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Single Idea 7315

[from 'Philosophy of Language' by Alexander Miller, in 19. Language / E. Analyticity / 2. Analytic Truths ]

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 Reference

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.