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Single Idea 20297

[filed under theme 19. Language / E. Analyticity / 1. Analytic Propositions ]

Full Idea

What's peculiar about the analytic is that denying it seem unintelligible. Far from unrevisability explaining analyticity, it seems to be analyticitiy that explains unrevisability; we only balk at denying unmarried bachelors because that's what it means!

Gist of Idea

Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable

Source

Georges Rey (The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction [2013], 3.7)

Book Ref

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.9

A Reaction

This is a criticism of Quine, who attacked analyticity when it is understood as unrevisability. Obviously we could revise the concept of 'bachelor', if our marriage customs changed a lot. Rey seems right here.

Related Idea

Idea 11170 Analytic truth may only be true in virtue of the meanings of certain terms [Fine,K]

The 20 ideas with the same theme [propositions that just seem to be about words]:

8734 Non-subject/predicate tautologies won't fit Kant's definition of analyticity [Shapiro on Kant]
7314 How can bachelor 'contain' unmarried man? Are all analytic truths in subject-predicate form? [Miller,A on Kant]
20291 If the predicate is contained in the subject of a judgement, it is analytic; otherwise synthetic [Kant]
20292 Analytic judgements clarify, by analysing the subject into its component predicates [Kant]
16926 Analytic judgements say clearly what was in the concept of the subject [Kant]
16927 Analytic judgement rests on contradiction, since the predicate cannot be denied of the subject [Kant]
9370 A statement is analytic if substitution of synonyms can make it a logical truth [Frege, by Boghossian]
8743 Frege considered analyticity to be an epistemic concept [Frege, by Shapiro]
7725 'P or not-p' seems to be analytic, but does not fit Kant's account, lacking clear subject or predicate [Frege, by Weiner]
13345 Sentences are 'analytical' if every sequence of objects models them [Tarski]
9371 Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine]
20294 'Married' does not 'contain' its symmetry, nor 'bigger than' its transitivity [Rey]
20293 Analytic judgements can't be explained by contradiction, since that is what is assumed [Rey]
20297 Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable [Rey]
20301 The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used [Rey]
20302 An intrinsic language faculty may fix what is meaningful (as well as grammatical) [Rey]
20303 Research throws doubts on the claimed intuitions which support analyticity [Rey]
14099 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen]
14488 Analyticity is revealed through redundancy, as in 'He bought a house and a building' [Thomasson]
17725 'Analytic' can be conceptual, or by meaning, or predicate inclusion, or definition... [Jenkins]