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- Elementary Semantics
- (Types of) Understanding
- *(Types of) Definition
- Varieties of 'Implication'
- The Role of 'Proofs'
- Propositional Logic, Deontic Logic
- 'Explanation'
- Falsification
- Concluding
- Types of Circularity
- Modality
- Category Mistakes
- 'a priori', 'analytic', 'contingent'
- 'Formal Logic'
- Common Language in Philosophy
'Analytic', 'contingent', 'a priori'
[under development]
xxxxx
o a priori / a posteriori
o analytic / synthetic
o necessary / contingent
(Also: 'obvious' <> 'evident' <> xxx ! Usually, philosophers take for granted 'obvious' when 'evident' is at issue ...)
Motivation
Established warning to students: Terms such as 'analytic', 'synthetic', 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' are difficult to grasp, and their proper application is expert stuff.
This is misleading in two ways:
(a) These terms are not really difficult; they can be grasped rather easily--if they are properly defined.
(b) Yet because many so-called experts do not proceed carefully and properly enough, they very often commit serious mistakes with these terms themselves.
[Motivation: Quine 1951. In "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", Quine explicitly say that his aim is "Kant's cleavage" between 'analytic' and 'synthetic'; yet what he deals with subsequently is really, and quite obviously, Kant's 'a priori' / 'a posteriori' distinction. Quite bluntly confuses the two distinctions.]
[Motivation: Kripke.]
Necessary/contingent
The 'necessary'/'contingent' distinction often appears in connection with the former notions and is conceptually related to them. [LINK]
Necessity and contingency can apply (among other things) to the realisation of states of affairs, or to the truth of judgements. These two applications, along with the 'necessity' of (the existence or realisation of) objects and properties, are what is usually addressed when these terms are used within philosophical logic.
That a state of affairs is 'necessarily' realised means that it could not fail to be realised. This can be due to either of the following two reasons (or both):
(a) A sentence expressing the realisation of that state of affairs is true for semantical, or formal, or logical necessity.
(b) The occurrence of that state of affairs is determined by virtue of metaphysical necessity. [adjust]
Kant's definitions (approximation)
Contemporary usage of the terms 'analytic' and 'synthetic' (as opposed to each other), as well as the terms 'a priori' and 'a posteriori', goes back to Kant. (!)
[first: the literal statements? Kant: @"Urteil", ...]
o knowledge 'a priori': knowledge which can be known, i.e., is deducible, without reference to empirical judgements.
o knowledge 'a posteriori': knowledge which is not 'a priori', i.e., cannot be deduced without reference to some empirical judgements.
o 'a priori' truth: truth which can be deduced without reference to empirical judgements.
o 'a posteriori' truth: truth which cannot be deduced without reference to empirical judgements.
xxx (!) Since 'a priori' knowledge and 'a priori' truths must be deducible somehow, they are instances of necessary truth.
o 'analytic' truth: another variety of a priori truth; truth determined by the fact that the predicate ascribed to the reference of the subject expression applies to that (kind of) reference necessarily, by virtue of the semantical meaning of the subject expression.
o 'synthetic' truth: truth which is not 'analytic'.
xxx (!) Since 'analytic' truths must be deducible somehow, they are instances of necessary truth.
Re-definitions / Faulty explanations of those terms
Examples of re-definitions (or perhaps just faulty understanding) of the notion 'analytic' by prominent philosophers:
o Frege :--|
o Ayer (1936)
o even Carnap ... :--|
o Quine (1951)
o @ Kripke
Warning, not to join such improper usage (of re-defining technical terms).
Alternative (and, actually, preferable) terms
o necessary truth (=> negation cannot possibly be true)
o logical truth (=> necessarily true, by virtue of logic)
o semantic truth (=> necessary, given logic + the meanings of the sentence's elements)
o formal truth (=> necessary, given the meaning of certain 'formal' elements supposed to be contained in the sentence)
o unempirical truth (=> truth whose demonstration would not require any empirical evidence (~ 'a posteriori')
o empirical truth (=> truth whose demonstration would require some[?] empirical evidence)
o [?actually dispensable?] analytic truth (=> the predicate ascribed to the reference of the subject expression applies to that (kind of) reference necessarily, by virtue of the semantical meaning of the subject expression)