On a Hitherto Unnoticed Weakness in Kant’s Theory of Analytic Judgement

Abstract Kant’s doctrine of analytic judgement is characterized by two theses: First, Kant holds that a judgement is analytic if its predicate is contained in the subject. Second, he claims that the principle of contradiction can serve as a sufficient criterion for determining the truth value of any analytic judgement. The paper argues that these two claims do not go together. For Kant’s criterion of containment implies that analytical judgments are always true analytic. If this is the case, the criterion of contradiction becomes meaningless, since there are no true and false analytic judgments between which it could distinguish. To prevent this, Kant’s definition of analytic judgment must be expanded to allow for false analytical judgments. Kant himself suggests a way to do this in his Reflections. This approach is taken up and elaborated on in this article.