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Philosophy Compass Teaching & Learning Guide, Philosophy Compass 3/1 (2008): 273–276, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00123.x

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Teaching & Learning Guide for: The Analytic /Synthetic Distinction

Gillian RussellWashington University in St Louis

This guide accompanies the following article:Gillian Russell, The Analytic /Synthetic Distinction, Philosophy Compass 2(5) (2007): 712–29, doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00093.x

Author’s Introduction

Once a standard tool in the epistemologist’s kit, the analytic/synthetic distinctionwas challenged by Quine and others in the mid-twentieth century and remainscontroversial today. But although the work of a lot contemporary philosopherstouches on this distinction – in the sense that it either has consequences for it,or it assumes results about it – few have really focussed on it recently. This hasthe consequence that a lot has happened that should affect our view of theanalytic/synthetic distinction, while little has been done to work out exactly whatthe effects are. All these features together make the topic ideal for either a surveyor research seminar at the graduate level: it can provide an organising themewhich justifies a spectrum of classic readings from Locke to Williamson, passingthough Kant, Frege, Carnap, Quine and Kripke on the way, but it could alsoprovide an excuse for a much more narrowly construed research seminar whichstudies the consequences of really contemporary philosophy of language andlinguistics for the distinction.

Author Recommends

1. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason [A7-10/B11-14] trans. P. Guyerand A. Wood (Cambridge: (Cambridge University Press, 1999).Kant defined analyticity in three different ways (see the Jäshe Logic and Prolegomenato Any Future Metaphysics for the other two) but here in the First Critique, as hesets up the task of explaining how synthetic a priori judgements are possible,we find the famous definition of analyticity in terms of the predicate-conceptbelonging to the subject-concept, as well as his account of the modal andepistemic status of analytic judgements in terms of the principle of non-contradiction.

2. Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. J. L. Austin, 2nd ed(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1980), especially sections 3, 87–91.Frege’s hedged criticisms of Kant’s definition of analyticity and his revision of thatdefinition to appeal to proofs and definitions.

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3. Rudolf Carnap, ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’, reprinted in Meaningand Necessity, 2nd ed (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 205–21.Carnap has much technical work on analyticity, especially in The Logical Syntaxof Language and Meaning and Necessity, but in this short paper he presents hisphilosophical views on the matter in an accessible style.

4. Willard van Orman Quine, ‘Truth by Convention’, reprinted in The Ways ofParadox and Other Essays, (New York, NY: Random House, 1965), 77–106.A long, difficult paper presenting some of Quine’s views on definitions as conventionsof notational abbreviation and the infamous Regress Argument against the ideathat the basic logical symbols are introduced by implicit definition. This is essentialreading for anyone serious about engaging with Quine’s views on the analytic/synthetic distinction.

5. Willard van Orman Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, Philosophical Review,60 (1951): 20–43.Quine’s two-fold attack on the positivist’s views on analyticity.

6. Paul Grice and Peter Strawson, ‘In Defence of a Dogma’, The PhilosophicalReview, 65 (1956): 144–58.Grice and Strawson’s popular response to the arguments from ‘Two Dogmas ofEmpiricism’.

7. David Kaplan, ‘Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Meta-physics and Epistemology of Demonstratives’, Themes from Kaplan, eds.J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein (New York, NY: Oxford UniversityPress, 1989), 481–614.A longish monograph which includes a good introduction to direct reference andthe contingent analytic.

8. Paul Boghossian, ‘Analyticity Reconsidered?’, Nous, 30.3 (1996): 360–91.In this paper Boghossian distinguishes two different kinds of analyticity – metaphysicaland epistemic – and argues that only the metaphysical notion falls to Quine’scritique.

9. Gilbert Harman, Reasoning, Meaning and Mind (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1999), chs 5, 7.Harman’s extremely helpful presentation of Quine’s arguments on the topics ofmeaning and analyticity with responses to popular objections, including thosefrom Grice, Strawson and Boghossian.

10. Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy (Blackwell, forthcoming),chs 3, 4.Not-so Quinean scepticism about the role of analyticity in philosophy.

Online Resources

1. The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/

2. The Arche Research Centre at The University of St Andrews has a usefulonline bibliography in that focuses on neo-logicism:http://arche-wiki.st-and.ac.uk/%7Eahwiki/bin/view/Arche/MathsBibliographies

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Sample Syllabus for a Graduate Survey Seminar

Week I: Historical Introduction & OverviewJohn Locke, ‘On Trifling Propositions’, [IV.8] An Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding, ed. P. Nidditch, Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke(New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979), 292–302.Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason [A7-10/B11-14], trans. P. Guyer andA. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. J. L. Austin, 2nd ed (Evanston,IL: Northwestern University Press, 1980), section 3, 87–91.

Week II: Logical Positivisim IRudolf Carnap, ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’, reprinted in Meaning andNecessity, 2nd ed (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 205–21.Alfred Jules Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (London: Penguin Books, 1936),chs 3, 4.

Week III: Logical Positivism IICarl G. Hempel, ‘On the Nature of Mathematical Truth’, The American MathematicalMonthly 52 (1945): 543–56.Rudolf Carnap, ‘Meaning Postulates’, in Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semanticsand Modal Logic, 2nd ed (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 222–32.

Optional Reading:Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language (New York, NY: Routldege &Kegan Paul, 1951), section 14.Rudolf Carnap, Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic, 2nded (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 1–16.

Week IV: Quine’s Objections IWillard van Orman Quine, ‘Truth by Convention’, reprinted in The Ways ofParadox and Other Essays (New York, NY: Random House, 1965), 77–106.

Week V: Quine’s Objections IIWillard van Orman Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, Philosophical Review 60(1951): 20–43.Paul Grice and Peter Strawson, ‘In Defence of a Dogma’, Philosophical Review 65(1956): 144–58.

Week VI: Quine’s Objections IIIRudolf Carnap, ‘Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages’, PhilosophicalStudies 6.3 (1955): 33–47, reprinted in the appendix to the 2nd edition ofMeaning and Necessity.Willard van Orman Quine, ‘Translation and Meaning’, Word and Object (Cam-bridge, MA: MIT Press 1960), 26–79.

Week VII: Harman and KatzJerrold Katz, ‘Where Things Stand Now with the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction’,Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 28 (1974): 287–394.Gilbert Harman, ‘Katz’ Credo’, Synthese 32 (1976): 387–94.

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Week VIII: Some Further ProblemsKeith S. Donnellan, ‘Necessity and Criteria’, The Journal of Philosophy 59.22(1973): 647–58.Hilary Putnam, ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’, The Journal of Philosophy 53 (1962): 658–71.

Week IX: Semantic ExternalismHilary Putnam, ‘Meaning and Reference’, The Philosophy of Language, ed. A. P.Martinich, 4th ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 288–95.Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), Lectures 1, 2.

Week X: Direct Reference and the Contingent AnalyticDavid Kaplan, ‘Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysicsand Epistemology of Demonstratives’, Themes from Kaplan, eds. J. Almog, J. Perryand H. Wettstein (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989), 481–614.

Week XI: Semantic Externalism and Analyticity IPaul Boghossian, ‘Analyticity Reconsidered?’, Nous 30.3 (1996): 360–91.Gilbert Harman, Reasoning, Meaning and Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1999), chs 5, 7.

Week XII: Semantic Externalism and Analyticity IINathan Salmon, ‘Analyticity and a Priority’, Philosophical Perspectives 7 (1993):125–33.Tim Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming),chs 3, 4.

Recommended Additional Reading:Gillian Russell, Truth in Virtue of Meaning: A Defence of the Analytic/SyntheticDistinction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Focus Questions

1. Which of the following sentences is analytic? Why?a) All red books are red.b) All bachelors are unmarried.b) Hesperus is Hesperus.c) Hesperus is Phosphorus.d) The actual writer of this sentence wrote this sentence.e) All cats are animals.f ) ‘Hesperus’ means Venus.g) 5 + 7 = 12

2. What is a necessary truth? What is an a priori truth? What is a logical truth?How is analyticity related to any of these things?

3. What kind of thing can be analytic? Sentences? Propositions? Rules of implication?

4. What should a semantic externalist think about analyticity?

5. Can analytic sentences contain vague expressions?

6. ‘If there is no such thing as a priori knowledge, then analyticity looses itsphilosophical interest’ (E. Sober). Why?