The Synthetic a Priori
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Synthetic and analytic, definitions offered by Kant
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We are now able to state definitions of analytic and synthetic. An analytic (atomic) sentence is one in which the meaning (sense) of the predicate is contained in the meaning (sense) of the subject. An analytic sentence is true by definition. A synthetic (atomic)sentence is one in which the meaning of the predicate is not contained in the meaning of the subject, and therefore adds content to the subject and affirms something of the subject. A synthetic sentence is not true by definition and can only be true in virtue of facts about the real world. Kant does not use quite these definitions. He does not quite draw the distinction between sense and reference that we just have, and he writes, "In all judgements in which the relation of a subject to the predicate is thought … this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as something which is (covertly) contained in this concept; or B lies outside the concept A, although it does indeed stand in connection with it. In the one case I entitle the judgment analytic, in the other synthetic. Analytic judgments (affirmative) are therefore those in which the connection of the predicate with the subject is thought through identity; those in which this connection is through without identity should be entitled synthetic. The former, as adding nothing through the predicate to the concept of the subject, but merely breaking it up into those constituent concepts that have all along been thought in it, although confusedly, can also be entitled explicative. The latter, on the other hand, 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; and they may therefore be entitled ampliative. If I say, for instance, 'All bodies are extended', this is an analytic judgment. For I do not require to go beyond the concept which I connect with 'body' in order to find extension as bound up with it. To meet with this predicate, I have merely to analyse the concept, that is, to become conscious to myself of the manifold which I always think in that concept. The judgement is therefore analytic. But when I say, 'All bodies are heavy', the predicate is something quite different from anything that I think in the mere concept of body in general; and the addition of such a predicate therefore yields a synthetic judgment." Kant uses gives two examples here. The sentence, "All bodies are extended" is analytic. It is part of the meaning of the term "body" that any "body" is extended in space and time. An object cannot be a physical body without being extended – that is, occupying space. So the sentence really only tells us what the term "body" means. It explains the meaning of "body" and so is an explicative sentence. It is analytic. The predicate is contained in the subject. (Or, more exactly, the meaning of the predicate is contained in the meaning of the subject.) The sentence, "All bodies are heavy" is synthetic. It is part of the meaning of a body that it occupies space, but we only know that bodies occupying space have some weight from experience. It is quite possible to imagine a body that has no weight, but in experience we have never met such a body. It is not part of the meaning of a body that it should be heavy, so the predicate is not contained in the subject. However, this sentence expresses a true scientific generalisation about all bodies in the universe, and consequently adds to and amplifies the sentence.
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Contents of
The Synthetic a Priori
1 Empiricism, Platonism, Innate Ideas and the A Priori
2 Analytic a priori
3 Kant and the synthetic a priori
4 Compound (molecular) and atomic sentences
5 Logically atomic sentences and the philosophy of logical atomism
6 Complex sentences and attitudes
7 Subject and predicate, individual and property
8 Synthetic and analytic, definitions offered by Kant
9 A priori and a posteriori
10 The synthetic a priori in Kant - the Critique of Pure Reason
11 Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, the self and transcendental apperception
12 Empiricist philosophies of mathematics - conventionalism (formalism)
13 Empiricist philosophies of mathematics - the empiricism of J.S. Mill
14 Hybrid empiricist philosophies of mathematics
15 Empiricist philosophies of mathematics - Wittgenstein and non-cognitivism
16 A.J. Ayer and conventionalism - his reply to Kant
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