Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
In all judgements wherein the relation of a subject to the predicate is
cogitated (I mention affirmative judgements only here; the application
to negative will be very easy), this relation is possible in two
different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as
somewhat which is contained (though covertly) in the conception A; or
the predicate B lies completely out of the conception A, although it
stands in connection with it. In the first instance, I term the
judgement analytical, in the second, synthetical. Analytical judgements
(affirmative) are therefore those in which the connection of the
predicate with the subject is cogitated through identity; those in
which this connection is cogitated without identity, are called
synthetical judgements. The former may be called explicative, the
latter augmentative judgements; because the former add in the predicate
nothing to the conception of the subject, but only analyse it into its
constituent conceptions, which were thought already in the subject,
although in a confused manner; the latter add to our conceptions of the
subject a predicate which was not contained in it, and which no
analysis could ever have discovered therein. For example, when I say,
“All bodies are extended,” this is an analytical judgement. For I need
not go beyond the conception of body in order to find extension
connected with it, but merely analyse the conception, that is, become
conscious of the manifold properties which I think in that conception,
in order to discover this predicate in it: it is therefore an
analytical judgement. On the other hand, when I say, “All bodies are
heavy,” the predicate is something totally different from that which I
think in the mere conception of a body. By the addition of such a
predicate, therefore, it becomes a synthetical judgement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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