Questions tagged [analytic-synthetic-divide]
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Is mathematics analytic or synthetic?
This question is related to another question I posted but I think it requires its own treatment since of the already wide scope of the other question i.e. Is the classical theory of concepts ...
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Is "thoughts exist" a synthetic a priori statement?
I'm working off of Kant's conception of analytic/synthetic and a prior/a posteriori judgements.
The definition of "thoughts" does not subsume their existence. That is, it is logically ...
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Is the compound statement "Every bachelor is a man without a wife AND the Earth revolves around the Sun,” synthetic or analytic?
Is the compound statement "every bachelor is a man without a wife and the Earth revolves around the Sun” (where "and" is a conjunction) synthetic or analytic?
Kant, for example, talks ...
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Are all true synthetic judgments satisfied?
Are all true synthetic judgments satisfied?
I'm guessing not. But, equally, I wondered if it touches on any discussion. I am not sure what word to use instead of 'satisfied', so I'll illustrate ...
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Is 'analytic' opposed to 'synthesis', as universal rather than traditional?
I'm reading a book on Russian theatre and it mentions
a similarity in intent... [to]
the work of the cubists... intention was both analytic and
synthetic... both the investigation of the universal ...
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Does Plato think we can have synthetic a posteriori knowledge?
I understand that Plato thinks our knowledge of universals is innate, and therefore synthetic a priori knowledge. However, does he think we can have any knowledge that is synthetic and a posteriori? ...
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Role of definitions in analytic–synthetic distinction
A: All bachelors are unmarried
B: Water is liquid
We all agree that A is analytic. To prove its truth, we only need to replace "bachelor" with its definition. The proposition B can be controversial,...
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If one agrees with Quine's dissolution of the Analytic/Synthetic distinction, what is left of Kant's epistemology?
One of Kant's most important (if not the most important) result is his argument (proof?) that synthetic a priori knowledge is possible.
If one agrees with Quine's argument against Analyticity as being ...
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Would the cofinitude relation be a more realistic parameter than the exclusivity one, in the formulation of the CI?
Since I read Gödel, Escher, Bach eleven years ago, in 2011, I figured that 2022 would be a poetic time for me to reread it. (If you’ve read the book, you should know what I mean, haha!) While I was ...
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Has anyone discussed the analytic vs synthetic in algebra?
Let's go back to the original meanings of addition and multiplication back in ancient Sumer when arithmetic was primarily used as a tool in the trade of sheep and beer. Addition meant something like ...
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Did Kant believe that the a priori truths don't coincide with the necessary truths?
I just started to read about Kant's metaphysical distinction between analytic vs synthetic truths (necessary vs contingent) and his epistemological distinction between a priori vs a posteriori truths. ...
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Is this a more unequivocal way to make an analytic v synthetic distinction?
Is this an unequivocal way to make an analytic v synthetic distinction, that would address Quine's objections?
“Analytic” sentences, such as “Pediatricians are doctors,” have
historically been ...
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Is the logicist definition of "analytic" consistent with Kant?
Kant famously distinguished between analytic and synthetic a priori knowledge as two kinds of knowledge that can be acquired a priori, that is, without relying on experience. The distinction is that ...
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Does "mixing up the notation" bring out a synthetic character for basic arithmetic?
There's this thing in the work of Immanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt where they'll slip into Greek and/or Latin, sometimes in the middle of a sentence (even if for just a word there), or sometimes like ...
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Does Kant's scheme for the analytic/synthetic distinction have room for a (degenerate?) further distinction, for "hyperanalytical" knowledge?
Kant can be easily misread (or: I myself easily misread him, for a long time) as claiming that no "existence claims" are analytically knowable. Technically, though, his system has it that (...
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What would be gained philosophically if logicism succeeds?
Any logic similar to predicate logic (which Frege and Russell used?) is already a pretty complicated system. Its axioms don't seem to have something to do with analyticity as conceived by Kant (“...
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Kant's cleavage of knowledge
In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant goes to great lengths to distinguish transcendental knowledge from other a priori knowledge. For Kant, is transcendental knowledge distinct from analytic or ...
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Platonic truths without math, logic, ethics, or analyticity?
I take it that logic and math can conceivably produce truths independent of humans (platonic truths), and probably ethics and maybe analyticity can as well. Ethical truths might conceivably be ...
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Is this definition a necessary or possible (contingent) truth?
Sorry for not having much context but taking Pegasus to be the mythological beast from greek mythology.
"To be Pegasus is to be capable of flying."
Is this definition an necessary truth or a ...
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Did it take till the likes of Lakoff and the 20th-21st century to have truly direct naturalized reasons for logic and math?
I’m finding George Lakoff and cohorts unique (but maybe that’s my lack of looking enough) in that they seem among the first to posit a direct, naturalized account of logic and mathematics, as ...
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Is "there are synthetic a priori truths" a synthetic a priori truth?
Disregarding any modern objections to the division of synthetic/analytic and a priori/a posteriori, how would one argue for or against this claim, using Kant's definitions and assumptions?
Also, is ...
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Examples of analytic aposteriority vs. the erotetic demarcation of analytic/synthetic knowledge
In another post here, I asked whether the analytic/synthetic distinction could be grounded in/reframed as an erotetic distinction. So assuming that grounding/reframing in the background as 'given' (if ...
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Existence being analytic of God vs. God being analytic of existence
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 ...
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Is the synthetic/analytic distinction about metaphysics?
Is the distinction between synthetic/analytic a claim about epistemology, ontology or something else altogether?
Where can one read more about the stakes of the relevant arguments?
I did read the The ...
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How does Kant argue that all people have moral dignity
How does Kant argue that all people have moral dignity, the ability to conform to a moral law in which all people are ends only.
I have not substantially read Kant, but it occurred to me, suddenly / ...
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Are holist underdetermination and contrastive underdetermination mutually exclusive in any ways?
My understanding of Quine's view of holist underdetermination and how it connects to his holist view of science is summarized well by this quote:
The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, ...
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Correspondence theory of truth and analyticity
The correspondence theory of truth states that truth is essentially correspondence to a fact or state of affairs. How does this theory handle analytic truths - that is, 'true by definition' type ...
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Quine - two dogmas of empiricism
I'm trying to understand this paper. Seems to me like it all stems from a rejection of "meaning"... ie: Quine is saying statements don't mean anything. And this is what leads to the rejection of the ...
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On Searle's _Proper Names_ (1958)
I just read Searle's article Proper Names (1958) which was published before Kripke's seminal take on the subject in Naming and Necessity (1980). I think it is a very lucid article but I have a ...
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The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction in false mathematical propositions
Are all mathematical propositions a priori analytic?
The most common example used is 2+2=4. The truth lies in the meaning of the parts of the proposition, and is therefore a priori analytic.
But ...
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Does 5 + 7 = 12 really say anything new?
I'm not sure why 5 + 7 = 12 should say anything new: I take it to be a shorthand notation to give a name to 5 + 7, which anyway is nothing but 5 times the unit + 7 times the unit, so there is not ...
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Does Hume's Fork have a third prong?
If so, does it have a name? I'm especially interested in search terms that I can use for further reading.
In physics, we're familiar with the distinction between "relations of ideas" and &...
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Is this proposition analytic or synthetic?
Consider the following statement:
Cats have four legs
This is an analytic statement, since its truth can be established by looking at the subject and predicate; one does not need to look further ...
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Does this reformulation of the the analytic / synthetic distinction overcome Quine's objections?
He seemed to be asserting that synonymity cannot possibly be defined in a non-circular way. We attempt to show this is false on the basis of defining the Quine/Carnap example in a non-circular way.
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"A priori" abused by mathematicians? [duplicate]
I often see mathematicians make statements like
"A priori, it is not clear whether 231283179 is a prime number or not."
This is supposed to mean something like "just by looking at it, without ...
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Two dogmas of empiricism - logical vs analytic truths... is there really a distinction?
A link to the paper is here:
https://www.theologie.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:ffffffff-fbd6-1538-0000-000070cf64bc/Quine51.pdf
So in the paper Quine gives two types of analytic statements:
No unmarried man is ...
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Did Quine ever respond to the major criticisms of Two Dogmas?
I'm specifically thinking about Grice and Strawson's paper "In Defense of a Dogma" and Putnam's paper "Two Dogmas Revisited". Both raise major issues with the content of Quine's "Two Dogmas of ...
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Is the proposition "I feel happy" analytic or synthetic?
If we consider the statement to be true, assumedly the predicate "happy" is contained within the subject "I", and would therefore be analytic.
Would this also make all subjective statements analytic?
...
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Why does Kant say that some imperatives are analytically justified?
In the Groundwork and the second Critique, IIRC, Kant for some reason tries to explain the "argument" for the categorical imperative as synthetic a priori. He does this not just for assertoric forms ...
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Analyticity and a priority
(1) Every bachelor is unmarried.
I know this is one of the most famous examples (intensionally) denoting analytic and a priori propositions. No problems yet.
(2) Every apple is a fruit.
This one ...
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Kant's Notion of Synthetic A Prioiri as Logical Entailment
Is there something wrong about interpreting Kant's notion of synthetic a priori statements to be logical entailments?
I understand, I think, that Kant didn't want to say such statements (e.g math ...
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Can "knowledge" only be synthetic according to Kant?
I have read secondary sources claiming that Kant conceives of knowledge as a strictly synthetic affair, and that analytic judgments are thus not knowledge. This is relatively consistent with what Kant ...
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What is the use of analytic propositions?
[Note: I'm using Kant's terms.]
Analytic proposition, for example "all bodies are extended", or "a=a", seems like an unhelpful type of proposition (contra to the synthetic a priori and a postriori ...
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Why can we not reduce necessity to analyticity?
Why can’t we eliminate talk of necessity and possible worlds, for talk of analyticity and (non-modal) logical consistency? Has there been any attempt in recent times to do this? I'm not 100% sure, but ...
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Does Kant consider extendedness metaphysically (analytic) a priori?
In Kant's famous division between a priori vs a postriori, and synthetic vs analytic, Kant's example for a priori analytic proposition is:
All bodies are extended.
Without immediately delving ...
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Are propositions in mathematics synthetic or analytic?
I'm reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and I understand that he thought that "Mathematical Judgements are all synthetic". I would like to know where does this debate lies or if it is of interest ...
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A priori and a posteriori within an axiomatic framework?
I am not a philosopher, so please excuse my limited understanding of these basic philosophy concepts. I am having some difficulty understanding what truly constitutes an a priori statement/truth (I'm ...
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Is the existence of a thing an analytic proposition?
Is the existence (existence or subsistance) of a thing an analytic proposition?
If I talk about a thing x, any thing, and say "x exists", would it be an analytic proposition? I think it would be ...
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Quine on Necessity
Lately, I have been reading some of Quine's works on modality. I can't help but feel that many of his pronouncements on modality are wrong/misguided, although pinpointing exactly where is goes wrong ...
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Is the location of Wyoming a posteriori and analytic?
I answered the following question, but wasn't absolutely sure that I did so viably:
Fallacy?: "Wyoming - It's like no place on Earth"
Is the location of places, like Wyoming on earth, ...
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