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axioms, just like Euclids postulates, are not true solely in virtue of the principle of non-contradiction. The
negations of these axioms may be false, but they are (demonstrably) not contradictory. So, arithmetical
statements are not analytic (at least not in the sense in which Kant used that word).
Kants second way of establishing that mathematical statements are synthetic is to argue that our
knowledge of them involves a kind of intuition. Explaining this argument requires a fuller discussion of
intuition and its role in cognition. Let me come back to this later and for now just assume that Kant has
established that mathematical statements are synthetic rather than analytic.
So, Kant has now established that mathematical statements are synthetic statements that we know a
priori. But it is just this sort of knowledge that Hume has denied. Humes claim was that we could have a
priori knowledge only of statements whose negations were contradictory, i.e., in Kants terms, only of analytic
statements. If Kant is correct in asserting that mathematical statements are synthetic, then a Humean has only
two choices: deny that we have knowledge of mathematics, or admit that it is possible to have a priori
knowledge of synthetic statements. Kant claims that Hume would have opted for the latter alternative.
Indeed, Hume cited arithmetic and geometry in his examples of knowledge of relations of ideas. Kants task
is thus to explain how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, in the face of Humes attack. This is how Kant
now proceeds.
Of course, there is always the first alternative of denying that we know that mathematical statements
are true. This is the position I have described as that of the committed Humean. Kants response to the
committed Humean comes later, but I can describe the gist of it now. Kant will claim that in order for
synthetic a priori knowledge to be possible, certain conditions must obtain. But, he will argue later, for there
to be consciousness of object of any kind, these same conditions must obtain. But clearly there is
consciousness of objects. This much even Hume admits (even though, according to Hume, these objects that
we are directly conscious of are mind-dependent perceptions). So, since there is consciousness of objects,
these conditions must obtain, and so synthetic a priori knowledge is thus possible, including knowledge of
mathematical statements. This, of course, is only a very broad characterization of Kants claims. We will see
the details later. But I wanted to make clear up front that Kant is not simply ignoring this possibility.
In the remainder of the Introduction, Kant argues that the sciences all contain examples of synthetic a
priori knowledge. He considers the claim that every event has a cause. This is precisely the example that
Hume considered and dismissed, arguing that since its negation was not a contradiction, it could not be known
by reason alone, and, since it applied to all events, even those that have never been and never will be
experienced, it could not be known on the basis of experience. But it is not just causality that Hume called
into question, but all laws of nature. The claim that all bodies attract one another according to the inverse
square of their distance is likewise not true by definition (i.e., it is not analytic), and it is not something that
could be justified on the basis of experience (since we can never experience all bodies). So, explaining the
possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge is not only essential for metaphysics, but for physics as well.
Finally, we have metaphysics proper. Kant notes that all of its claims synthetic (since they purport to
tell us about the nature of reality, not simply of the meaning of words), and all are claimed to be known a
priori, because metaphysics differs from physics precisely in that it is not based upon sense experience. So,
Kants quest to explain the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge is a necessary precursor, i.e., a
necessary prolegomena to any future metaphysics. As we shall see, virtually all of what Hume thought of us
as metaphysics will be rejected by Kant. Kants claim will be that the realm of synthetic a priori knowledge is
not reality as it is in itself, but rather, how that reality must necessarily appear to us, given the conditions of the
possibility of consciousness of an object.
This is the task that Kant now undertakes. He will claim that cognition of an object has two essential
aspects, a sensible aspect, and a conceptual aspect. In the Aesthetic, Kant describes the immanent
structure of the sensible aspect of cognition, while in the Analytic, he describes the immanent structure of the
conceptual aspect. In the Aesthetic Kant will claim that space and time are not features of nor relations
between things in themselves, but are instead the pure forms of sensible intuition, i.e., merely the ways in
which we organize the data of sensation (or, as Kant calls it, the manifold of sensibility) into a spatiotemporal array that we can then conceptualize as an experience of objects. But more of all this later.