Analytic–synthetic distinction

In philosophy, is spoken by an analytical judgment or an analytic set if the truth or falsity of the judgment or sentence has already been determined by the terminology used. The concept of the Analytical plays on the one in Immanuel Kant 's transcendental philosophy a decisive role, the other in the early analytic philosophy.

Analytic judgments in Kant

When Kant speaks of analytic judgments plays in the context of comparisons of analytical - synthetic and a priori - a posteriori a central role. Analytic judgments are a priori true because its truth follows from the meaning of the terms. Therefore you learn from them is nothing really new, why Kant referred to as " explanation sentences ". In contrast, synthetic judgments knowledge- expanding (so-called " extension judgments " ) and in its a priori form the central theme of Kant's epistemology, whose famous central question is: "How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?".

An example of an analytical judgment would be as follows: " All bachelors are unmarried. " The property of being unmarried, is already in the term " bachelor " implies. So you add the term added nothing new. A synthetic judgment would be for example: " All ravens are black. " By the word of the Raven is not yet excluded, namely, that there are also about White Raven.

The analytical philosophy

In the early analytic philosophy, especially in the Vienna Circle, were analytic propositions as the real subject of philosophy. It has been argued that empirical sentences would be drawn from the natural sciences. The only truly efficient non-empirical sentences are conceptual truths which would be made by analytic sets. All records that are no analytic propositions and not empirically verifiable, were meaningless early analytic philosophy 's view. This conviction led to large parts of classical metaphysics were considered useless.

One problem with this position is that the claim that all meaningful propositions must be empirical or analytical, is a non- empirical and non- analytic proposition itself.

Contemporary philosophy

The current debate on the Analytical is dominated by the 1951 essay published Two Dogmas of Empiricism (Eng. Two Dogmas of Empiricism ) by Willard Van Orman Quine. Quine attacked in this paper on the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions as ultimately untenable dogma. Although Quine's general argument is now recognized by many, but is usually at least held heuristically on the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. A recent defense of this approach is found for Olaf Müller.