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Introduction of Some Distinctions


Lets review the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. (Kant called these judgments. He
uses what we might call a psychological manner of talking. In a proposition or statement we judge that something
is the casefor example, that Socrates is bald. This may or may not be the best way to think about these things. But
in any event, where Kant uses judgment, we can use assertion, proposition, or statement without loss of
meaning.) Kant says that an analytic statement is one where the predicate is contained in the subject. A good
example is A bachelor is unmarried. What bachelor means is unmarried male adult. So we could just as well
have said that An unmarried male adult is unmarried. We see here that the predicate is literally part of the subject.
So the negation of an analytic statement is a contradiction. In the Prolegomena, Kant is clear:
All analytic judgments rest wholly on the law of contradiction. The predicate of an affirmative analytic
judgment has already been thought in the concept of the subject, so it cant be denied of the subject
without contradiction.
So, since it is no longer common to categorize statements solely in terms of a subject/predicate form, we can
say that analytic statements are those that are true solely in virtue of the principle of non-contradiction, i.e.,
statements whose negations are logical contradictions. Kant calls such statements explicative. They simply
explicate or make explicit what is already contained in the concepts contained in the statements. Synthetic
statements, on the other hand, are not true solely in virtue of the principle of non-contradiction. Their
negations may well be false, but they are not contradictions. Such statements, Kant says, are amplicative.
They amplify or add something to what can be known simply by analyzing the concepts involved.
The other crucial distinction is between a priori and a posteriori knowledge (or cognition). The
question here is whether we can know that a statement is true independently of sense experience. I have a
priori knowledge of some statement if my knowledge of (justification for) it does not rely upon sense
experience. My knowledge is a posteriori if it does rely upon sense experience. The question is not where we
get the ideas or concepts, or how we in fact arrived at a certain belief, but rather how (if at all) we know that it
is true. I may have been taught in grade school that 2+2=4, but I know that it true not because I heard
someone tell me this, but rather because my reason tells me that it must be true.
Kant notes that both universality and necessity are certain signs of a priori knowledge. No amount of
experience would ever be sufficient to justify the claim that All As are Bs. Even if I have seen all the
As that have existed so far, I havent seen the As that might exist tomorrow. To say that all As are Bs is
to say that both the experienced and the unexperienced As are Bs. But experience cannot tell me about what
I have not experienced. So, for any truly universal statement, if I in fact know that it is true, this must be a
priori knowledge.
For similar reasons, experience can teach me that something is true, but not that it must be true, that it
could not be otherwise. So, whenever a statement is held to be necessarily true, it must be known (if known at
all) a priori. For Kant (as well as for Hume), mathematics (i.e., arithmetic and geometry) are paradigm
examples of a priori knowledge. I may indeed have had the sense experience of being told that 2+2=4 (and
that it couldnt equal anything else) or that all triangles have three sides, but it is not on the basis of sense
experiences that I know that these statements are true. No amount of sense experience could ever be sufficient
to justify the claim that I know these things. But I do know them. Hence, my knowledge could not rely upon
sense experience, and is thus a priori.
On this much Kant and Hume agree. Where Kant differs from Hume is in Kants claim that (many)
mathematical statements are synthetic rather than analytic (as Hume claimed). Now, there are two parts to
Kants defense of this claim; first, that these statements arent analytic, and second that they are synthetic.
The second of these parts will take a little more explanation, but the first is rather straightforward. Kant claims
that mathematical statements are not true solely in virtue of the principle of non-contradiction, i.e., there is no
logical contradiction in the negation of a true mathematical statement. Consider the claim that a straight line
is the shortest distance between any two points. The subject tells us something about the quality of a line
(that it is straight), while the predicate tells us something about its quantity (that it is the shortest). But, it
seems, there is no contradiction is denying that a line with a certain quality also has a certain quantity. Again,
while it would be a contradiction to assert that a three angled figure does not have three angles (i.e., that a
triangle doesnt have three angles), there is no contradiction is saying that a three angled figure might not have
three sides (i.e., that a triangle might not have three sides).
Kants claim that mathematical statements are synthetic rather than analytic remains controversial, but
I dont think it shouldat least not if we follow Kants reasoning in this part of his argument. As he notes,
mathematical reasoning (i.e., mathematical deductive arguments) follow according to the principle of noncontradiction. All deductive arguments follow this procedure. We can derive in a deductive argument only
what is already contained in the premises. The steps in a proof follow from the premises because the
negation of these steps would contradict something already established. But none of this establishes that the
premises from which mathematical reasoning proceeds are themselves always analytic statements. The
postulates of Euclidean geometry are not true by definition. There is no contradiction involved in rejecting
these postulates. That is why we have non-Euclidean geometries. These systems simply begin with a set of
postulates that contain the negations or one or more of the Euclidean postulates, and go from there. These are
perfectly consistent systems of reasoning. We might believe that the postulates of such systems are not true
(but contemporary physics seems to suggest otherwise), but they are demonstrably not contradictory. The
postulates of Euclidean geometry, therefore, are synthetic.
The same thing can be established concerning arithmetic. Arithmetic, like geometry, can be
axiomatisized, i.e., we can establish a set of axioms from which arithmetical truths can be derived. But these

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axioms, just like Euclids postulates, are not true solely in virtue of the principle of non-contradiction. The
negations of these axioms may be false, but they are (demonstrably) not contradictory. So, arithmetical
statements are not analytic (at least not in the sense in which Kant used that word).
Kants second way of establishing that mathematical statements are synthetic is to argue that our
knowledge of them involves a kind of intuition. Explaining this argument requires a fuller discussion of
intuition and its role in cognition. Let me come back to this later and for now just assume that Kant has
established that mathematical statements are synthetic rather than analytic.
So, Kant has now established that mathematical statements are synthetic statements that we know a
priori. But it is just this sort of knowledge that Hume has denied. Humes claim was that we could have a
priori knowledge only of statements whose negations were contradictory, i.e., in Kants terms, only of analytic
statements. If Kant is correct in asserting that mathematical statements are synthetic, then a Humean has only
two choices: deny that we have knowledge of mathematics, or admit that it is possible to have a priori
knowledge of synthetic statements. Kant claims that Hume would have opted for the latter alternative.
Indeed, Hume cited arithmetic and geometry in his examples of knowledge of relations of ideas. Kants task
is thus to explain how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, in the face of Humes attack. This is how Kant
now proceeds.
Of course, there is always the first alternative of denying that we know that mathematical statements
are true. This is the position I have described as that of the committed Humean. Kants response to the
committed Humean comes later, but I can describe the gist of it now. Kant will claim that in order for
synthetic a priori knowledge to be possible, certain conditions must obtain. But, he will argue later, for there
to be consciousness of object of any kind, these same conditions must obtain. But clearly there is
consciousness of objects. This much even Hume admits (even though, according to Hume, these objects that
we are directly conscious of are mind-dependent perceptions). So, since there is consciousness of objects,
these conditions must obtain, and so synthetic a priori knowledge is thus possible, including knowledge of
mathematical statements. This, of course, is only a very broad characterization of Kants claims. We will see
the details later. But I wanted to make clear up front that Kant is not simply ignoring this possibility.
In the remainder of the Introduction, Kant argues that the sciences all contain examples of synthetic a
priori knowledge. He considers the claim that every event has a cause. This is precisely the example that
Hume considered and dismissed, arguing that since its negation was not a contradiction, it could not be known
by reason alone, and, since it applied to all events, even those that have never been and never will be
experienced, it could not be known on the basis of experience. But it is not just causality that Hume called
into question, but all laws of nature. The claim that all bodies attract one another according to the inverse
square of their distance is likewise not true by definition (i.e., it is not analytic), and it is not something that
could be justified on the basis of experience (since we can never experience all bodies). So, explaining the
possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge is not only essential for metaphysics, but for physics as well.
Finally, we have metaphysics proper. Kant notes that all of its claims synthetic (since they purport to
tell us about the nature of reality, not simply of the meaning of words), and all are claimed to be known a
priori, because metaphysics differs from physics precisely in that it is not based upon sense experience. So,
Kants quest to explain the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge is a necessary precursor, i.e., a
necessary prolegomena to any future metaphysics. As we shall see, virtually all of what Hume thought of us
as metaphysics will be rejected by Kant. Kants claim will be that the realm of synthetic a priori knowledge is
not reality as it is in itself, but rather, how that reality must necessarily appear to us, given the conditions of the
possibility of consciousness of an object.
This is the task that Kant now undertakes. He will claim that cognition of an object has two essential
aspects, a sensible aspect, and a conceptual aspect. In the Aesthetic, Kant describes the immanent
structure of the sensible aspect of cognition, while in the Analytic, he describes the immanent structure of the
conceptual aspect. In the Aesthetic Kant will claim that space and time are not features of nor relations
between things in themselves, but are instead the pure forms of sensible intuition, i.e., merely the ways in
which we organize the data of sensation (or, as Kant calls it, the manifold of sensibility) into a spatiotemporal array that we can then conceptualize as an experience of objects. But more of all this later.

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