Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

just in its more normal sense of meaning simply the shape that things take.)

Mathematics uses axioms as its starting point and then uses deduction to derive further truths. Physics (a lot of which, of course, is derived from mathematics) is another contender to being a formal system of truth. Other areas of knowledge suffer from ‘physics envy’ — wishing they could have formal truths, laws and axioms and all the rest, to give them a firm footing.

A synthetic truth is a statement about reality, but it is said to be contingently true rather than necessarily true, that is, it is open to question, it could be proved wrong. (So from our necessary/contingent distinction, a synthetic truth is a contingent truth of the ‘natural’ variety.) A synthetic statement is a statement based on observation. Reverting to our contrast of analytic and synthetic truth — generally it is therefore, a posteori, that is, empirical rather than rational. Kant however sought to prove that at least some synthetic statements are necessarily a priori — amongst then the assumption of time and space. We will pick up on this again in future chapters.

The analytic and synthetic types of truth were, in fact, first named by Kant. (It could be added that every true statement is a ‘statement of identity’ — an analytic statement, as described by Kant. Every subject already contains its own predicate (although this notion has been questioned by other philosophers).

Analytic truth uses deduction to try to reach new conclusions. Synthetic truths use induction.

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