The Poverty of Conceptual Truth

Abstract

Abstract Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments underwrites a powerful argument against Leibnizian–Wolffian metaphysics. That traditional metaphysics promised to reveal the rational structure of the world by representing all truth as conceptual, flowing from logically perspicuous "containment" relations among concepts. Such a system would be analytic, sensu Kant. But Kant shows that scientifically indispensable parts of our knowledge (including mathematics, the foundations of natural science, empirical knowledge, and the principles of metaphysics itself) are essentially synthetic and could never be restated in analytic form. Thus, the target metaphysics is doomed because knowledge crucial to any adequate theory of the world cannot even be expressed in its restricted idiom. Traditional metaphysics founders on the expressive poverty of conceptual truth. Kant's distinction can be given a clear basis in central ideas of the traditional logic (concept containment, Porphyrian hierarchies, and logical division). This logical conception of analyticity provides boundaries for conceptual truth, thereby resisting suggestions that synthetic truths might be restated as analyticities through improvements in our concepts or knowledge (Part I). While the logical conception of analyticity seems straightforward, Kant's path to discovering it was difficult and tracing it illuminates the critical philosophy (Part II). With a clear distinction in place, it is possible to reconstruct compelling arguments that mathematics must be synthetic, vindicating the anti-Leibnizian argument from expressive power (Part III). Similar considerations then prove important for Kant's famous arguments against traditional metaphysics in the "Transcendental Dialectic" (Part IV). The overall interpretation carries interesting morals for understanding Kant's theory of empirical concepts and the role of "conceptualism" in his philosophy (Epilogue).

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 246 citations exist upstream.