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In Defense of the Analytic-Snythetic Distinction, A Rebuttal of Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism
By: bannockburn

Introduction

There has been a long philosophical dispute concerning the relation between analytic and synthetic truths. The distinction of these terms goes as far back to at least Leibniz. Leibniz distinguished conceptual truths from factual truths with the distinction between truths of reason, and truths of fact. Simply speaking, truths of reason are those truths that are necessary and their opposite is impossible, and those of fact are contingent, and their opposite is possible. Thus, truths of reason are necessary and must be true, whereas truths of fact happen to be true, but can be otherwise.

A similar distinction was also made by Hume. Like his distinction between impressions and ideas, he distinguished all forms of knowledge between relations of ideas, and matter of fact. First, relations of ideas are certain and necessary and can be known by the operations of thinking. The operation of thought can identify our ideas and come to know the truths by the analysis of their meaning. For example, the mathematical equation of 2 + 2 = 4, or a square is a geometrical shape with four equal sides and equal angles. Matter of fact, is the assertion of something known by experience and at best highly probable. Thus, their truth depends on existing things, whereas relations of ideas do not entail factual existence.

The distinction was elaborated by Kant, but came under attack by the logician W.V. Quine. Quine claimed that analytic truths are incoherent. The crux of his argument is that analyticity presupposes cognitive synonymy. As a result, in this paper, I will argue that the analytic-synthetic distinction is acceptable and can be defended. In section one, I will show the analytic-synthetic distinction distinguished by Kant. In section two, I will show Quine's critique of the distinction. In section three, I will defend the analytic/synthetic distinction. I will then give my conclusion.

Section One

Kant makes the distinction between two kinds of cognitive propositions. When the predicate is contained within the subject then it is defined as analytic. Analytic truths are conceptual truths based on analysis. Kant provides various ways in which cognition can determine if a proposition is analytic. To begin with, “analytic judgments say nothing in the predicate except what was actually thought already in the concept of the subject” (Kant, Prolegomena, p. 16). An analytic proposition, is such a proposition where its truth can be determined solely through analysis of its meaning. It is true in virtue of meaning alone. Thus, when cognition forms a proposition in which the predicate is already thought within the subject, then this constitutes an analytic judgment.

Kant provides an example of an analytic proposition: “all bodies are extended”. For Kant, the predicate of extension adds nothing to the subject of bodies. This is because the very concept of body as defined has the properties of extension, width, figure, etc. In thinking of the concept bodies, extension is the very property that defines a body as a body. Extension is utterly inseparable from bodies, insofar that what is meant by bodies includes the very part of extension. As a result, the predicate of extension does not advance one's knowledge of bodies, but only provides a further analysis of the proposition and makes it more clear and distinct.

This definition of an analytic judgment however leads to conceptual problems. The metaphor of the “contained” predicate of what is thought in relation to the subject leads to a psychological understanding of analyticity. My conceptual understanding of bodies can be very different from yours. For example, bodies in physics can be understood according to the descriptions of classical mechanics, but different in the descriptions of quantum mechanics. Likewise, my understanding of bodies may refer to a substance that has the properties of solidity, extension, figure, motion, rest, etc, whereas your understanding may include the property of weight.

Given the accidental thought processes of individual thinkers, Kant provides a fundamental principle that applies to all analytic judgments regardless of psychological understanding and identity. According to Kant, all analytic judgments rests on the principle of non contradiction. “For since the predicate of an affirmative analytic judgment is already thought beforehand in the concept of the subject, it cannot be denied of that subject without contradiction” (Kant, Prolegomena, p. 17) and likewise in the Critique, “analytic judgments are therefore those in which the connection is through identity”(Kant, A7/B11). Again, Kant provides the example of “all bodies are extended”. If the judgment of bodies contains the predicate of extension, then the judgment can not negate the same judgment without a contradiction. Thus, the judgment of “every body is not extended” can not be held as true and is a contradiction.

The principle of non contradiction rests on a logical criteria of consistency and identity. On one hand, identity is an axiom or self-evident truth based on definition that other knowledge much rest on. It makes an entity recognizable, in terms of possessing given properties or characteristics that distinguish it from other entities. The rule of identity then is defined in relation only between the properties and itself. On the other hand, consistency is when a proposition cannot both be true and false within the same proposition. It is impossible for something to be and not be. The proposition of “every body is extended and not extended” leads to a contradiction. Another way to recognize the principle is where the negation of the proposition would lead to a contradiction. Thus, if you affirm the truth of the proposition that all bodies are extended, then deny the proposition which would lead to its negation, this would result in self-contradiction.

The second kind of cognitive propositions is synthetic. Kant argues in The Critique of Pure Reason that synthetic propositions “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” (Kant, A7/B11). A synthetic proposition is capable of being true or untrue based on empirical facts about the world. According to Kant, a synthetic proposition is when cognition must go beyond the analysis of meaning, and make an addition of a new predicate that was not previously thought in the subject. Thus, synthetic propositions extend knowledge and are known through experience.

Kant argues that synthetic propositions can not rely solely on the principle of identity and non contradiction, but rest on data given in experience. In determining the concept of body, Kant argues that extension, figure, solidity are inherent predicates of bodies, and as a result analytic. However, synthetic propositions are when cognition must go beyond the mere analysis of its meaning, and witness the evidence given to cognition by empirical data. They are factual truths where the opposite can be supposed. The truth of synthetic propositions depends on empirical evidence, and as a result are contingent.

Kant argues that experience can teach us that a thing is so and so, but not that it is necessarily so. Synthetic propositions deriving from experience can never adhere to strict and necessary conditions, but always leave the possibility of exception. Since experience stems from empirical data, the dependence of propositions upon the senses may lead to a discovery of a property which was not initially known for a given subject. The proposition that “all swans are white” is false due to empirical data that swans in Australia are black. Thus, synthetic propositions rely on induction and are not strict and necessary.

Section Two

The analytic-synthetic distinction was attacked by the American philosopher W. V. Quine. Quine makes the argument that the analytic-synthetic distinction is ill founded, and the explanation is not clear. According to Quine, the two dogmas entail the belief in a dichotomy between analytic and synthetic truths, and the belief that every meaningful sentence can refer to immediate or prior sensory experience. His rejection of the analytic distinction is certainly at odd with his philosophical predecessors, yet his skepticism is not the complete denial of analyticity itself.

To begin with, like his predecessors Quine, accepted analyticity, but grouped analytic propositions in two different classes. First, there are those of logical truths. Logical truths are typified by the proposition of, “no unmarried man is married”. According to Quine, “the relevant feature of this example is that is not merely true as it stands, but remains true under any and all reinterpretations” (Quine, p. 281). Logical truths are true and remain true under any reinterpretations even if their logical components are changed. Logical truths are true and remain true despite the potential change of its logical component of “no” “un” “if/then” and “either/or”. This analytic class does not involve Quine's critique.

The second class of analytical propositions invites Quine's attack. Here is the crux of Quine's argument. “Quine argues that any suitable appeal to analyticity in epistemology presupposes a notion of cognitive synonymy” (Moser, p. 224). Quine objects that the proposition, “No bachelor is married” supposes synonymy with “unmarried man”, and the clarification of synonymy is as ambiguous as analyticity itself. Quine's objection was that he saw no way to make any serious explanatory sense of defining either analyticity or synonymy. The process of defining certain terms does not reinforce analyticity since definition presupposes synonymy. For Quine, any definition is more or less revisable and no sentence is immune from revision. Thus, Quines rejects analyticity on grounds that it is no clearer than synonymy, and we should reject it altogether because of its circularity.

As an empiricist, Quine accepts that our terms can be revisable according to new experience. All theories and likewise all propositions are undermined by some kind of empirical data, or evidence. Since empiricism rests on the verification of experience, the criteria of analyticity as strict and necessary become what just happens to be in light of experience. “Given Quine's holism, any statement can be accepted come what may as long as we revise – perhaps drastically – other parts of our field of accepted statements” (Moser, p. 224). Thus, Quine concludes that any statement in principle is not beyond revision, and as Moser claims “we might plausibly interpret Quine as introducing a notion of contextual apriority as system-relative epistemic irrevisability." (Moser, p. 10)

Section Three

Quine's critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction does not destroy analyticity. According to Kant, the highest principle of all analytic judgments is that they be not self-contradictory. “The principle of contradiction must therefore be recognized as being the universal and completely sufficient principle of all analytic knowledge" (Kant, B191). For Kant, the principle of non contradiction is the supreme principle to determine if the predicate is contrary to the subject. The negative criterion of the principle is to dispel error and falsehood. Nevertheless, Kant argues that the positive employment of the principle is to know the truth of the proposition. “The reverse of that which as concept is contained and is thought in the knowledge of the object is always rightly denied. But since the opposite of the concept would contradict the object, the concept itself must necessarily be affirmed of it” (Kant, B/191).

Quine argues, if all propositions can be revised according to new experience, then Quine's explanation that the apparent analytic propositions in terms of the sentences in people's thought is simply empirically inadequate. There is nothing to assume synonymy in cognition concerning a statement. I maybe able to conceptualize a bachelor not as an unmarried adult male, but as a university degree. Likewise, experience can never identify a married bachelor as having a truth value. We can test from experience what consists of a bachelor. We can test the behavior of a male. We can do a survey, or we can observe empirical data. What makes a bachelor an unmarried male is simply because that is the meaning of the terms. Thus, as Kant argues the reverse of the predicate would contradict the very object for which it would verify, and its opposite would likewise affirm its truth value.

The verification theory of meaning is the assertion that it is an illusion to suppose statements are immune from revision in light of new experience. Nevertheless, such revision seems dubious in the beginning simply on grounds that revision from our experience could easily be fallible. Nevertheless, the crux of Quine's argument is that analyticity amounts to cognitive synonymy. In Defense of a Dogma, Strawson argues, “to say that two expressions X and Y are cognitively synonymous seems to correspond, at any rate roughly, to what we should ordinarily express by saying that X and Y have the same meaning or that X means the same as Y”. (Grace & Strawson, p. 145). If a proposition is analytic, then one can assume that the predicate is interchangeable with the subject. However, the same predicate can be applied to different subjects, but have radically different meanings. Thus, a bachelor certainly is an “unmarried adult male”, but bachelor is no less true applying it to “undergraduate university degree”.

Despite Quine's criticisms of the analytic-synthetic distinction, Kant's analytic distinction rests on the principle that whatever the content of our knowledge and how it relates to the object can not be self-contradictory. Quine seems to mistakenly interpret Kant's distinction of analyticity, insofar that there can be a revision of analytic statements in light of new experience. Any judgment from experience is synthetic, and any revision would rather seem to be an extension of our knowledge, rather than a revision of analyticity itself.

Moreover, Kant following Hume adheres to the distinction that matter of fact, or synthetic propositions which do not rest on the principle of non-contradiction, has the possibility where there opposite can arise. Hume makes the point where propositions which are necessarily true, can not be conceived, while propositions that come from experience can be conceived. As a result, Kant argues, “this relation is consequently never a relation either of identity or of contradiction; and from the judgment, take in and by itself, the truth or falsity of the relation can never be discovered” (Kant, A155/B194).

The principle of non-contradiction relies on the analysis of its own self-identity. It makes a concept recognizable by possessing given properties that distinguish it from other concepts. When a proposition does not contradict itself it is consistent and is a criterion of truth. This is Kant's negative employment of analyticity. Nevertheless, Kant's positive employment is that analytic propositions are thought in agreement with their object. This positive employment of analyticity as thought agreeing with its objects refutes Quine's argument because in order for thought to agree with its object, the object would need some kind of empirical data. This could never happen in experience because you could never empirical verify a bachelor who is a married male. Thus, Quine's revision of terms based in experience is empirically inadequate.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have tried to defend Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. For Kant, analyticity is such a proposition where its truth can be determined solely through analysis of its meaning. It is defined, as a proposition whose denial would be self contradictory. It is true by virtue of meaning alone, and one does not have to go outside and rely on experience in order to know if the proposition is true or false. The proposition of, “all vegans do not eat animals or products”, is true by the very definition of vegan. One does not have to rely on experience in order to know that vegans do not eat animal products. Thus, analytic propositions are true by definition.

Quine's attack on the analytic distinction is that all analytic propositions are circular. They rely on cognitive synonymy, and since synonymous terms are no less clear than analyticity itself, it should be rejected outright. Quine further argues that no definition is immune to revision with the rise of new experience. Experience might provide information that may contradict previously held truths, and for Quine we need to revise our definition according to experience. I have argued against Quine in favour of Kant's distinction. I have argued that experience can never identify a married bachelor, or a meat eating vegan as having a truth value. We can observe empirical data, but what makes a bachelor an unmarried male, or a vegan a vegan is simply because that is the meaning of the terms. If all propositions can be revised according to new experience, then Quine's explanation that the apparent analytic propositions in terms of people's cognitive thinking is simply empirically inadequate. Thus, experience can never provide empirical data for revision of an analytic propositions, and likewise, there is nothing to assume cognitive synonymy between psychological understanding on the condition that my understanding maybe different from yours

Reference

1.Kant, I (2003). Critique of Pure Reason (Ed & Trans) Norman Kemp Smith
Palgrave Macmillian

2.Kant, I (2003) Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (ed) Gary Hatfield
Cambridge University Press

3.Grice, H. P. & P. F. Strawson (1956). In Defense of a Dogma
The Philosophical Review, Vol. 65, No. 2. Cornell University
[Online]. Available Internet: Http://www.jsor.org/
Retrieved From Brock University Database: JSTOR – Arts & Sciences I, II and III

4.Moser, P. (1987) A Priori Knowledge
Oxford University Press

5.Moser, P. (2003) Human Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Approaches
Oxford University Press

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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