Page:Russell - The Problems of Philosophy, 1912.djvu/132

128 is not purely "analytic," i.e. such that the opposite would be self-contradictory; and secondly, for having made evident the philosophical importance of the theory of knowledge.

Before the time of Kant, it was generally held that whatever knowledge was a priori must be "analytic." What this word means will be best illustrated by examples. If I say, "A bald man is a man," "A plane figure is a figure," "A bad poet is a poet," I make a purely analytic judgment: the subject spoken about is given as having at least two properties, of which one is singled out to be asserted of it. Such propositions as the above are trivial, and would never be enunciated in real life except by an orator preparing the way for a piece of sophistry. They are called "analytic" because the predicate is obtained by merely analysing the subject. Before the time of Kant it was thought that all judgments of which we could be certain a priori were of this kind: that in all of them there was a predicate which was only part of the subject of which it was asserted. If this were so, we