Epistemology in Modern Analytic Philosophy: A Review

There are three fundamental epistemological categories with respect to propositions and knowledge in modern analytic philosophy:

(1) the “analytic” versus “synthetic” distinction
This is a distinction involving the semantic form of propositions. A sentence is analytic if and only if it is true solely by virtue of the meanings of terms used (Elugardo 1997: 13). Every sentence that is not analytic is synthetic;

(2) the notion of “necessity” versus “contingency”
This relates to the nature of truth and can be understood in (i) a metaphysical/ontological sense or (ii) a conceptual/verbal sense (or de dicto). A logically necessary truth in sense (ii) is not metaphysically necessary, but true only by virtue of the definitions of terms used;

(3) the a priori versus a posteriori distinction
This involves how a proposition is epistemologically known to be true or false. An a priori truth is known without appeal to experience, and an a posteriori truth is known by appeal to experience or empirical evidence.

With regard to analyticity, it is also possible to distinguish three types of analytic sentence, as follows:

(1) an explicit analyticity, such as “Bachelors are bachelors.” These can also be called “identity propositions” or “truths of logic”;

(2) an implicit analyticity, where the sentence is true by definition, e.g., “Bachelors are male.” Here we have a predicative proposition in which the predicate asserts something of a subject already containing that idea implicitly; and

(3) another type of analyticity where propositions are true in virtue of the meanings of the words used, but not true by definition: “Nothing is both red and green all over” or “whatever is coloured is extended.”

Types (1) and (2) describe what is called “Frege analyticity” (Boghossian 1997) in the following senses:

“A sentence is analytic if and only if either (i) it is a logical truth, or (ii) it can be converted into a logical truth by substitution of synonymous expressions, salve veritate, and formally valid inferences.” (Elugardo 1997: 15).

All “Frege analytic” truths are known a priori.

But type (3) above describes a kind of analyticity that is wider in sense than (1) or (2), and the epistemological status of (3) was once held to be synthetic a priori (Elugardo 1997: 15). Today many would say it is analytic a priori, but a type that Boghossian (2008: 203) calls “Carnap analyticity” (after the logical positivist Rudolf Carnap).

In 1951, Quine (1951) attacked the analytic–synthetic distinction. Elugardo (1997: 15) argues that Quine admitted the existence of “Frege analytic” truths in sense (1), but thought that even these logical truths are open to revision. But Quine also argued that Frege analyticity in sense (2) is untenable. Quine’s rejection of this type of analytic statement is derived from his unwillingness to accept any definition of “synonymy” that is circular (in that it relies in turn on the concept of “analyticity” for its definition), and because of his verbal behaviourism.

But Quine’s attack on Frege analyticity is controversial. Many modern analytic philosophers think Quine did not succeed in his arguments, and that analyticity does indeed exist (Grice and Strawson 1956; Putnam 1962 and 1975; Quinton 1967; Glock 1996 and 2003; Nimtz 2003). Nor it is surprising that modern Rationalists support the existence of Frege analyticity (Katz 1967; Chomsky 1988).

Quine also argued against the logical positivist view that verification of a single synthetic proposition is possible by empirical evidence and without the need for verifying other sentences. For Quine, every synthetic proposition relies on and presupposes a number of other sentences, a view which lead to Quine’s confirmation holism and the Quine-Duhem thesis.

Thus knowledge is an interconnected “web of belief,” and those beliefs at the core are only the most difficult to give up, while those at the periphery are easy to give up. Nevertheless, all beliefs are capable in principle of being given up and none immune to revision (Elugardo 1997: 14). Philosophers have continued to debate this view too.

Such were the main controversies in analytic philosophy on epistemology until the 1970s. Until the 1970s, most analytic philosophers thought that all necessary truths are a priori and all contingent truths are a posteriori. Then Saul Kripke argued that the three concepts above are distinct, and that there are actually “necessary a posteriori” truths, such as, for example, the statement that “water is truly H₂O.”

Kripke introduced a revolution in analytic metaphysics and epistemology, and he also argued that scientifically true identities are necessary a posteriori truths (Elugardo 1997: 12).

Kripke also contended that there is such a thing as “contingent a priori” truth, but the existence of this type of truth is still disputed.

Links
“The Return of Metaphysics into Analytic Philosophy,” August 29, 2013.

“Epistemology and Kinds of Knowledge,” July 25, 2013.

“Schwartz’s A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: from Russell to Rawls: Chapter 3,” August 25, 2013.

“Quine and the Analytic–Synthetic Distinction,” August 24, 2013.

“Schwartz’s A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: from Russell to Rawls: Chapter 2,” August 23, 2013.

“Schwartz’s A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls: Chapter 1,” August 22, 2013.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boghossian, Paul. 1996. “Analyticity Reconsidered,” Nous 30: 360–391.

Boghossian, Paul. 1997. “Analyticity,” in B. Hale and C. Wright (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. 331–368.

Boghossian, Paul. 2008. “Analyticity Reconsidered,” in Paul A. Boghossian, Content and Justification: Philosophical Papers. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 195–224.

Chomsky, Noam. 1988. Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London.

Elugardo, R. 1997. “Analytic/Synthetic, Necessary/Contingent, and a priori/a posteriori: Distinction,” in Peter V. Lamarque (ed.), Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language. Pergamon, New York. 10–19.

Frege, Gottlob. 1986. The Foundations of Arithmetic (2nd rev. edn.). Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Glock, Hans-Johann. 1996. “Necessity and Normativity,” in Hans Sluga and David G. Stern (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York. 198–225.

Glock, Hans-Johann. 2003. Quine and Davidson on Language, Thought and Reality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Grice, H. P. and P. F. Strawson. 1956. “In Defence of a Dogma,” Philosophical Review 65: 141–158.

Horwich, Paul. 1992. “Chomsky versus Quine on the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society n.s. 92: 95–108.

Katz, Jerrold J. 1967. “Some Remarks on Quine on Analyticity,” Journal of Philosophy 64: 36–52.

Katz, Jerrold J. 2010. “Analyticity,” in Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa and Matthias Steup (eds.), A Companion to Epistemology (2nd edn.). Blackwell, Malden, MA and Oxford. 224–230.

Nimtz, C. 2003. “Analytic Truths – Still Harmless After All These Years?,” in H. J. Glock, K. Gluer, and G. Keil (eds.), Fifty Years of Quine’s ‘Two Dogmas’. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York. 91–118.

Pap, Arthur. 1958. Semantics and Necessary Truth: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. Yale University Press, New Haven.

Popper, Karl. 1957. “Philosophy of Science: A Personal Report,” in C. A. Mace (ed.), British Philosophy in the Mid-Century: A Cambridge Symposium. Macmillan, New York. 155–191.

Putnam, H. 1962. “The Analytic and the Synthetic,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 3: 358–397.

Putnam, Hilary. 1975. “The Analytic and the Synthetic,” Hilary Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 33–69.

Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1951. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” Philosophical Review 60: 20–43.

Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1960. Word and Object. M.I.T. Press, Massachusetts.

Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1981. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 20–46.

Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1991. “Two Dogmas in Retrospect,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21.3: 265–274.

Quinton, Anthony. 1963–1964. “The ‘a priori’ and the Analytic,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society n.s. 64: 31–54.

Quinton, Anthony. 1967. “The ‘a priori’ and the Analytic,” in P. F. Strawson (ed.), Philosophical Logic. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 107–128.

Watkins, J. W. N. 1957. “Between Analytic and Empirical,” Philosophy 32.121: 112–131.

Epistemology and Kinds of Knowledge

This is a prolegomena to a discussion of the status of Mises’s human action axiom and praxeology. Mises is usually thought to have argued that the human action axiom had a “synthetic a priori” status. Whether that is credible is highly questionable.

But before a serious discussion of this issue, some comments about epistemology are necessary. Hence this post.

“Epistemology” is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. How do know truths? What kind of knowledge and truths are there?

Though it is a simplification, in essence there are four positions held since the late 18th century on the kinds of knowledge:

(1) The radical view of Willard Van Orman Quine that the analytic–synthetic distinction is a dogmatic myth;

(2) the empiricist view, associated with the logical positivists, that there are only two relevant distinctions:

(i) analytic/a priori, and
(ii) synthetic/a posteriori truth and propositions.

(3) the view of Immanuel Kant that recognises three distinctions:

(i) analytic a priori,
(ii) synthetic a posteriori, and
(iii) the synthetic a priori;

(4) the view of Saul Kripke that, as well as the analytic and synthetic, there are additional kinds of knowledge:

(i) contingent a priori;
(ii) necessary a posteriori.

In addition, the basic conceptual distinctions in the nature of propositions and truth can be given, as follows:

(1) analytic versus synthetic;

(2) a priori versus a posteriori; and

(3) necessary versus contingent.

The analytic versus synthetic distinction, formulated properly by Immanuel Kant, is usually taken to refer to propositions (or statements).

A statement that is true solely by virtue of the meaning or definition of the terms used is analytic, and it has logically necessary truth. This means that a denial of such a proposition would entail self-contradiction.

An older definition (used by Kant) is that a proposition whose predicate expresses ideas conceptually already contained (explicitly or implicitly) in the subject is analytic, such as the following propositions:

(1) All sad widows are sad.

(2) all red coloured things are red.

(3) all bachelors are unmarried.

(4) All (normal) bipeds are two-footed.

(5) All triangles have three sides.

In propositions (1) and (2) above, you can see that the idea expressed in the predicate is already explicitly verbally contained in the subject (or, strictly speaking, in the noun phrases that function as the subject). In propositions (3), (4), and (5), the predicate expresses an idea implicitly contained in the subject, which is to say that the subject already carries that idea in its implicit definition, as understood in a language or community of speakers.

Analytic propositions are true a priori (or prior to or without experience, experimentation, or empirical evidence) and are necessarily true (and their negation is impossible).

Such propositions are called analytic a priori.

Many such propositions can be regarded as tautologies and are non-informative, in the sense that they do not by themselves add new information to our knowledge of the world, because the knowledge in the predicate was already contained in the subject or deducible from it. Another way of saying this is that many are often trivial truths.

All propositions that are not true by virtue of the terms used are synthetic, and their negation is logically possible. Another way of saying this is that the predicate does not express an idea contained in the subject:

(1) Some widows are sad.

(2) Some swans are black.

(3) the earth’s sun contains hydrogen and helium.

Here the predicate is not obviously contained in the subject of the propositions, and the propositions are true a posteriori, or by means of experience, experimentation, or empirical evidence (although often this empirical verification has already been done by people before us). They have contingent, not necessary truth. Such propositions are called synthetic a posteriori.

But there is one more type of proposition proposed by philosophers and logicians, as we can see here (listed after the other two I have described above):

(1) analytic a priori;

(2) synthetic a posteriori, and

(3) synthetic a priori.

This is (3): the synthetic a priori proposition. Nevertheless, the existence of synthetic a priori propositions is debated.

Some proposed examples can be given:

(1) nothing is both green and red all over.

(2) all events are caused.

Are these, as Kant thought, synthetic a priori, in the sense that they are necessarily true but not analytic (that is, not vacuous)?

Consider the proposition that “all events are caused.” Supposedly, this is synthetic a priori and necessarily true. But modern quantum mechanics would appear to cast doubt on that idea (in its conventional sense) since it is believed by some scientists that certain quantum mechanical events can be uncaused. At the very least, there is genuine dispute and, ultimately, the proposition that “all events are caused” was arguably really just a synthetic a posteriori proposition, and never had necessary truth.

The logical positivists denied the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge, and argued only two real distinctions are useful and valid:

(i) analytic/a priori, and

(ii) synthetic/a posteriori.

By contrast, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) attacked this view in his famous article “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951; reprinted in Quine 1981), in which he argued that the analytic versus synthetic distinction does not exist. Although this paper was directed against the logical positivists, its thesis is equally damaging to apriorist rationalists, and in fact Quine was himself an empiricist.

Moreover, in Quine’s view, synthetic a priori do not exist either.

However, many think Quine’s critique is ultimately unconvincing (Grice and Strawson 1956), and that a strong case for the existence of analytic propositions can be made. I agree with this.

For example, Putnam argued that there is an analytic versus synthetic distinction but that it is ultimately a trivial one (Putnam 1962: 361). He also contended that there are a vast number of propositions that cannot be easily classified into either category (Putnam 1962: 364), and a better model is one with three classes:

(1) analytic
(2) synthetic
(3) various other kinds (Putnam 1962: 364).

Putnam (1962: 370) points out that modern science has revised the status of propositions which previous scientists or philosophers thought were a priori true as analytic statements, but which subsequently turned out to be synthetic statements which were false.

A fundamentally influential work was Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity (1980) (on Kripke, see Berger 2011; Sosa 2006; Burgess 2013; Hughes 2004). This advocated an even more complicated view. Kripke held that the notion of “necessity” as distinct from “contingency” must be metaphysical/ontological, whereas the “a priori” versus “a posteriori” distinction is epistemic (Scruton 1994: 162). The synthetic versus analytic distinction is semantic.

These concepts do not coincide, and Kripke presented arguments for additional types of knowledge, such as:

(i) the contingent a priori;

(ii) the necessary a posteriori.

Kripke also argued that identities are necessarily true, that names are “rigid designators,” and that some things have real essences (Scruton 1994: 164). This leads into the idea that “necessary a posteriori” truths exist: such as, for example, that the “morning star is the evening star” (namely, the planet Venus). On Kripke’s theory, that identity is necessary, but was discovered empirically: hence it is a “necessary a posteriori” proposition.

Another category is the “contingent a priori,” such as the idea that we know a priori that a metre rod is a meter long, but nevertheless “metre” could have been historically and scientifically defined at a different length (so it is therefore contingent).

But whether Kripke’s argument for “contingent a priori” propositions really succeeds is disputed (Scruton 1994: 165). At first glance, Kripke’s “contingent a priori” looks similar to Kant’s “synthetic a priori,” but on closer inspection there is an important difference. Kant’s “synthetic a priori” knowledge cannot be contingent, but Kripke’s “contingent a priori” can.

Though it is a subject for another post, the only epistemology capable of supporting Mises’s human action axiom, with its alleged “synthetic a priori” status, is really the Kantian theory of knowledge. But Kantian epistemology looks rather outdated in terms of the modern theory of knowledge.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berger, Alan. (ed.). 2011. Saul Kripke. Cambridge University Press, New York and Cambridge.

Burgess, John P. 2013. Kripke. Polity, Cambridge.

Fodor, Jerry. “Water’s Water Everywhere” (review of Kripke: Names, Necessity and Identity by Christopher Hughes)
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n20/jerry-fodor/waters-water-everywhere

Grice, H. P. and P. F. Strawson. 1956. “In Defence of a Dogma,” Philosophical Review 65: 141–158.

Hughes, Christopher. 2004. Kripke: Names, Necessity and Identity. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Kripke, Saul A. 1980. Naming and Necessity (rev. edn.). Blackwell, Oxford.

Putnam, H. 1962. “The Analytic and the Synthetic,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 3: 358–397.

Quine, W. V. 1951. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” Philosophical Review 60: 20–43.

Quine, W. V. 1981. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 20–46.

Schwartz, Stephen P. 2012. A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: from Russell to Rawls. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester.

Scruton, R. 1994. Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey. Penguin Books, London.

Sosa, D. 2006. “Saul Kripke (1940– ),” in A. P. Martinich and D. Sosa (eds.), A Companion to Analytic Philosophy. Blackwell, Malden, Mass. and Oxford. 466–477.