REASONING ABOUT GOD
The red house is red.
This is an analytic proposition. You don't need to go and look at the house to know that this sentence is true. Another way of understanding analytic propositions is that they are SELF-EVIDENTLY true or that they are TRUE BY DEFINITION. Kant explains it by saying that the predicates are contained in the subject (the redness of the house is contained in its name: "the red house"). Kant also explains that, for an analytic proposition, its negation is a contradiction (it makes no sense to say "the red house is not red"). |
Analytic statements are true by definition. This includes mathematical statements, where the truth of a statement is contained in the terms. Kant uses these examples:
Whereas this is an example of a synthetic proposition:
Here the predicates are not contained in the subject. "Whiteness" isn't part of the definition of "swan" and you do in fact find black swans. |
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it does not therefore follow that what [the Fool] understands the word signifies exists actually, but only that it exists mentally - Thomas Aquinas
there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori - David Hume
If your statement is proved, it says nothing about that which exists; if it is about existence, it cannot be proved - Leonard Peikoff
Only analytic propositions really count as proof, but according to Kant these are cut off from reality. Synthetic propositions tell us about reality but we can never be certain that they're true. This leads to the worrying conclusion that we never really know anything at all.
Religious philosophy often leads to problems like this. You can refute the ontological argument, but only at the cost of opening a "can of worms" that brings all knowledge claims into doubt. If we abandon the analytic/synthetic distinction, then the problem goes away, but the ontological argument returns in force.
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