Welcome back to The Philosopher’s Lexicon. My primary goal in this series is to explore common philosophical vocabulary, hopefully transforming these words from useless jargon into meaningful terms. My secondary goal is to highlight how contentious some of these terms can be – especially those which seem obvious. These definitions will not be comprehensive by any means, so please feel free to add your own understanding of each term as we go.
This week’s entry into the lexicon features yet another epistemological distinction: the difference between analytic and synthetic reasoning. These are common terms you will find in many works and texts books, but for clear and concise explanations of these terms, see Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Nils Ch. Rauhut’s Ultimate Questions and A. C. Grayling’s An Introduction to Philosophical Logic.
Let’s jump right in.
An analytic statement is one where the truth of the statement can be determined by the internal relationships between the words or symbols within the statement. Analytic reasoning looks to the internal consistency of a given set of symbols, statements, or ideas according to a particular theoretical system. Given certain rules, no outside information is needed – all of you have know is how words or symbols relate to each other. For example, take the statement: “A bachelor is an unmarried man.” You don’t have to have any knowledge of the world beyond the definition of the words involved to affirm that within the common sense of our grammar, this statement is true, and more fundamentally, because this statement is a definition, it can be used analytically regardless of whether this definition matches our typical use (though in this case, it does).
Another example of a purely analytic statement comes from Augustine’s Soliloquies. In his attempt to ground an argument for the immortality of truth without the use of any empirical or worldly knowledge save the rules of grammar, he states (in rough paraphrase):
If the world will last forever, then it is true that the world will last.
This is an analytical tautology, or rather, an axiom, because it depends on no outside information to be proven true. It’s truth is self-evident. It doesn’t matter if it were known beyond the shadow of a doubt that the world were to end to tomorrow – this statement would still be true because of it’s conditional form. The relationship between the words in the proposition render it infallible. In fact, Augustine then goes on to claim:
If the world will not last forever, then it is true that world will not last.
From this, Augustine then deduces that whether or not the world lasts forever, truth itself will, meaning that Truth (now with a capital T) is an ontologically independent concept and not just an epistemological construct dependent on our evaluation of reality. It takes a few additional premises and extrapolations, and the validity and use-value of this argument are certainly debatable, but the main focus here is that the causal realities of the world are not relevant to the truth value of either of these statements. All that matters is the maintenance of internal consistency (and I’m deliberately leaving Tarski out of this in the name of simplicity, but feel free to take him up in the comments if you so desire).
In contrast, synthetic reasoning requires that we have additional information from the world in order to determine the truth value of a given statement. Example: “Bill is a bachelor.” In this case, you have to know a little something about Bill himself in order to determine the truth of this statement – particularly, whether or not he is married. One thing to note is that a statement like this cannot be analytically false – while a synthetic need not be an analytical tautology, it cannot contain any logical contradictions either. If we were to say that “Bill is both married and a bachelor,” we would be saying something that could be neither analytically true, nor synthetically verified. since the terms “married” and “bachelor” (in their simplest colloquial interpretations) contradict each other.
Similarly, questions about the long-term existence of the world require rather a grand mixture of analytic and synthetic reasoning. We would need a lot of empirical evidence – synthetically connected information – from the world, but since we would be engaging in a prediction, we would also need to analytic reasoning to help us organize this evidence and find patterns, while also keeping us from speculating too wildly.
But this mixture needs a solid ground in one type of reasoning or the other, and it also requires a lot of awareness. Augustine’s first attempt to prove the immortality of truth in the Soliloquies makes liberal use of analytic statements and empirical observations, but because Augustine doesn’t recognize that he is mixing the two categories, he ends up in a contradiction, leading him to start over with a cleaner, more purely analytic slate. Of course, we can and do mix these types of reasoning successfully all the time, but typically only when we do so intentionally.
As Godel proved, a system can either be axiomatically (internally) consistent, or it can be synthetically comprehensive, but it cannot be both. How we use and mix the analytic and synthetic modes of reasoning really does matter, whether we’re checking on Bill’s marital status or testing the limits of mathematical axioms – and it requires a great deal of self-awareness. Because of this, I would say that this bit of jargon is rather useful.
10 thoughts on “The Philosopher’s Lexicon: Analytic and Synthetic Reasoning”
whitefrozen
Tracing the development of the concepts of the analytic/synthetic is probably one of the most interesting topics one could undertake and also one of the few areas in which real progress has been made – Kripkes analysis and development of the synthetic/analytic and the resulting discovery of the necessary a posteriori is, to me, a game changer.
M. Joelle
Always, you tantalize me with the introduction of interesting thoughts. My Kripke is very cursory, but I’m curious about how his work was game changing. I would have placed the game changing moment with Kant. What am I missing?
whitefrozen
Funny enough, I was reading P.F. Strawsons book on Kant and he spent all of half a page talking about Kant’s contribution – and he dismisses it in roughly one sentence as being incoherent, for some rather good reasons, I think – namely, that Kant’s entire synthetic a priori ‘is really just that class of propositions our knowledge of which cuold, he supposed, be explained only by mobilizing the entire Copernican resources of the Critique…since as I have already argued, nothing whatever really is, or could be, explained by this model – for it is incoherent – it must be concluded that Kant really has no clear and general conception of the synthetic a priori at all.’ (‘The Bounds of Sense’, p. 43) As it happens, I agree entirely with this, and think Kant is one of the most overrated philosophers (in most areas, not all) ever.
But what Kripke does is far more interesting by connecting his work on identity statements (rigid designators, contingency, etc) to a priori and a posteriori truths and analytic synthetic statements. Consider (I’m basically parsing Scruton’s gloss on this subject in ‘Modern Philosophy: an Introduction and Reader’)
If Moggins is a cat, she is essentially a cat. If she ceases to be a cat, she ceases to be. This, however, is not an a priori statement – it is a posteriori that she, Moggins, is a cat. This, in a very rough and quick nutshell, is a necessary a posteriori. Such an idea really does overthrow a lot of complacency in philosophy – suddenly, necessary statements aren’t by definition a priori or analytic but a posteriori. There are also ramifications here for essential metaphysics – since Moggins essence would be a real and not a nominal essence – which would carry over to the natural sciences
This, it may seem, is rather far afield from the topic of A/S distinction – but he reaches this conclusion by noting that the A/S distinction is semantic – two ways in which a truth-value is determined – whereas the a priori/a posteriori distinction is epistemological – or two different ways of knowing. He also distinguishes between these two and necessity/contingency – this is a metaphysical (and modal) distinction having to do with different ways of being or relation to being. I highly recommend reading him at length – he is possibly the smoothest writer in philosophy. I read Kripke and feel like I’m cheating, because he makes very, very difficult ideas so… ‘Oh. That’s it? I get it.’
stephencwinter
This is simply an expression of my appreciation. You explain things so well. I realise that I connect to an idea by means of a sense that it is beautiful, a sense that is emotional and. often intuitive. As you may have noted I require an idea to make sense within a story in order to become real to me. I just had lunch with a friend recovering from cancer for the second time. His story has an authenticity to me because of his experience and his reflection on that experience. But I need to reflect on that experience in a manner that is different from his and so I find your care with language to be of enormous value.
M. Joelle
You are so kind. While I’m not sure how the analytic/synthetic distinction would be helpful in that particular situation, being careful with language and comparison is always a good idea – hard to achieve in practice though!
stephencwinter
Forgive me! I was trying to give expression to an internal debate and hung it somewhat awkwardly on your posting. My first point remains, however, and that is that I greatly appreciate the clarity with which you explain ideas in your Friday postings and my appreciation is linked to the pleasure that I take in your other work such as your poem on bandits!
ontologicalrealist
Could you please tell me if what Kant means by “transcendental realism” is the same as what in non Kantian terminology is called metaphysical naturalism? If not, what is the difference?
whitefrozen
As I see Kant, he means two things by ‘transcendental realism’ (TR). (1) The epistemological thesis that we are fully aware of of the limitations of our own mind and can thus know the things in themselves, and (2) the metaphysical thesis that things exist in time and space apart from human cognition.
In more contemporary terms, metaphysical naturalism is basically materialism, but that wasn’t the case for Kant, who wanted, more or less, to secure a naturalism without the materialism.
Kant was a naturalist in the sense that he took everything to be governed by mechanical laws but not in the sense of being a hard materialist or a reductionist, which is more or less why he restricted knowledge to appearances. So for Kant, transcendental realism would, given the assumptions inherited from the Enlightenment, equal materialism and not naturalism.
So, basically, if Kant is right, then naturalism is correct, in the sense that universal laws govern everything we experience – but by restricting this to the appearances, he can avoid materialism and attack, since the laws apply only to our experience and not to the things in themselves. Thus, while everything is ‘natural’, not everything is in nature.
authorbengarrido
Why Godel’s discovery is correct, and why the seemingly (?) related idea of indeterminacy are correct is, to me, an extremely interesting question. Might we see the answer on this blog?
M. Joelle
Perhaps at some point! I think I would have to work my way towards that analysis. I will keep it in mind, thank you for the suggestion.