Today we will talk about Immanuel Kant and his work. He developed a groundbreaking synthesis of rationalism, empiricism, and idealism—what he boldly called the “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy.
To start, Kant distinguished between two types of knowledge statements: analytic and synthetic. Analytic statements are those that are true by definition, like “A bachelor is unmarried.” The truth of this statement is self-evident because “unmarried” is already contained in the definition of “bachelor.” These statements are always true but do not provide us with new knowledge.
On the other hand, synthetic statements do give us new information. Consider the statement, “This bachelor is brunette.” This is not necessarily true just by understanding the definition of “bachelor.” We need to observe the world to determine its truth. These statements expand our knowledge but are not necessarily true in all cases.
In addition to analytic and synthetic statements, Kant introduced another crucial distinction: a priori and a posteriori knowledge. A priori knowledge is independent of experience—it is known before any observation. A posteriori knowledge, on the other hand, is derived from experience. If we revisit the statement “A bachelor is unmarried,” we see that it is both analytic and a priori because it is necessarily true and independent of experience. Meanwhile, “This bachelor is brunette” is both synthetic and a posteriori because it gives us new information but requires observation.
Kant also argued that there is a third type of knowledge: synthetic a priori statements. These are statements that, like a priori knowledge, do not come from experience, but like synthetic knowledge, they also provide new insights. Instead of being mere definitions, they are fundamental ideas that shape our understanding of the world.
An example of a synthetic a priori statement is “7 + 5 = 12.” This might seem purely mathematical, but Kant argued that it is not analytic. The concept of “12” is not already contained in “7 + 5” in the same way that “unmarried” is contained in “bachelor.” Instead, we must synthesize the two numbers together to arrive at 12. However, we do not need experience to know that this equation is true. It is something we can understand purely through reason, making it a priori. This is why Kant saw mathematics as an example of synthetic a priori knowledge—it expands our understanding but is still necessarily true independent of experience.