The History and Fate of the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction
edited by:
Felice Masi (Federico II University, Naples, Italy)
Luigi Laino (Federico II University, Naples, Italy)
Ever since Kant released his distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments, it seems that most philosophers and scientists were committed to take a stand on Kant’s claims. However, the meaning of the terms underwent several modifications over time and it is not a stretch to contend that this caused at least two kinds of misunderstandings and an important result. First, it is Kant himself who explained that the distinction is subject to interpretive changes of perspective, therefore the boundary is often provisional. Second, it is thus possible that what some authors call “analytic” is conceived as “synthetic” by others or vice versa. Third, due to such an ambivalence, it might be better to put the distinction aside and focus on more appropriate manners of describing the formation of concepts, the way in which we provide utterances or conceive empirical and mathematical knowledge.
These points roughly unfold the historical development of the debate concerning the analytic-synthetic distinction. Accordingly, the aim of this issue of Humana mente is to embrace the whole historical time frame that, departing from Kant, eventuated in the more recent discussion on the fate and survival of the analytic and the synthetic as major categories in the theory of knowledge.
We thus welcome submissions on authors and historical periods arranged as follows:
1) Papers on Kant and the rise and importance of the analytic-synthetic distinction;
2) The debate about the distinction in the post-Kantian (e.g. Trendelenburg, Drobisch, Herbart, Lotze and so on) and neo-Kantian tradition (e.g. Cohen, Natorp, Rickert, Lask, Cassirer, Dingler and others)
3) The analytic-synthetic distinction within the phenomenological tradition (mainly Brentano and Husserl)
4) The analytic-synthetic distinction within logic and the history of logic (Boole, Frege, Couturat, Russell, Wittgenstein and so on)
5) The analytic-synthetic distinction within the philosophy of mathematics and physics between 19th and 20th centuries (Bolzano, Riemann, von Helmholtz, Poincaré, Einstein, neo-empiricists such as Reichenbach, Schlick, Carnap)
6) The likely vanishing of the analytic-synthetic distinction within the analytic tradition (e.g. Quine, Strawson, Sellars, Kripke, Putnam, McDowell)
7) Contemporary perspectives (e.g. Gillian Russell, post-Quinean strategies, post-Chomskyan linguistics)
Deadline for submissions: 31 March 2025
Papers should be between 8000 and 10,000 words (including abstracts, footnotes, and references), and authors are required to follow the instructions in the Submission section (https://www.humanamente.eu/index.php/HM/about/submissions). Only papers in English will be accepted. For further information, do not hesitate to contact the editors (felice.masi@unina.it; luigi.laino@unina.it).
