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12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic

[a priori knowledge comes from the meanings of words]

20 ideas
A proposition is self-evident if the predicate is included in the essence of the subject [Aquinas]
     Full Idea: A proposition is self-evident because the predicate is included in the essence of the subject. E.g. Man is an animal, because animal is included in the essence of man.
     From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], Art 1, Obj 3)
     A reaction: Aquinas focuses on the essence of the subject, where Kant embraces the whole concept of the subject. Is it self-evident that we are genetically related to apes? Yes, to a geneticiist. Is that part of human essence? No. So Kant wins.
No analysis of the sum of seven and five will in itself reveal twelve [Kant]
     Full Idea: The concept of twelve is by no means already thought merely by my thinking of the unification of seven and five, and no matter how long I analyze my concept of such a possible sum I will still not find twelve in it.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B015)
     A reaction: I don't find this convincing. All sums can be revealed by analysing the relationships within the sequence of natural numbers.
Frege tried to explain synthetic a priori truths by expanding the concept of analyticity [Frege, by Katz]
     Full Idea: Frege challenged synthetic a priori truths by expanding the concept of analyticity, undertaken in order to provide a semantic basis for his logicist explanation of mathematical truth as analytic truth.
     From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Jerrold J. Katz - Realistic Rationalism Int.xx
Logic and maths can't say anything about the world, since, as tautologies, they are consistent with all realities [Wittgenstein, by Grayling]
     Full Idea: Neither logical nor mathematical propositions say anything about the world, because in virtue of their always being true they are consistent with any way the world could happen to be.
     From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921]) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.2
     A reaction: This became the standard view for twentieth century empiricists, and appeared to rule out a priori synthetic knowledge forever. Kripke's proposal that there are a posteriori necessities, however, changes the picture.
To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer]
     Full Idea: To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This is Ayer's splendidly clearcut anti-rationalism. However, one might concede that one cannot know a priori about remote possible worlds (though I'm not so sure), but still claim a priori extrapolations from our current experiences.
Metaphysical analyticity (and linguistic necessity) are hopeless, but epistemic analyticity is a priori [Boghossian on Quine]
     Full Idea: Quine showed the vacuity of the metaphysical concept of analyticity and the futility of the underwritten project - the linguistic theory of necessity. But that doesn't effect the epistemic notion of analyticity needed for a priori knowledge.
     From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered Concl
     A reaction: This summarise Boghossian's view, that a priori knowledge is still analytic, once we get clear about analyticity. See Idea 9368 for his two types of analyticity. Horwich attacks the view.
Quine challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori [Quine, by Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The last section of Quine's article challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori.
     From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 04.5
     A reaction: That is, Quine does not deny that there are truths which rest entirely on meaning. It is a 'dogma of empiricism' that the a priori can be equated with the analytic (and the necessary).
If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true? [Putnam]
     Full Idea: If we held, say, 'All unmarried men are unmarried' as absolutely immune from revision, why would this make it true?
     From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and the Moral Sciences [1978], Pt Four)
     A reaction: A very nice question. Like most American philosophers, Putnam accepts Quine's attack on the unrevisability of analytic truths. His point here is that defenders of analytic truths are probably desperate to preserve basic truths, but it won't work.
Kripke was more successful in illuminating necessity than a priority (and their relations to analyticity) [Kripke, by Soames]
     Full Idea: Kripke was far more successful in illuminating the nature of necessity, and distinguishing it from both apriority and analyticity, than he was in illuminating the nature of apriority, and distinguishing that from analyticity.
     From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Scott Soames - Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori p.187
Analytic judgements are a priori, even when their content is empirical [Kripke]
     Full Idea: All analytic judgements are a priori even when the concepts are empirical, as, for example, 'Gold is a yellow metal'; for to know this I require no experience beyond my concept of gold as a yellow metal.
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 3)
     A reaction: So I relate a priori to 'turquoise is a shade of red', even though my concepts are confused? It is my concept, perhaps, but it is false. I thought a priori had something to do with knowing, not with reporting the confused nonsense in my mind?
The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke]
     Full Idea: If statements whose a priori truth is known via the fixing of a reference are counted as analytic, then some analytic truths are contingent.
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 63)
Only lack of imagination makes us think that 'cats are animals' is analytic [Harman]
     Full Idea: That 'cats are animals' is often cited as an analytic truth. But (as Putnam points out) the inability to imagine this false is just a lack of imagination. They might turn out to be radio-controlled plastic spies from Mars.
     From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 6.7)
Analyticity is postulated because we can't imagine some things being true, but we may just lack imagination [Harman]
     Full Idea: Analyticity is postulated to explain why we cannot imagine certain things being true. A better postulate is that we are not good at imagining things.
     From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 6.7)
The semantic tradition aimed to explain the a priori semantically, not by Kantian intuition [Coffa]
     Full Idea: The semantic tradition's problem was the a priori; its enemy, Kantian pure intuition; its purpose, to develop a conception of the a priori in which pure intuition played no role; its strategy, to base that theory on a development of semantics.
     From: J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991], 2 Intro)
     A reaction: It seems to me that intuition, in the modern sense, has been unnecessarily demonised. I would define it as 'rational insights which cannot be fully articulated'. Sherlock Holmes embodies it.
Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich]
     Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8)
     A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it.
The a priori is explained as analytic to avoid a dubious faculty of intuition [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: The central impetus behind the analytic explanation of the a priori is a desire to explain the possibility of a priori knowledge without having to postulate a special evidence-gathering faculty of intuition.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §I)
     A reaction: I don't see at all why one has to postulate a 'faculty' in order to talk about intuition. I take an intuition to be an apprehension of a probable truth, combined with an inability to articulate how the conclusion was arrived at.
That logic is a priori because it is analytic resulted from explaining the meaning of logical constants [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: The analytic theory of the apriority of logic arose indirectly, as a by-product of the attempt to explain in what a grasp of the meaning of the logical constants consists.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: Preumably he is referring to Wittgenstein's anguish over the meaning of the word 'not' in his World War I notebooks. He first defined the constants by truth tables, then asserted that they were purely conventional - so logic is conventional.
We can't hold a sentence true without evidence if we can't agree which sentence is definitive of it [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: If there is no sentence I must hold true if it is to mean what it does, then there is no basis on which to argue that I am entitled to hold it true without evidence.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: He is exploring Quine's view. Truth by convention depends on agreeing which part of the usage of a term constitutes its defining sentence(s), and that may be rather tricky. Boghossian says this slides into the 'dreaded indeterminacy of meaning'.
A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle]
     Full Idea: The a priori method yields a priori knowledge, and the objects of this knowledge are not facts about the world, but analytic truths.
     From: Alan Sidelle (Necessity, Essence and Individuation [1989], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Are we not allowed any insights at all into how the world must be, independent of how we happen to conceptualise it?
2D semantics gives us apriori knowledge of our own meanings [Schroeter]
     Full Idea: Generalized 2D semantics is meant to vindicate the traditional idea that we have apriori access to our own meanings through armchair reflection.
     From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.1)
     A reaction: The idea is to split meaning in two, so that we know one part of it a priori. It is an unfashionably internalist view of meaning (which doesn't make it wrong!).