Kant's philosophy ends in meaninglessness-

The central question Kant tries to answer in the 'Critique of Pure Reason' is "How are synthetic a priori judgements possible?" Nowell-Smith argues that the question is "...one of the most important and difficult in philosophy" With the work of W.V.O.Quine namely his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" the distinction between synthetic as analytic knowledge has been thrown into doubt . This doubt, as Nowell-Smith notes, has led to recent discussion on the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge . Norman Kemp-Smith argues that Kant assumed as a presupposition that synthetic a priori knowledge was possible and he sought to show how as a consequence synthetic a priori judgements where possible? As R Walker points out Kant's solution was two fold [even though Kant didn't see that each solution was a separate attempted proof], namely his transcendental idealism and his transcendental arguments . Now as the presupposition for these proofs is the accepted validity of synthetic a priori knowledge then if this knowledge is proven to be non-existent then these proofs of Kant become redundant.

Strawson investigating Kant's attempted account of synthetic a priori judgements via his transcendental idealism notes that this transcendental idealism is incoherent and as such "...it must be concluded that Kant really has no clear and general conception of the synthetic a priori at all." This is because Strawson claims that Kant transcendental idealism undermines Kant's claims that he can have knowledge of reality because transcendental idealism means, according to Strawson, that " reality is supersensible and that we can have no knowledge of it."

If we at first focus upon Kant's classification of propositions without looking at the individual definitions we will see that this classification leads itself to the fact that synthetic a priori propositions are a contradiction in terms. On this point it should be pointed out as Korner notes that the Kantian classification has been criticised by some critics: some seeing in the classification "...a mistake which vitiates the whole critical philosophy. "According to Kant all judgements are either analytic or synthetic and no judgement can be both; this is because these judgement are infact contradictories

According to Kant all judgements are either analytic or synthetic and no judgement can be both; this is because these judgement are infact contradictories . Korner makes the point that all analytic judgments are a priori . Now the question is are all a priori judgements analytic. If they are then in terms of Kant's own definitions a judgment cannot be synthetic a priori as this would mean that it is both synthetic and analytic simultaneously; a situation Kant denies can happen. Now based upon Kant's explication of these terms the answer must be that all a prioris are anaylitic.. According to Kant judgements which are not a priori are a posteriori and thus synthetic ( non-analytic). Korner likewise notes "...all [judgements] that are a posteriori ( non a priori ) are necessarily synthetic (non analytic)." Thus because a posteriori judgements are synthetic then a priori judgements must be analytic because as Kant notes a judgement can only be one or the other. Consequently a synthetic a priori judgement is really a synthetic analytic judgement a situation as we have said Kant denies can happen

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