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Full Idea
The syntactic notion of contradiction (p and not-p) is well understood, but is no help in explaining analyticity, since "Jones is a married bachelor" is not of that syntactic form.
Gist of Idea
'Jones is a married bachelor' does not have the logical form of a contradiction
Source
Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.2)
Book Ref
Miller,Alexander: 'Philosophy of Language' [UCL Press 1998], p.115
A Reaction
This point is based on Quine. This means we cannot define analytic sentences as those whose denial is a contradiction, even though that seems to be true of them. Both the Kantian and the modern logical versions of analyticity are in trouble.
| 7306 | If the only property of a name was its reference, we couldn't explain bearerless names [Miller,A] |
| 7315 | 'Jones is a married bachelor' does not have the logical form of a contradiction [Miller,A] |
| 7322 | Constitutive scepticism is about facts, and epistemological scepticism about our ability to know them [Miller,A] |
| 7323 | If truth is deflationary, sentence truth-conditions just need good declarative syntax [Miller,A] |
| 7324 | Explain meaning by propositional attitudes, or vice versa, or together? [Miller,A] |
| 7325 | Dispositions say what we will do, not what we ought to do, so can't explain normativity [Miller,A] |
| 7328 | The principle of charity is holistic, saying we must hold most of someone's system of beliefs to be true [Miller,A] |
| 7329 | Maybe we should interpret speakers as intelligible, rather than speaking truth [Miller,A] |
| 7333 | The Frege-Geach problem is that I can discuss the wrongness of murder without disapproval [Miller,A] |