According to Kant's distinctions, one would think that a single proposition should fall into one of four categories: (1) a posteriori/synthetic, (2) a posteriori/analytic, (3) a priori/analytic, and (4) a priori/synthetic.
The first category contains propositions which we come to know through experience and provide us with new information (the predicate is not contained in the subject). They are usually uncontroversial, but can be subject to interpretation. This is a big category--it contains statements such as "all bachelors drink beer" and "the president is dishonest." Here, the predicates are not contained in the subjects, and you would not be able to determine them without experience. The second category is mostly empty because it implies that we come to know a proposition whose predicate is contained in its subject through experience. There would be no reason for one to appeal to the senses for an explanation of something that is self explanatory. The third category includes logical truths that are necessarily true. So, for example, A=A. The predicate is contained in the subject, and the proposition can easily be known before any sort of sensory experience. The fourth category is the complicated one. It suggests that we may come to know a proposition that provides us with new information through reasoning alone. Kant asserts that geometry and arithmetic fall under this category.
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5 comments:
Very nice summary.
I too think this is a very good summary
the analytic synthetic distinction for Kant seems to be of utmost importance. While it is easy for us to say, for example, that all bachelors are unmarried males, it is not easy for us to say that snow is white. This is so because in the first sentence, we have said nothing new about bachelors. If we said "All bachelors are unmarried males" to someone who had never meta bachelor, but who knew what the word bachelor was, that person would understand what we are saying.
But if we say "snow is white" to someone who knew what snow is, basically frozen water, that person would what makes snow white. In the first example, the person knew what bachelors being "unmarried males" meant because the phrase "unmarried males" is contained in the word bachelor. But the statement attributing a specific color to snow is not a part of the meaning of snow. It requires some experience for us to know weather or not snow is white.
i should add that mathematics is a field of knowledge that contains analytic propositions. what that means is that any mathematical formula contains the solution within it.
if i say that 5+6=11, the answer (11) is contained as in the equation 5+6 and a person who knows what 5+6 means will also know what its product, 11, means as well.
At the same time I would like to ask a question that i did in one other blog, and that is this:
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? THAT IS THE FIRST THING THAT NEEDS TO BE PROVEN
i mean for us to say something without proving it appears to be quite dogmatic...
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