Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Kant: analytic vs synthetic

Kant's next distinction is between analytic and synthetic judgments. This distinction is determined by the information contained as their content. In analytic judgments, the predicate is wholly contained in the subject. Analytic judgments do not really provide us with any new information. Kant's example of an analytic judgment is "all bodies are extended." It is contained in the definition of a body that it is extended in space, so we really do not receive any new information from that statement. Analytic judgments, like a priori information, are universal tautologies. Synthetic judgments, on the other hand, do provide new information. The predicate in one of these judgments is not contained in the subject. Kant's example is "all bodies are heavy." The predicate of "heavy" is not implied by the subject of "bodies." So, if someone just started talking about bodies, you would not immediately associate the word "heavy" with those bodies. Any connection between the predicate and the subject in a synthetic judgment is distinctly external to both. Therefore, even though synthetic judgments turn out to be informative, they do require justification. For simple purposes, I think that Kant's distinction will come in handy, but I think that the classification of one proposition may vary from person to person.