After the End of the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction; Part Three

Physicalism is a term Quine used instead of materialism. Quine's ontological terminology allows any term to be a non-realist term--that is unlike Kripke's neo-realism where words seem to have some real meaning associated with them for themselves, Quine seem to lean more toward Russell and others who felt words have meaning given by use. If physical means one thing to people in 1775 and another thing today--each meaning could be true,yet that's more of an historian of language meaning's kind of truth then and now rather than the kind of truth that one might find in some kind of analytic statement construction such as "every triangle has three sides".

Quine might have agreed with your statement above--yet in the Kantian context the analytic and a priori is something more independent of experience of the world of experience.

It was Immanuel Kant who developed the concept of analytic and synthetic judgments in his magnum opus 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. He later presented a condensed version of the Critique in 'A Prologumena to Any Future Metaphysics'. LikeBeing and Nothingness and the Bible, I have had that book around forever.

Kant's work is considered to have commenced modern philosophy as co-equal with Descartes. Descartes examination of the cogito and primordial sentient thought was a foundation for epistemological logic, yet Kant's work was more rigorously technical. I will place a pair of hyperlinks to descriptions of Kant's categories of thought. Analytic judgments are about things in the mind without necessary existence in the 'natural'world. Such statements such as exist in algebra suffice as an example, while statements about rainfall, a Superbowl game, bad federal building design in D.C.--these are examples of synthetic judgments. Quine however transcended the difference between the two realms that empiricists had made an opinion about.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic-synthetic_distinction

I will quote the wikipedia entry on their technical definition of a phrase each of Kant's analytic proposition and his synthetic proposition:

"analytic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept"

"synthetic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept"

With analytic judgments it is easy to make intentional, within thought only tautologies or topics in agreement logically that do not necessarily exist physically. I should same it is in theory possible, yet perhaps only so far as one acknowledges the proposition as finite in nature, phenomenal and subject to the boundaries of the incompleteness theorem of Godel. Geometric forms are implicitly section-samples of some larger wholistic realm of forms perhaps--a conic section is just a conic section of a cone, sphere or some other arbitrary configuration of volume.

Incidentally, I think salvation through Jesus Christ may concur with Plotinian paradigmata of The One in this regard; Jesus may be the only sinless,perfect form permissible to God for integration into the eternal realm of forms, heaven,or eternal, scalable purposes of God. Humanity pervasively has local, non-eternal broken form in acceptable for scalable eternal being. The sacrificial work of The Lord who donates His grace unto the faithful provides human beings with The Perfect Form required of The One whom issued this temporal Universe with numerous broken forms within it. Even junk r.n.a. has a purpose though--so the unwilling to be saved through Jesus Christ may serve a useful temporal role unknown to many of us.

The wikipedia entry for Kant also reminded me of another important Kantian distinction regarding statements; the a priori and the a posteriori. I will quote a phrase each from the wiki entry on those:

"a priori proposition: a proposition whose justification does not rely upon experience"

"a posteriori proposition: a proposition whose justification does rely upon experience"

Taken together with the analytic-synthetic distinction it is easy to understand how empiricists could classify synthetic a posteriori favorably and a priori statements rather with bias. Darwinians would favor the synthetic a posteriori for physical evidence. Quine found the Kantian methods rather unwieldy. Obviously a lot of analytic and even a priori judgments go into theorizing about evolution that is added to the physical evidence, and such also occurs in anticipating the future truth values of present federal budget deficit and national debt predictions which have a discount rate greater than that of many too big to fail banks. Some governments feel they are too big to fail I think.

Empiricists believed that only synthetic judgments could present real information about the world--especially useful to scientists. Following is a link to a defense of Kant vs Quine. I agree with Quine however, and believe that Kant's noumenonal-phenomenal distinction is more important.

http://nzphilosophy.blogspot.com/2005/08/kants-analyticsynthetic-distinction.html

The analytic synthetic distinction is of practical value in classifying various kinds of language and what it refers to, and is of value for philosophy in distilling ideas and language for logical consideration of meanings of terms and their validity in particular contexts. Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction was transcended in the same way the Einstein's relativity transcended Newton's theory of gravity. Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction is still valid locally for categorizing phrases and referents, yet not absolute--that is analytic judgments occur in a physical context too although in the mind, and propositions they can be about such as quantum mechanics, or string theory, may actually apply to the 'real world' such as might analytic statements such as 'the color of the apple is red'. From understanding of optics we know why the color of an apple may appear red to a sighted individual who isn't color blind. Newton developed a theory of optics.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08603a.htm

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That's an interesting inference. Plotinus pointed out that questions, language and communication in a sense exist only for imperfect beings lacking omniscience. If The One knows everything then there is no reason to ask anything. For Plotinus the existence of anything therefor was a mystery; if The One is absolute perfection and power,why create the temporal?

The phenomenal has the unknown too. Perhaps with analytic or even a priori researches one might attain more knowledge. That is possibly a history of math and algebra with Lie and Killing groups useful for string theorists who still develop an analytic framework without decent yet into conformal symmetry with the 'objective realm'of experience that is this Universe.

I think that sort of unknown area of research can only reveal the phenomenal however. A valid string theory could only be phenomenal, as I think can any a priori or analytic, synthetic or a posteriori judgment be only revelatory of the phenomenal. The noumenal is unknowable. I erred above I think in postulating to forms of the noumenal-such perhaps as you refer to for the discovery of which is a purpose of language. I think type A of the noumenal should just be the unknown phenomenal. The noumenal would be that vast realm forever unknowable to human knowledge.