Existence being analytic of God vs. God being analytic of existence

Question

Elsewhere, in light of the idea that understanding is not a species of knowledge but an epistemic genus parallel to knowledge, and then in terms of an understanding logic, I asked whether knowledge of analytic truth might be framed as uS → kS, i.e. some S is analytic if understanding it is sufficient in order to knowing it. The thesis that all existential S are synthetic could then be framed as something like ~(u∃S → k∃S).

The Wikipedia article on the ontological argument says of Aquinas' position on this subject:

He suggested that people cannot know the nature of God and, therefore, cannot conceive of God in the way Anselm proposed. The ontological argument would be meaningful only to someone who understands the essence of God completely.

However, Aquinas also said that God is subsistent being itself. Now Ayn Rand (in)famously axiomatized the assertion, "Existence exists." So, firstly: is, "Existence exists," analytic or synthetic (if "true" at all)? But more importantly: is it possible, in understanding existence itself, to then know whether certain things do or do not, as such, exist? As if they were "encoded" into the sheer form of existence, then. Then we might say, not that existence is analytic of God, but that God is analytic of existence (insofar as the creation/uncreation function would be a fundamental existential type).

In other words, does Aquinas implicitly advance his own ontological argument, notwithstanding his claim to disavow such an argument scheme?

EDIT: As a historical aside, consider that according to Ayn Rand, all truths are analytic because the analytic-synthetic distinction is a delusion (and unlike Quine, she does not seem to rule in favor of universally synthetic truth). Ergo, Rand's essential philosophical thesis, and an unusual one at that (not to recommend it!), is that existence truths are also analytic, and indeed, "Existence exists," would be analytically true. Modulo a reliance on principles for resolving contradictions, this thesis becomes the idea that resolving contradictions is the crux of our knowledge of what exists.

In other words, in Rand's system, foundationalism and coherentism effectively collapse into each other.

Answer 1

A start on answering your question could begin with "existence exists". I think you are misunderstanding this claim. This slogan from Rand was not a claim about existence in general, but instead a shorthand assertion of direct realism. IE that we can directly and reliably apprehend the world around us and know that what we perceive is real.

Rand is therefore making a claim about a different leg of the three recognized methods of gaining knowledge -- direct (intuitive) apprehension, analytic reasoning, and synthetic inference. Science has fairly effectively refuted direct realism, and your project is on the analytic leg, so this is probably not the best quote to start your project from.

A useful way to answer your questions about analytic knowledge is to try to drive down to what is needed for the analytic method of knowledge to be successful. There are a variety of conditions:

• There must be one and only one true logic
• We must be able to apprehend this one true logic and know intuitively that it IS the one true logic
• The applications of that one true logic must be clear and unambiguously valid or invalid, such that we all can depend on it for knowledge.
• the terms that one true logic operates on must be clear and unambiguous (if the terms are not clear, the outcome of logic processes cannot be clear)
• Using all of the above, you will then need to show that existence is logically necessary, IE both provide a proof that some state is necessary, plus a proof that logic can be causal of reality.

The current majority views of philosophy are that every one of those preconditions are suspect.

The current consensus among logicians is that logic is pluralistic: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/think/article/abs/guide-to-logical-pluralism-for-nonlogicians/EDFDFA1C9EB65DB71848DABD6B12D877

Logical pluralism was arrived at, because of non-classical logics that give different but valid answers from classical logic. Which leaves us with no clearly perceived "one true logic".

What one can actually demonstrate using logic, even when one has disputants who all share the same concept of "one true logic" is often in dispute, bringing the third point into question.

Key definitions you will need, appear to be intractably fuzzy. Let us take your premise of getting from "understanding" to "knowledge", as an example. BOTH understanding and knowledge are terms with fuzzy definitions, and much dispute about their content. Analyticity is impossible with fuzzy terms.

And our universe, and the laws in it, appear to be intrinsically contingent. https://www.pnas.org/content/93/25/14256 And a contingent thing CANNOT be necessary.

All of these inferences apply to human thinking. One COULD postulate that a God's thinking is fundamentally different, rather than just being human-like, to a larger scale. But then one would need to spell out a NECESSARY Judaification for a God to think radically differently from humans, in ways that would make your argument work.

Your project may not be impossible, but it has a lot of tasks that need to be addressed before it can be considered plausible.

Answer 2

I do not have an answer to your main question, but I think you misunderstand Rand's argument on this matter, so I'll try to clean that part up, and hopefully this will help your analysis. You say (correctly) that Rand rejects the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, but then you go on to attribute to her positions which are rooted in that dichotomy --- i.e., that truths are "analytic", etc. That is a contradictory position you put, and I am not aware of Rand having ever characterised her philosophy in the ways you attribute to her. (For example, I notice that you provide no reference for the assertion that Rand asserted all truths to be "analytic"; if she actually said this, can you show where?)

Since Rand rejected the validity of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, quite naturally, she didn't then try to fit her philosophy into that dichotomy. Attempts to try to mash her philosophy into these other categories are not really all that helpful, since they gloss over different underlying premises (e.g., in what a concept is).

On this point, it might help to understand the reason that Rand rejected the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. As explained in detail by Piekoff (see e.g., here), this dichotomy is rooted in an epistemological theory that treats concepts as consisting of certain essential aspects of existents (which form part of the definition of the concept), but excluding non-essential aspects of those existents. This means that some aspects of the referent existents are included in the concept and some are not, which leads to the analytic-synthetic split. Contrarily, the Objectivist theory of concepts says that a concept refers to all of its referent existents, and thereby includes all the properties of those existents. An example used in this discussion is the concept of a "bachelor", defined as an "unmarried adult male". Under the Objectivist epistemology, this concept would refer to all actual unmarried adult males, with all their attendant properties. In the A-S system, a statement like "bachelors cannot fly by flapping their arms" is considered a synthetic truth, since the concept is considered to be equivalent to its definition, and the means of locomotion is not an essential part of the concept of a "bachelor". However, in the Objectivist system it is the existents that form the concept (and the definition merely circumscribes which existents are included). In this latter system there is no split between essential/inessential properties, so a statement like "bachelors cannot fly by flapping their arms" is just true --- not an analytic truth or synthetic truth, just a truth.