http://www.jstor.orgAnalyticity RedefinedAuthor(s): Mario BungeSource: Mind, New Series, Vol. 70, No. 278, (Apr., 1961), pp. 239-245Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2251754Accessed: 18/05/2008 21:32Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We enable thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.ANALYTICITYREDEFINED 1 WHENa problemissuspectedtohaveoriginatedatleastpartlyina semanticalchaos,itisallowabletoattempttoclarifyorevento dissolveitbyproposingaredefinitionofthekeytermsinvolved. Sucha chaos,consistinginan unrecognizedmultiplicityof meanings ofakeyterm,seemstoexistinconnectionwiththeproblemof analyticity.Indeed,inmanydiscussionsonanalyticityonegets theimpressionthatoneandthesameauthormaintainsovertlya Pickwickiandefinitionof'analytic'withoutactuallyabandoning another,widermeaningofthetermwhichremainshiddeninthe backofhismind-towit,theetymologicaloneofdeterminable by rationalexaminationalone.Werethispsychologicaldiagnosis correct,thentheovertrecognitionandadoptionofthisbroader linguisticconventionwouldbehelpful,especiallyiftheproposed new definition were shown tocontainthe acknowledgedconnotations. Thefollowingisaformalstatementofthisproposalandasketch ofinquiryintotheconsequencesof itsadoption. 1. Redefinition of Analyticity Iproposetoredefinethepredicate' analyticinS ' (where' S designatesalinguisticor atheoreticalsystem)asthegenusofthose expressionsthetruthvalueofwhichcanbeascertainedbytheir syntacticalor semanticalexaminationalone-i.e.bydispensingwith empiricaloperations.(Analysis may require the employmentof pro- positionsbelongingtotheempiricalsciences,butwillnottherefore beempirical.)Moreprecisely,Iproposethefollowingdefinitions: Df.1.AnexpressionisanalyticinS ifandonlyifitisjustifiable bymeansofanexaminationofitscomponentsigns,withthesole helpofotherexpressionsofSand/orthelogicLpresupposedbyS. Df.2.An expression is syntheticin S if and only if it is notanalytic inS. Noticethattheseredefinitions(a)involveareturntotheety- mologyof' analytic';(b) relativizethenotionof analyticity(unless itcouldbeshown,whichisunlikely,thatSmustbethesumofall actualandpossibletheoreticalsystems);(c)aremethodological oroperational,sincetheystipulatethattheassignmentofthe predicates'analytic'and'synthetic'shouldbebasedonlyon informationsregardingtheproceduresbywhichtheexpressions concernedare justified. Now,iftheaboveproposalwereaccepted,wewouldhaveto acknowledgethatitcharacterizesa genusembracingvariousspecies. 2.Kinds of Analyticity Atleastthefollowingclassesofanalyticstatementsare consistent withtheproposeddefinition: I.Tautologies, or propositionstrue inS byvirtueof their form and independentlyoftheirmeaning.Synonyms:logicaltruths, 1 Read before the6thInter-American Congress ofPhilosophy, Buenos Aires, 1st September, 1959. 239 240M.BUNGE: syntacticallyanalytic,orsyntacticallytrue,orextensionallytrue propositions. Example:'Semanticsisfertileorisnotfertile'isatautology relativelytoanyLacceptingthelawoftheexcludedmiddle. Recallthatthetruthofthesecomplexpropositionsdoesnot dependonthetruthvaluesofthecomponentpropositions.Only tautologiesandtheircontradictionsneedbemolecularinorderto beanalyticinthepresentclassification. II.Contradictions,orpropositionsfalseinSbyvirtueoftheir formandindependentlyoftheirmeaning.Synonyms:logical falsehoods,syntacticallyfalse,or extensionallyfalsepropositions. Example:'Semanticsisfertileandnotfertile'islogicallyfalse relativelytoanyLacceptingthelawofcontradiction. III.Tautonymies,or propositionstrueinS byvirtueof themean- ingsof thetermsoccurring in them.Synonyms:semanticaltruths, semanticallyanalytic, orsemanticallytrue,orintensionallytrue propositions. Examples:'Bachelorsare unmarried' isa tautonymyin English. 'AllIndiansare borninIndia'wasatautonymyinthecontextof pre-Columbian geography. Itmaybenoticedthatwhatareherecalled'tautonymies'may beregardedassemanticalrulesindisguise;thedifferencebetween themis,thattautonymiesarelinguisticconventionstakingthe formofpropositions,notofproposals.Noticefurtherthata tautonymydoes notnecessarilyestablishasynonymy;thus,inthe tautonymy ' Chronometersaretime-measuringinstruments',the predicates'chronometer'and'time-measuringinstrument'have neitherthesameconnotationorthesamedenotation,sothatthey arenotexchangeable-whencethepropositiondoesnotexemplify analyticityintheFrege-Russellsense. IV.Heteronymies,orpropositionsfalseinSbyvirtueofthe meaningsofthetermsenteringinthem.Synonyms:semantical falsehoods,or semanticallyfalse,or intensionallyfalsepropositions. Example:'Inductionisademonstrativeinference'isheterony- mous.(On theother hand,'Electronsare virtuous'isjustmeaning- lessinthecontextof physics,andempiricallyfalseinthecontextof ethics.) V.Axiomstrue by convention, or propositionsbothbasicandtrue inS byvirtueof stipulations.Synonyms:conventionalpostulates, or truthsbystipulation. Examples:thepostulatesoflogicandpuremathematics. Itshouldbeunnecessarytoinsistthatthepostulatesthatare introducedbyconventionare notarbitrarilyposited,butare chosen becauseoftheirexpectedfruitfulnessandsystematizingpower. TheyareanalyticaccordingtoDf.1becausetheirstatusisauto- maticallyrecognizedineveryaxiomaticS. VI.Explicitanalyticdefinitions,or synonymies inSsuchasare notproposals. ANALYTICITYREDEFINED241 Examples:'xisaphilosopherifand only ifxposes, solves, or dissolvesphilosophical problems ' isananalyticdefinitionof 'philosopher'. In contrastwith tautonymies,explicit analytic definitionsestablish strict synonymies (so far as this is possible) and can consequentlybe usedasrulesofelimination (ofthedefinienda).Noticethat,in contrast withsyntactical conventions, definitions ofthissortare full-fledgedpropositions,whence they are true or false, whence they satisfy a necessarycondition for being analytic. VII.Definitedescriptions,or definitionalname-termrelations. Examples:' A philoloaferis a person who leads an idle life ' is a definite description inanylinguistic system willing toaccept the neologism ' philoloafer'.'One metre is the ten-millionth part of a quarter of terrestrialmeridian' was a(true byconvention) definite descriptionin thecontext in which thedecimal metric system was first formulated. VIII.Definitionaltruths, or propositionstrue inS either because they are implicit definitions,or recursivedefinitions,or because they are derivable with the sole help of explicit definitions and truths of logic. Examples:' (n + 0n) . (n . 00O)'isanalytic insystems of arithmetics which do nottakezero asaprimitive.' 7isaprime number' can be recognizedas true in ordinaryarithmeticsby means ofthesoledefinition of' prime number'.'Purewater boilsat 100?Cat normal pressure' is analytic in physics if the Celsiusscale is adopted, since it is an implicit definition of the fixed point 100?C. ' Change isinherent ineverylivingsociety'islikewise analytic because itcan be derived from theexplicit definition ' Asociety is alive if and only if it changes'. IX.Designationaltruths, or truthsderivable inSwiththesole help of rules of designation of S and truths of logic. Example: ' The trout is a swimminganimal' is analytic in every Scontaining thefollowing rules ofdesignation: " ' Trout'desig- nates a fish ", and " ' Fish ' designates a swimminganimal ". Noticethatthetruthswearecalling ' designational'arenot tautonymies but some of them can be derived from tautonymies. X.Demonstrabletheorems,orpropositions trueinSforbeing deduciblefrom S's principles(axioms and definitions)with the help of L. Example: ' Homo sapiens has evolved bynatural selection'isa theorem of evolutionarybiology. Acloser examination might discern further kinds of analyticity, or lead to the merging of some which have here been distinguished. 3.The ContextualNature of Analyticity Ithas been assumed intheforegoing thatanalyticity isacon- textual predicate, that is, a property of propositionsrelative to the system in which they occur.Let us examine this assumption. 16 242M.BUNGE: I.Tautology.Achange inthelogicLpresupposed bySmay sufficeto expel some propositionsfrom the class of tautologies.For instance,'pornot-p'neednotbetautological inmany-valued logical calculi. II.Contradiction. The same as for I.(Rememberthe systems of Indian and Chineselogic which accept contradictions.) III.Tautonymy. Achange in the cognitive situation mayalter the status of a tautonymy in S.For instance, 'All Indians are born in India'isno longer tautonymous inthecontextofour present knowledge. IV.Heteronymy. The same as for III. V.Axiom true by convention. Every change in the postulational basis ofa theory involves the dethronementof some of itsaxioms. Forexample, 'Everythinggreen isextended'isanalyticinthe systemcontaining theaxiom'Everythingcoloured isextended ', butmaybesyntheticinalternative systems.Noproposition is intrinsically axiomatic or theorematic, and no truth isintrinsically conventionalor demonstrated. VI.Explicit analytic definition. The definition of philosopheras one who poses, solves, or dissolves philosophicalproblems,might be theoutcome ofan empirical research about thepeculiar activities ofmen who are regarded as philosophersondifferent counts (e.g. because their names occur in histories of philosophy). VII.Definite description.The original definition of themetre is nowasynthetic(andfalse)proposition.'Matteristhatwhich exists objectively ' is analytic if regardedas a definitionof ' matter'; itbecomes synthetic ifthe meaning of thedefiniendumisspecified in terms of predicates other than objective existence. VIII.Definitional truth.Achange insomedefinitions, orthe extrusion from-Sofsome terms, are enough for thevanishing of some definitionaltruths.Thus, 'Whenan invention is premature, it is either ignored or rejected', is simply meaninglessin the context ofatheoryofhistorythatdoesnotadmitinvention,butonly discovery and/or imitation.'Survivingorganisms are thefittest in the struggle for life'may be regardedas an implicit definitionof ' fitness ' in terms of ' survival ' and ' struggle for life ';but fitness might be independently defined or characterized,inwhich case we would gain a law of biology in the place of a truth of reason. IX.Designationaltruth.Since thestatusofthesepropositions dependson the semanticalrules of S, it is obviousthat a change in the latter may deanalyticizesome former designationaltruths. X.Demonstrabletheorem. The same as for V. To sum up, the thesis of the contextual nature of analyticity seems tohave been justified.'Analytic'and 'synthetic' are notattri- butes inherentin isolated propositions but are relational,contextual, ANALYTICITYREDEFINED243 systemic properties,relative to the system in which the expressions under examination occur. 4.The Analytic/SyntheticDichotomy If analyticity is contextual, then the analytic/synthetic dichotomy iscontextual aswell.Inother words, achange incontextmay force ustoalter theprocedure ofvalidation or justification; for instance, instead of performingempirical operations we mayhave to performlinguistic (syntactic and/or semantic) analyses. The analytic/synthetic dichotomybecomesrelativebut not foolish: itis perfectly valid in each context and must be kept ifwe do not wish toconfuse empirical with linguistic problems and procedures. Theelementary lawsofordinary arithmetic andgeometry began theirexistenceashumble syntheticpropositions andeventually acquired therespectable statusofanalyticstatements.Galileo's lawoffalling bodies was synthetic (and a posteriori)when itwas first formulated;since Newton's work it has become analytic, being derivable from propositions belonging toahigher leveloftheory. (Galileo'slaw is both analytic and a posteriori,as will be shownin the next section.) Afurther consequenceof theredefinition of'analytic'is,that, not only synthetic propositionsare informative:analytic a posteriori propositions(e.g. the theorems of factual science) are informative as well.Hence, 'synthetic'and 'informative ' should not be regarded as synonymsif the proposedredefinitionof analyticity were accepted. Finally, no absolutely self-explanatorypropositionsare left:self- explanatorinessis as relative as analyticity. Letme dwell on an important point:myproposal involves the relativization of thedistinction between theanalytic and thesyn- thetic, so that the traditional dichotomybetween them becomesun- tenable-ashas been noticed by several authorson variousgrounds.' But the distinction, which is indispensable,2is not thereforeerased. Generalizing,one maysaythattherational and theempirical are different but, far from being absolutely determined,are relative to thetotalcognitivesituation(background bodyofknowledge, validation rules, etc.). 1 W.Quine, " Two Dogmas of Empiricism " (1951), reprinted in From a LogicalPoint of View (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953). M. White," The Analytic and theSynthetic:AnUntenable Dualism " (1950), reprinted in L. Linsky (ed.), Semanticsand the Philosophy of Lan- guage(Urbana,Ill.:UniversityofIllinoisPress,1952).W.Sellars, " IsthereaSyntheticAPriori? "(1953),reprinted inS.Hook(ed.), AmericanPhilosophers atWork(N.York:CriterionBooks,1956). K. Ajdukiewicz," Le problemedu fondement des propositionsanalytiques" Studialogica, viii,259 (1958).M. Bunge, Metascientific Queries(Spring- field, Ill.:CharlesC. Thomas, 1959), chap. 3. 2E.Feigl,"ThePhilosophyofScience ofLogical Empiricism ",in Proceedingsof the SecondInternationalCongressof the International Union for the Philosophyof Science (Neuchatel, ed. du Griffon, 1955), i,95. 24I4M.BUNGE: 5.Analyticityand Aprioriness It is customaryto call a priori those propositionswhich are indepen- dentfrom fact;inparticular,thosewhichare truecomewhatmay. (Itcanbearguedthatapriorinessisasrelativetothecognitive situationasanalyticity,butthisneednotconcernushere.)Ifthe redefinitionofanalyticityproposedaboveisadopted,achangein thetraditionalassociationsofthelogicalorlinguisticpredicate 'analytic ' withtheepistemolcgcalpredicatea prioriensues. Infact,besides -analytica priori,synthetica priori,andsynthetic a posteriori propositions,a possibilityexcludedfrom thephilosophical literatureappears,namelythatanalytic a posteriori propositionsmay exist.Indeed,aswasmentionedinconnectionwithGalileo'slaw offallingbodies,apropositionmaybeanalyticinagivenSwhile atthesametimeaposteriori,becausethestatementsfromwhichit isderivedaredependentonexperience-i.e.theyare nottruecome whatmay.Generalizing,thetheoremsderivablefromaxiomsof systemsSoffactualsciencearebothanalyticandaposteriori inS. Analyticaposteriori propositionsareformallytrueandempirically likely;thissortofdouble(or,rather,oneandahalf)truthisour bestwarrantforadoptingthem-untilnewnotice.Noticethat, althoughallaprioripropositionsareanalytic,theconverseisnot true.Aposteriorianalyticitymaybeofferedasaconsolationto thosewhostilldeplorethelossofsynthetica priorijudgments. Now,ifanalyticityismarriageabletoaposterioriness,then 'synthetic'shouldnolongerberegardedassynonymouswith aposteriori.Thereareinformativepropositionshavingafactual (inparticular,empirical)content,whichareanalyticincertain theoreticalcontexts:theyarenotuntouchabletruthsoffact, externaltothetruthsof reasonbutare, sotospeak,rationaltruths of fact.' 6.Conclusions Theetymologicaland methodologicalredefinitionof 'analytic' proposedattheoutsetofthispaperhasthe followingadvantages: (1)Itispsychologicallysimpler thantheusual definitions;hence itmightcontributetosimplifythestatementofa problemthathas becomeenormouslyentangled inthelastdecade-ascanbeseen by reviewingMind. (2)Itisopen:itallowsfor furtherkindsof analyticpropositions, accordingasnewtechniques ofrational analysis are invented, oras theyarediscernedincurrentresearch. (Afterall,mypointing out ofpreciselytenkindsof analyticitymight beconnectedwithabias infavourofthedecimal system.) (3)Itrelativizes thedistinctionbetween' analytic ' and 'synthetic' whilepreserving itforeachcontext. 'M.Bunge,Causality:The Placeofthe Causal Principle inModern Science (Cambridge,Mass. :Harvard University Press, 1959), chap. 12. ANALYTICITYREDEFINED245 (4) Itreducesvaguenessin-the treatment of the analytic/synthetic problem,by dispensingwith phraseslike ' true in all possibleworlds ' -oritscontemporary equivalents-whichareoftenemployed to characterizeanalytic propositions. (5)Itallows ustounambiguouslydecidewhether thepredicate 'analytic 'canbeattributed toa propositionina givencontext, because itdoes not contain vague terms like 'inall possible cases ' and does not make unrealisticdemandslike the supply of a complete " statedescription" oftheuniverse concerned, butrequires only information about thejustification method thathas actually been employed. (6)Itapplies tosyntactical and semantical systems of all kinds, whether formalizedor not. Itmay further be noticed that, accordingto the discussionin the preceding sections, iftheproposed redefinitionisaccepted, then it follows that: (1)the predicate 'true' cannot be attributed to isolated proposi- tions, even iftheyare analytic;thesum totalof available know- ledge alone permits us tomake a decision in this respect, and since that body is changing, the decision may not be final. (2)Most of the propositionsbelongingto scientifictheoriesbecome analytic inoneofthesenses distinguished above;theorification thereforeinvolves analytization. (3)Notarelativeincrease inthestockofisolatedsynthetic propositions (such as protocol sentences), but rather an increase in the percentageof analytic propositions,is a desideratumof scientific research, sincethiscorresponds toagreatersystematization or theorification. The six previouslylisted advantagesof the proposedredefinitionof analyticity should be weighed against thelastthree consequences. Ifthelatter were found undesirable, thentheproposal should be rejected.Thepresent author found themdesirable because they match with his image of science, and this iswhy he suggests con- sidering the naive redefinitionof' analytic proposition 'as theone which can be assigned a truth value upon rational examination-or analysis, for short. Redefinitions do notwin battles butmayclarify and even stop quarrelsabout words-particularly about words so highly polymor- phous (as Ryle would say) as 'analytic'.May theabove redefini- tions contribute tostopan instructive dispute thathas lasted too long. MARIOBUNGE Buenos Aires University