Analytic and Synthetic Knowledge

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Relation of evolutionary framework to the question and nature of a priori and synthetic knowledge[1], [2]

Analytic [by reason [analysis] alone] knowledge is, classically, “knowledge” that is true by analysis of language, by tautology: e.g., “a black cat is black.” In this sense, analytic knowledge is a priori: prior to empirical observation/sense perception. A synthetic judgment: a judgment relating a subject concept with a predicate concept not included within the predicate proper. The validity of such a judgment depends on its “ground.” Kant’s central [epistemological] question was: “Are synthetic a priori judgments possible?” Kant’s answer was that synthetic a priori judgment is possible [in mathematics and in intuitive principles such as causality, as examples, which cannot be derived from sense data and must be logically a priori to the materials that they relate]. Such synthetic a priori elements are “transcendental” which means that, while they are indubitably in experience viewed as a connected whole, they transcend sense materials in status

We can also argue that analytic knowledge [which is necessarily a priori] is transcendental; i.e., real. There is a real content to the statement “The black cat is black.” This is suggested by the fact that the black cat will probably remain black - and a cat - for at least a moment. One will not have to look around every moment to see if it is still black - or still a cat. More accurately, the universe is such that perception of black cat is possible. Even better, the universe, the world, has become such that perception of black cats and propositional expression of such perception is possible... The even simpler phrase “The cat” has similar content. There is its syntactic and semantic content of course, and there is content implied by its syntactic form. In addition, there is content implied by its expression that is over and above the content implied by mere expression of a phrase

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Without this observation, analytic truth seems to be true in a way in which the synthetic a priori cannot be true. Analytic truth is linguistically true which is at a higher level of generality than logical or mathematical truth of the synthetic. That is why the truth of the analytic seems to be inaccessible to the synthetic. However, this is at most apparent. The problem is that “The black cat is black” is a linguistic expression of the proposition “The black cat is black.” The symbol for the proposition and the linguistic expression are identical. The symbolic object and the instrument of analysis are the same [by sight and sound]. However, the proposition is not merely its symbol, nor is it merely its linguistic expression. “The black cat is black” has an intuitive [perhaps natural language] meaning prior to [symbolic] language. We could regard language as purely symbolic. In that case, the phrase “The black cat is black” would be a convention to be empirically verified. In this case, we must ask, “What is the origin of the convention?” In either interpretation--meaning is conventional or intuitive--the phrase “The black cat is black” has an a priori character

In general, the separation of verb and noun is not as clear as the concepts seem to be. Likewise the subject-predicate form: analytic knowledge refers to a phase of experience. This phase of experience is the a priori. However, it is not obvious to what it a priori. Likewise, analytic knowledge is transcendent but it is not obvious what it transcends

The simple “deduction,” “a black cat is black,” should not mislead us into believing that all analytic knowledge is trivial. Some analytic deductions may be highly complex, provide new

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information by no means explicit or anticipated from the initial information. However, the relationship between the premises and the conclusions are contained in the background universe. That there is factual content, albeit of a very general nature, follows from the linguistic [and logical paradoxes]. This falsifiability of analytic knowledge implies, not that it is scientific, but that it is about the structure of a certain phase of reality that includes knower and known

Thus in numerous ways: significance, transcendence, being intuitive knowledge of some phase of reality, the analytic and the synthetic a priori are of similar type. In either case knowledge or reality has been coded into symbolic formulations...and this is open to selection or falsification. For these reasons, the rational foundations of language, logic, mathematics are never complete. However, there is a phase in the development of thought in which analytic and synthetic a priori are not open to analysis and therefore the a priori acquires an absolute, transcendental character

Such knowledge, the a priori, must have developed at some pre-rational, perhaps pre-linguistic phase - perhaps even before the dawn of thought. It must be encoded in to the body - perhaps into elementary perception and neural structures. If the knowledge is prior to thought, it is not synthesized through thought - though it may be discovered and expressed through thought and language. If it is pre-linguistic, it is not easily amenable to linguistic

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analysis; if it is pre-rational it will seem necessary to or contained in logical analysis. We should look to evolution of organisms and their universes for the origin and structure of a priori knowledge

There is a certain permanence to the structures of the earth, which permit organisms to have organismic knowledge and human organisms to have - in addition intuitive knowledge - evolutionary and experiential knowledge. Rocks and lava, which have properties today, had many of the same properties at the dawn of geology: the potential to be perceived in colors, as massive, as fluid, and so on. These potentials represented actual qualities and the ability to perceive them was built into evolving organism. Organisms, objects and qualities are all real in that they are part of the world...even while the concepts of “organism”, “object” and “quality” are relational. The perceptions are composites of perceiver and perceived, but it would be adaptive for certain permanences and stabilities to be built in to body, perception, and language...”The brown rock over there ‘is’ over there, ‘is’ brown.” This is analytic knowledge2 above

There are levels of organismic knowledge, which have to do with the special circumstances of our biological and social evolution but are not in the general character of the total or even immediate universe. Thus, such knowledge does not have the apparent character of a universal or a universally expressed truth. However, cognitive, cultural knowledge may communicate with this organismic level through feeling, selective experience rather than through direct empirical evidence. The actual situation may be complex with both intra-organismic communication and cultural selection being involved

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This may include origins of the synthetic a priori. Some “values” may be examples. Rational and rationalistic analysis may be an example. Causality may be an example. Causality would “look” very different to a virus, an elephant, a galaxy, a universe...

Some knowledge grows out of individual and social processes which are remembered; other knowledge of cultural type is of obscure origin but these origins can be deduced - at least the fact of the origin. All such knowledge is synthetic and not a priori: it is or has been based on empirical and factual information. Nevertheless, knowledge with obscure -traditional and other - origins may appear to have an a priori character

Knowledge learned by an individual through life experience is ontogenetic; knowledge learned by species, life, and so on is phylogenetic

Analytic knowledge depends on certain features, predating even [perhaps] geological evolution: uniformities and stabilities of the immediate universe. However far enough back in race, species… Physical evolution - possibly among a universe of local universes--these features crystallized into evolving order. Such information may predate rationality and may or may not be encoded into rationality: rationality is incomplete; may predate and may or may not be encoded into language, intuition: language and intuition are incomplete. However this information is coded into existence and “being” which may, and does, communicate to and is searched out by rationality, language, and intuition. When encoded into rationality, language, intuition, these instruments of understanding

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do not originally reflect the evolutionary origins of stabilities and permanences in structures, fluxes and relations...and do not need to have done so. Hence the apparent a priori natures of rationality, analytic knowledge, and aspects of intuitive truth. However the absolute distinction between a priori and empirical [synthetic a posteriori] truth is not an ultimate distinction, although it did seem ultimate to Kant. Conventionally, synthetic, empirical knowledge is learned by individuals directly: this is ontogenetic [3] knowledge: from the individual being. What is learned by the culture as a whole: myth, tradition, what is learned by the species…? In organic evolution [instinct, autonomous regulation]: is phylogenetic[4] knowledge

Knowledge that seems a priori to the individual may be empirical to species and physical evolution. “Knowledge” that is a priori to species may be empirical to life [DNA coding] or physical evolution [evolution of atoms]. However, the a priori, even the deep a priori, may be recognized, understood and found to have a context called a “limitation” by the pessimists. There is a sense, in which all self-knowledge of creation - which is not distinct from its being - is both a priori [or necessary] and synthetic [or empirical

[1] Since conceiving and first writing this, I have encountered these ideas in Max Delbrück’s Mind from Matter, and Konrad Lorenz’s Behind the Mirror

[2] Note added in 1992 and supplemented in 1998. The form of the statement here was somewhat limited and unclear. The main points are as follows. [1] Analytic knowledge is possible in this universe. [2] There may be universes in which [our form of] analytic knowledge is not valid; and that in this sense analytic knowledge is synthetic knowledge. [3] The present universe is such a universe. This is so in a number of ways. Firstly, language, which is part of the metaphysical background to the expression of analysis, cannot be regarded as having completed its potential evolution even in a progressive sense. A second argument relates to the nature of the distinction between analytic and synthetic knowledge. The original distinction was as follows. Analytic truth of a proposition follows from a syntactical analysis of the internal relations of its constituent parts. Synthetic truth follows from a comparison of the semantic contents of the proposition with external world to which those contents refer. The synthetic a priori was supposed to refer to fundamental truths so basic that reference to the world was not necessary for their validation. Alternatively, it may be said that the reference was prior to the becoming of an individual, a society, a civilization... A better distinction from the evolutionary and modern anthropological points of view is between knowledge that is phylogenetically bound into the organism through evolution and knowledge that is ontogenetically learnt through development. Many sub-distinctions are possible based on such considerations as the distinction between linguistic vs. iconic representation, and blurring of distinctions as in the phylogenetic basis of ontogenetic potential. However, the main distinction between phylogenetic - or ultimate - and ontogenetic - or proximate - process is fundamental. Moreover, as suggested by the previous sentence this distinction can be generalized: ultimate, absolute and necessary vs. proximate, temporal and contingent. Thus, in the 20^th century - especially in the last 25 years - it has become common to regard the distinction between the analytic, the synthetic a priori and the truly empirical as incomplete. Further, the distinction is seen to be less central than at the time of Kant. What of the newer distinctions: ultimate vs. proximate...? As our learning advances, our reading is that such distinctions begin to blur and assume lesser importance. At the same time, the implicit and explicit actual and metaphysical frameworks broaden in spatial, temporal and conceptual scope. This latter process reintroduces into our knowledge a distinction between the two processes: metaphor or reading of established patterns or logic - the ultimate... and experiment or discovering new patterns - the proximate...we remain in this process

[3] From Max Delbrück, Mind from Matter, 1985

[4] From Max Delbrück, Mind from Matter, 1985