how such knowledge was possible.

The logical positivists agreed with Kant that we had knowledge of mathematical truths, and further that mathematical propositions were a priori. However, they did not believe that any fancy metaphysics, such as the type Kant supplied, were necessary to explain our knowledge of mathematical truths. Instead, the logical positivists maintained that our knowledge of judgments like "all bachelors are unmarried" and our knowledge of mathematics (and logic) were basically the same: all proceeded from our knowledge of the meanings of terms or the conventions of language.

The logical positivists' definitions

Thus the logical positivists drew a new distinction, and, inheriting the terms from Kant, named it the "analytic/synthetic distinction." They provided many different definitions, such as the following:

1. analytic proposition: a proposition whose truth depends solely on the meaning of its terms
2. analytic proposition: a proposition that is true (or false) by definition
3. analytic proposition: a proposition that is made true (or false) solely by the conventions of language

(While the logical positivists believed that the only necessarily true propositions were analytic, they did not define "analytic proposition" as "necessarily true proposition" or "proposition that is true in all possible worlds.")

Synthetic propositions were then defined as:

• synthetic proposition: a proposition that is not analytic

These definitions applied to all propositions, regardless of whether they were of subject-predicate form. Thus under these definitions, the proposition "It is raining or it is not raining," was classified as analytic, while under Kant's definitions it was neither analytic nor synthetic. And the proposition "7 + 5 = 12" was classified as analytic, while under Kant's definitions it was synthetic.

Kant vs. the logical positivists

With regard to the issues related to the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, Kant and the logical positivists agreed about what "analytic" and "synthetic" meant. This would only be a terminological dispute. Instead, they disagreed about whether knowledge of mathematical and logical truths could be obtained merely through an examination of one's own concepts. The logical positivists thought that it could be. Kant thought that it could not.

Quine's criticism

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In 1951, W.V. Quine published the essay "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" in which he argued that the analytic–synthetic distinction is untenable. In the first paragraph, Quine takes the distinction to be the following:

• analytic propositions – propositions grounded in meanings, independent of matters of fact.
• synthetic propositions – propositions grounded in fact.

In short, Quine argues that the notion of an analytic proposition requires a notion of synonymy, but these notions are parasitic on one another. Thus, there is no non-circular (and so no tenable) way to ground the notion of analytic propositions.

While Quine's rejection of the analytic–synthetic distinction is widely known, the precise argument for the rejection and its status is highly debated in contemporary philosophy. However, some (e.g., Boghossian, 1996) argue that Quine's rejection of the distinction is still widely accepted among philosophers, even if for poor reasons.

Objectivist Criticism

Novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was particularly critical of the analytic-synthetic distinction. In her 1968 essay, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, she stated that

the “analytic-synthetic” dichotomy which, by a route of tortuous circumlocutions and equivocations, leads to the dogma that a “necessarily” true proposition cannot be factual, and a factual proposition cannot be “necessarily” true.

She claimed that the dichotomy forces philosophers to subjectively separate propositions into definitions, which are true, but factually irrelevant, and attributes, which are empirically factual, but may or may not be true under certain circumstances. This distinction leads people into believing that universal and fundamental truths such as "man is a rational animal" are mere definitions and logically unimportant, while contingent, empirical truths such as "dogs have fur" are the only valid kind of statements.

Objectivist philosopher Leonard Peikoff, in his essay “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,” expands upon Rand's analysis. He posits that

The theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy presents men with the following choice: If your statement is proved, it says nothing about that which exists; if it is about existents, it cannot be proved. If it is demonstrated by logical argument, it represents a subjective convention; if it asserts a fact, logic cannot establish it. If you validate it by an appeal to the meanings of your concepts, then it is cut off from reality; if you validate it by an appeal to your percepts, then you cannot be certain of it.

To Peikoff, the critical question is: What is included in the meaning of a concept? He rejects that the existents of a concept are either included or excluded from the concept. Instead, a concept is a hierarchy of ever growing existents that are synthesizied as knowledge about the concept is acquired. He states,

Since a concept is an integration of units, it has no content or meaning apart from its units. The meaning of a concept consists of the units — the existents — which it integrates, including all the characteristics of these units.... The fact that certain characteristics are, at a given time, unknown to man, does not indicate that these characteristics are excluded from the entity — or from the concept.

Furthermore, he believes that there is no distinction between "necessary" and "contingent" truths, that all truths are learned and validated by the same process of observation. Such distinctions eminating from the analytic-synthetic dicotomy lead to other false and artificial splits, such as logical truth vs. factual truth, logically possible vs. empirically possible, and a priori vs. the a posteriori.