More on the Analytic/Synthetic Dichotomy
Just to recap what I reported here , this is from Leonard Peikoff's essay "The Analytic/Synthetic Dichotomy" : In one sense, no truths are "analytic." No proposition can be validated merely by "conceptual analysis"; the content of the concept--i.e. 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. If you wonder about this, ponder the proposition water is H 2 O.