The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy is Not Rational

An analytic proposition is defined as one which can be validated merely by an analysis of the meaning of its constituent concepts. The critical question is: What is included in "the meaning of a concept? Does a concept mean the existents which it subsumes, including all their characteristics? Or does it mean only certain aspects of these existents, designating some of their characteristics but excluding others? The latter viewpoint is fundamental to every version of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. The advocates of this dichotomy divide the characteristics of the existents subsumed under a concept mto two groups: those which are included in the meaning of the concept, and those - the great majority - which, they claim, are excluded from its meaning. !he dichotomy among propositions follows directly. If a proposition links the "included" characteristics with the concept, it can be validated merely by an "analysis" of the concept; if it links the "excluded" characteristics with the concept, it represents an act of "synthesis." For example: it is commonly held that, out of the vast number of man's characteristics (anatomical, physiological, psychological, etc.), two - "rationality" and "animality" - constitute the entire meaning of the concept "man." All the rest, it is held, are outside the concept's meaning. On this view, it is "analytic" to state that "A man is a rational animal" (the predicate is "included" in the subject-concept), but "synthetic" to state that "A man has only two eyes" (the predicate is "excluded"). The primary historical source of the theory that a concept includes some of an entity's characteristics, but excludes others, is the Platomc realist theory of universals. Platonism holds that concepts designate non-material essences (universals) subsisting in a supernatural dimension. Our world, Plato claimed, is only the reflection of these essences, in a material form. On this view, a physical entity possesses two very different types of characteristics: those which reflect its supernatural essence, and those which arise from the fact that, in this world, the essence is manifest in material form. The first are "essential" to the entity, and constitute its "real nature"; the second are matter-generated "accidents." Since concepts are said to designate essences, the concept of an entity includes its "essential" characteristics, but excludes its "accidents." How does one differentiate "accidents" from "essential" characteristics in a particular case? [...] One is expected to analyze concepts, without a knowledge of their source and nature-to determine their meaning, while ignorant of their relationship to concretes. How? The answer implicit in contemporary philosophical practice is: "Since people have already given concepts their meanings, we need only study common usage." In other words, paraphrasing Galt: "The concepts are here. How did they get here? Somehow." (Atlas Shrugged.) Since concepts are complex products of man's consciousness, any theory or approach which implies that they are irreducible primaries, is invalidated by that fact alone. Without a theory of concepts as a foundation, one cannot, in reason, adopt any theory about the nature or kinds of propositions; propositions are only combinations of concepts. The Objectivist theory of concepts undercuts the theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy at its root. According to Objectivism, concepts "represent classifications of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents." (Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology; all further quotations in this section, unless otherwise identified, are from this work.) To form a concept, one mentally isolates a group of concretes (of distinct perceptual units), on the basis of observed similarities which distinguish them from all other known concretes (similarity is "the relationship between two or more existents which possess the same characteristic(s) , but in different measure or degree"); then, by a process of omitting the particular measurements of these concretes, one integrates them into a single new mental unit: the concept, which subsumes all concretes of this kind (a potentially unlimited number). The integration is completed and retained by the selection of a perceptual symbol (a word) to designate it. "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted." By isolating and integrating perceived concretes, by reducing the number of mental units with which he has to deal, man is able to break up and organize his perceptual field, to engage in specialized study, and to retain an unlimited amount of information pertaining to ail unlimited number of concretes. Conceptualization is a method of acquiring and retaining knowledge of that which exists, on a scale inaccessible to the perceptual level of consciousness. Since a word is a symbol for a concept, it has no meaning apart from the content of the concept it symbolizes. And since a concept is an integration of units, it has no content or meaning apart from its units. The meaning of a concept consists of the units - the existents - which it integrates, including all the characteristics of these units. Observe that concepts mean existents, not arbitrarily selected portions of existents. There is no basis whatever - neither metaphysical nor epistemological, neither in the nature of reality nor of a conceptual consciousness - for a division of the characteristics of a concept's units into two groups, one of which is excluded from the concept's meaning. Metaphysically, an entity is: all of the things which it is. Each of its characteristics has the same metaphysical status: each constitutes a part of the entity's identity. Epistemologically, all the characteristics of the entities subsumed under a concept are discovered by the same basic method: by observation of these entities. The initial similarities, on the basis of which certain concretes were isolated and conceptually integrated, were grasped by a process of observation; all subsequently discovered characteristics of these concretes are discovered by the same method (no matter how complex the inductive procedures involved may become). The fact that certain characteristics are, at a given time, unknown to man, does not indicate that these characteristics are excluded from the entity or from the concept. A is A; existents are what they are, independent of the state of human knowledge; and a concept means the existents which it integrates. Thus, a concept subsumes and includes all the characteristics of its referents, known and not-yet-known. Every truth about a given existent(s) reduces, in basic pattern, to: "X is: one or more of the things which it is." The predicate in such a case states some characteristic(s) of the subject; but since it is a characteristic of the subject, the concept(s) designating the subject in fact includes the predicate from the outset. If one wishes to use the term "tautology" in this context, then all truths are "tautological." (And, by the same reasoning, all falsehoods are self-contradictions.) In the realm of propositions, there is only one basic epistemological distinction: truth vs. falsehood, and only one fundamental issue: By what method is truth discovered and validated? To plant a dichotomy at the base of human knowledge-to claim that there are opposite methods of validation and opposite types of truth-is a procedure without grounds or justification. In one sense, no truths are "analytic." No proposition can be validated merely by "conceptual analysis"; the content of the concept-Le., the characteristics of the existents it integrates-must be discovered and validated by observation, before any "analysis" is possible. In another sense, all truths are "analytic." When some characteristic of an entity has been discovered, the proposition ascribing it to the entity will be seen to be "logically true" (its opposite would contradict the meaning of the concept designating the entity). In either case, the analytic-logical-tautological vs. synthetic-factual dichotomy collapses. The epistemological basis of this dichotomy is the view that a concept consists only of its definition. According to the dichotomy, it is logically impermissible to contradict the definition of a concept; what one asserts by this means is "logically" impossible. But to contradict any of the non-defining characteristics of a concept's referents, is regarded as logically permissible; what one asserts in such a case is merely "empirically" impossible. Thus, a "married bachelor" contradicts the definition of "bachelor" and hence is regarded as "logically" impossible. But a "bachelor who can fly to the moon by means of flapping his arms" is regarded as "logically" possible, because the definition of "bachelor" ("an unmarried man") does not specify his means of locomotion. What is ignored here is the fact that the concept "bachelor" is a subcategory of the concept "man," that as such it includes all the characteristics of the entity "man," and that these exclude the ability to fly by flapping his arms. Only by reducing a concept to its definition and by evading all the other characteristics of its referents can one claim that such projections do not involve a self-contradiction.) - Leonard Peikoff, The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology