"If They're Wrong, They're Wrong"
On Schmanalyticity and A Reappraisal of the Synthetic A Priori
One of the most venerated philosophers in analytic philosophy has died: Saul Kripke. May his soul rest in peace. His Naming and Necessity from 1980 is an âa posteriori necessaryâ work any professional analytic philosopher has to grapple with, while I can also fully sympathise with Derrida who is said to have said that Heidegger is lucid by comparison.
Yesterday Thomas Meyer wrote in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung: âEs war Immanuel Kant und mehr noch die PhĂ€nomenologie, denen Kripke einen folgenschweren Fehler unterstellte: Sie hĂ€tten ihre Ăberlegungen auf einer Verwechslung von AprioritĂ€t und Notwendigkeit aufgebaut.â But is that so?
Iâm reminded of the exhilarating critique of this critique of Kant that Robert Hanna delivered in his 2015 book Cognition, Content, and the A Priori (OUP 2015), in which the arguments of Kripke, Quine, Putnam and others were meticulously scrutinised. I repost here my review of that book that was posted before on Critique, in 2017, or at least the relevant parts of it (Iâve taken out Section II).
Renowned philosopher and Kant scholar Robert Hannaâs most recent book Cognition, Content, and the A Priori. A Study in the Philosophy of Mind and Knowledge is probably his most ambitious to date. Itâs also an exhilarating read: an exemplarily lucid, fast-paced philosophical thriller replete with pithy nuggets of philosophical substance and in addition, as the allspice added to the main ingredient, jesting but no less scathing in-house attacks on the elementary dogmas set in stone and religiously patrolled by the vanguard of analytical philosophy. In his critique published earlier last January, David Landy focussed on Hannaâs topic of nonconceptualism, a main theme of the book. I have dealt with that subject in the past and also again in my own forthcoming book (Schulting 2017), and I think I have said enough about it. I personally believe Kantian nonconceptualism is now dead and buried, and the less said about it, the better. I say this with not a little irony, only very recently having edited myself an entire volume on the topic. I firmly believe though that whatever continues to be written about it can only be a repetition of past moves: it seems to me that every conceivable worthwhile position has been made sufficiently clear in the existing literature (see e.g. the most recent here).
For this notice, I therefore set out to concentrate on Chapters 4 and 5, which consider the far more interesting more strictly logical side of the subjects dealt with in Hannaâs book (most of my comments concern Chapter 4). I came away with the strong feelingâI always suspected itâthat (a) the likes of Quine and especially Kripke and their latter-day acolytes can without regret be cast out from the canon, regardless of the misleading sophistication of their and their disciplesâ logico-metaphysical puzzles, and, more intriguingly even, that (b) analytic philosophy as we know it is in fact not analytic philosophy properly speaking, or at least, cannot account for itselfâwhich is kind of odd, to say the least, for an approach to philosophy that prides itself on its rigour. Hannaâs book should be read by any philosopher, in particular, self-declared analytic philosophers, worth their salt, especially as there are some substantial things about a core aspect of philosophy, certainly analytic philosophy, at stake that Hanna discusses in this important, somewhat unorthodox book, and which I would like to highlight here in terms of the Kantian context of the book and invite Hanna to cast some more light on.
As said, back in January my co-critic David Landy discussed Hannaâs well-known nonconceptualist construal of Kantâs philosophy of perception, which Hanna rehearses in great detail in Chapter 2 of the book, and I myself have dedicated quite a few pages to critically discussing his views in this regard, beginning in my 2010 article in Dutch (Schulting 2010), in my German language article in Kant-Studien (Schulting 2015), and most recently in my forthcoming second monograph on the Deduction (Schulting 2017, ch. 5). In Chapter 3, Hanna presents his theory of what he calls âradically naĂŻve realismâ. Further, after a chapter on the Benacerraf dilemmas, in the remaining chapters of the book Hanna dedicates quite some space to delineating a new, Kantian theory of intuition. Interesting and important though they may be, I have nothing to say here about these topics. Nevertheless, in the context of the subject of my critique here, I do need to briefly address the topic of nonconceptualism in my little rĂ©quisitoire towards the end of the paper (Section III).
I
In Chapter 4, Hanna argues for a return of the âanalytic-syntheticâ distinction in logic, more in particular for a reappraisal of the synthetic a priori, dismissed out of hand by analytic philosophers, almost by defaultâa rejection that is perhaps even definitional of analytic philosophy, which points exactly to the problem that Hanna highlights, namely, that by dismissing this distinction, and a fortiori the notion of the synthetic a priori, analytic philosophy canât even explain its own status as analytic philosophy, for it has no satisfactory means of explaining analyticity.1 By the same token, in dismissing, or at least downplaying the importance of, this distinction as well as the idea of the synthetic a priori, it canât explain truths other than strictly-logical or merely-conceptual truths, that is, it canât explain truths about non-conceptual facts in the world.
As Hanna notes, âQuine rejected the analytic-synthetic distinction [âŠ] on the grounds that it could not be reductively explained in other terms, and proposed its eliminationâ (p. 147). By contrast, Hanna wants to argue that âthe analytic-synthetic distinction itself can be adequately explained, in a contemporary Kantian way, in terms of intentional idioms and intentionality, or more precisely, in terms of mental content and human rationalityâ (p. 148). He argues convincinglyâand I shall not attempt to repeat his meticulously laid out arguments for it hereâthat the possibility of analytic philosophy itself is hard to explain if the analytic-synthetic distinction âwere either unintelligible or indefensibleâ (p. 151). Whatâs more, âthe very idea of a semantic content would go downâ and âthen, like so many dominoes, the very ideas of belief, cognition, thought, understanding, justification, knowledge, intentionality, and human rationality [âŠ] would all go down, too, since all these notions inherently involve and basically presuppose the notion of semantic contentâ (p. 151). This is quite a far-reaching and devastating outcome if what Hanna claims were true, so much so that one wonders how Quine, not to speak of all those who came after him, could ever have been so rash as to dismiss the analytic-synthetic distinction, or, more in particular, the synthetic a priori.
By way of clarification, Hanna writes that
by the notion of âa robust analytic-synthetic distinctionâ I mean a version of the analytic-synthetic distinction that explanatorily includes and fully preserves an essential difference between (i) analytic truths, which are inherently necessary and a priori, and (ii) synthetic truths, with the possibility also being explicitly left open of explanatorily including and fully preserving another essential difference between (iia) synthetic necessary and a priori truths, and (iib) synthetic contingent and a posteriori truths. (p. 152)
The truths under (iia) and (iib) are, respectively, ânon-logically, essentially non-conceptually, or strongly metaphysically necessary synthetic a priori truthsâ, and âcontingent synthetic a posteriori truthsâ in virtue of nonconceptual content. Hanna thinks there is ânothing less than [a] categorically sharp contrastâ between a priori truth in virtue of conceptual content and a posteriori truth âas represented by autonomous essentially non-conceptual contentâ, that is, content whose âtruth is never in virtue of conceptual contentâ (p. 153â4). Hanna also criticises the view that âthere is one and only one basic kind of necessity, and thus only one basic kind of necessary truth (=modal monism)â (p. 159). I return to this so-called âcategorically sharp contrastâ between (analytic or synthetic) a priori truths and a posteriori truths in my critique towards the end of this note.
Further, Hanna says that according to the orthodoxy of analytic philosophy
any statements that are discovered to be a priori and necessary âmust beâ analytic or conceptual necessities, even if they do not fit any classical profile of analytically or conceptually true statements, and even if in fact they also satisfy the classical criteria of synthetic apriority. But such statements are âanalyticâ or âconceptualâ truths only in a misnomer-based, Pickwickian, or so-called sense, simply because they deviate importantly from all the classical conceptions of analyticity and conceptual truth, and because they also satisfy the classical criteria for synthetic a priority. Strictly speaking, then, they should be called âsynthetic a priori statementsâ, although it would perhaps be even more accurate to call them âschmanalyticâ statements. (p. 163)
This is the enigma of contemporary orthodox analytic philosophy: either a priori and necessary truths are analytic truths or truths in virtue of essentially conceptual content, or if they are not, then truths are either not a priori or not necessary (think contingent a priori statements or Kripkeâs necessary a posteriori statements; see further below). âSchmanalyticâ statements are then statements that are not strictly speaking or purely analytic statements, but they are nonetheless deemed to be analytic in some sense since they canât be synthetic a posterioriâwhile they obviously arenât analytic in the standard sense (analytic purely in virtue of logical or conceptual content). They are therefore in fact âso-called analyticalâ, as Hanna puts it (p. 163). This is an explanatory embarrassment that directly results from the rejection of synthetic a priori truths: âschmanalyticâ statements are not purely analytic, and not synthetic a posteriori, but a middle term like the synthetic a priori is not acceptable, hence they must be analytic in some alternative sense.
This quandary is made clear by Quineâs contradictory position on logic and his revisability principle. Hanna points out that Quine makes a strict distinction between âsheer logicâ (the logic of analytic truth strictly speaking) and (the logic of) all other truths (pp. 167â8), but it becomes clear that this leads to contradictions in Quineâs account. That is to say, Quineâs Universal Revisability Principle is in tension with his Sheer Logic Principle (p. 166). Given Quineâs Universal Revisability Principle and his Sheer Logic Principle, Hanna says, âno statements are unrevisable and yet some statements are unrevisable, and the law of non-contradiction is both revisable and unrevisableâ. This inconsistency is what Hanna calls âQuineâs Predicamentâ, which, as Hanna infers with impish glee, âgoes like a dagger into the very heart of Quineâs overall critique of the analytic-synthetic distinctionâ. At the risk of seeming to lay it on rather thick, Hanna concludes that, âin effect, Quineâs Predicament is Quineâs committing cognitive suicide by logical self-stultificationâ (all quotations from p. 166). All in all, Quineâs Predicament is âphilosophically direâ (p. 171). With such an indictment of a famous philosopherâs legacy, one asks oneself why Quine was and still is2 ever so considered a major deity in the analytical pantheon.
Hanna has caught Quine out, for if there is, as Quine admits, a clear distinction between âanalytically true statements of elementary logicâ and âall other truthsâ (p. 168), and âradical indeterminacy does not hold for words that express the classical truth-functional logical constantsâ (p. 176),  then it seems there is âan intelligible and defensible analytic-synthetic distinction after allâ (p. 168). Hence, there are no good grounds for dismissing out of hand the analytic-synthetic distinction.
Nevertheless, without jumping to the conclusion that since Quine is wrong about the analytic-synthetic distinction, Kantians are right to hold that there is such a distinction, Hanna acknowledges the possibility that rejecting Quineâs critique might still leave open the possibility of
rejecting the existence of an intelligible or defensible analytic-synthetic distinction, if it could be shown that analyticity, apriority, and necessity can be detached from one another. [âŠ] Kripke and early Putnam offer widely influential arguments for the detachability of the necessary and the a priori, in both directions, from the existence of necessary a posteriori statements and contingent a priori statements. (p. 177)
But after thorough analysis of the available putative solutions to the question what analyticity isâI canât match the sophistication and analytical (!) precision with which this is carried out in the bookâHanna comes to the conclusion that the explanations of Russell, Katz, Boghossian, Juhl & Loomis et al are all âmerely theories of schmanalyticity, not theories of analyticityâ (p. 182). According to Hanna,
it is very unclear whether appealing to stipulation in order to explain analyticity* [as do Juhl & Loomis], in the end, is any more explanatory than simply appealing to intentionality in order to explain analyticity* [âŠ]. [A]nalyticity* is still schmanalyticity, not analyticity. So my most general worry about the post-Quinean accounts of analyticity is that Russell, Katz, Boghossian, and Juhl and Loomis, for all their philosophical ingenuity, insight, and rigor, have simply changed the subject. (pp. 181â2)
Startlinglyâsince this looks like it may sound the death knell of the entire Kripkean and post-Kripkean oriented or influenced modal metaphysics industryâHanna propounds that
all the arguments offered for the existence of necessary a posteriori statements, contingent a priori statements, and analytic contingent statements are unsound, but also that there are really no such things as the necessary a posteriori, the contingent a priori, and the analytic contingent. All three of these pseudo-concepts must be eliminated. (p. 182)
I will freely and fully admit that this contemporary Kantian eliminativist project in particular is a very strenuous task, given the canonicalâindeed, almost biblicalâstatus of the fictional conjoined philosopher Kripke-Putnamâs writings in recent and contemporary Analytic philosophy, and especially Analytic metaphysics. But if theyâre wrong, theyâre wrong, and somebody needs to point out the Emperor is actually wearing no clothes. (p. 183)
This much is clear from reading Hannaâs account: contemporary theories about analyticity (or âanalyticity*â or âso-called analyticityâ) are just so many vain attempts to avoid having to admit defeat to the Kantian, who has a perfectly valid solution to the problem of explaining the difference between analyticity and other a priori and/or necessary truths, namely the synthetic a priori.
But the operative question is: what then does the notion of the synthetic a priori accomplish in terms of explaining analyticity that all those valiant efforts by so many lights in logic and metaphysics couldnât? Here I found Hanna less helpful. Hanna rightly relates Kantâs analytic-synthetic distinction to his content dualism, which holds that there are âtwo essentially distinct but complementary kinds of intentional content or mental contentâ, namely conceptual content and intuitional content, whereby âanalyticity is grounded on conceptual content and syntheticity is grounded on intuitional contentâ (p. 198). But to present the analytic-synthetic distinction as neatly mapping onto the concept-intuition distinction is too easy, I think, and probably incorrect.
What is meant by âconceptual contentâ? Sure, âanalyticityâ is grounded on conceptual content if by âconceptual contentâ is meant the relation between two or more concepts, whereby (1) that relation is ultimately one of subordination, in virtue of analytic unity, in a categorical judgement as the basic form of any logical relation (in Kantâs logic) and (2) analytical relations between concepts can be explained by conceptual content only, for any actual reference to objects, via intuitional content, is otiose.
But does that imply that syntheticity is not based, at least partly, on conceptual content in any sense at all? Clearly, for Kant at least, syntheticity should in some sense also be related to analyticityânot in the sense that any synthetic judgement is in the last instance explainable by conceptual analysis alone, which would get us right back to square one, namely, the Leibnizian position that Kant criticised, but in the sense that synthetic judgements are judgements with conceptual content, which is constituted by the way in which concepts are always related by virtue of analytic unity, as Kant puts it (A79/B104â5; I discuss this passage below), as much as they are also grounded on intuitional content.
There is another sense in which the analytic-synthetic distinction cannot be seen as simply mapping, one-to-one, onto the concept-intuition distinction: the synthetic a priori, which Hanna rightly associates with the analytic-synthetic distinction, is however not equivalent to that distinction. I think Hanna would concur with this, but it wasnât clear to me how he sees them related. They cannot be equivalent theses or notions, for the synthetic a priori also in some way, to put it in Kantian terms, grounds the possibility of analyticity, as one term in the distinction relation, something that Hanna himself appears to suggest in the way in which the synthetic a priori is the substitute for whatever is not analyticity strictly speaking (âso-called analyticityâ, âanalyticity*â), and also thereby first enables the demarcation from sheer logic, analyticity strictly speaking. To put this differently, the synthetic a priori is the enabling condition for differentiating analyticity from syntheticity and vice versa, that is, for making the distinction between the two, and hence, it in some sense explains analyticity.
Of course, the synthetic a priori is a necessary condition only, obviously not a sufficient condition of analytic statements or truths, which if it were would collapse the distinction between the synthetic a priori and the analytic again. It would also conflate two distinguishable levels: The synthetic a priori operates at the transcendental level; analytic statements (or synthetic a posteriori statements, for that matter) do not. The synthetic a priori thus enables analyticity, by grounding the semantic content of analytic statements, their own aboutness, in the same way that statements about the world are enabled by transcendental truth (synthetic a priori truth). All this doesnât mean that the rules of general or formal logic (âsheer logicâ) or the criteria of analytic truths, truths in virtue of logical or conceptual content alone, are not sui generis. Here, there is a perfect symmetry between synthetic (a posteriori) and analytic statements: the synthetic a priori doesnât provide the sufficient condition for both their semantic content, but only a necessary condition, namely the possibility of having semantic content in the first place [âŠ].
[âŠ]
III
I have said very little that is explicitly critical of Hannaâs account. Thatâs because I wholeheartedly agree with almost all that he actually says (and he does say a lot that is going to throw a monkey wrench in the prevailing debates in metaphysics, logic, epistemology, Kantianism, and so forth). Howeverâand perhaps this is beyond the remit of the book, which is not devoted to strict Kant interpretationâit was not always clear to me in what positive manner transcendental logic, or the logic of the synthetic a priori, can be said, in one way or the other, to ground or constrain analyticity, or properly mark out the distinction between analytic or conceptual truths and synthetic a priori as well as synthetic a posteriori truths, truths in virtue of nonconceptual content. What is clear to me is that Hanna has sufficiently shown, in glorious analytic detail, that all efforts heretofore to explain the notion of analyticity and the difference(s) between strictly- or sheerly-logical truths and truths that are not strictly- or sheerly-logical truths have come to nought, and that all so-called solutions are not explanations of analyticity or analyticity* and whatever is non-necessary and non-a-priori truth, but of âschmanalyticityâ, i.e. no explanation at all. So much for analytic philosophy as the paradigm of rigorous philosophy!
But perhaps in his reply Hanna can divulge some more about what he thinks that Kant brings to the table precisely, whether heâd agree with my account above or has a different take on thisâbeyond the fact that we must assume the notion of the synthetic a priori so as to explain analyticity, and how this relates to a âsharpâ distinction between the purely analytic and the synthetic. Sometimes, as I tried to convey earlier, Hannaâs reasoning struck me as emphasising the distinction between analytic or conceptual truths and truths about non-logical matters, facts in the world (non-conceptual truths?), too much. Clearly, they are non-reducible kinds of truth, but given the paramount importance of the synthetic a priori as the quintessential middle term that is sorely missing in analytic philosophy, one would assume that, as I believe, the distinction between the analytic and the synthetic, necessary though it is, canât be absolute, but is relative, just because both rely on the synthetic a priori as their enabling ground (without thereby dissolving or conflating in any way the distinction between transcendental and general or formal logic; that hard border in fact first enables us to understand the synthetic a priori as the middle term between the analytic and the synthetic).
This last point also relates to Hannaâs emphasis on the absolute distinction between conceptual truths and truths in virtue of nonconceptual content, which concerns his essentialist Kantian nonconceptualism. As he says, there is ânothing less than [a] categorically sharp contrastâ between a priori truth in virtue of conceptual content and a posteriori truth âas represented by autonomous essentially non-conceptual contentâ, that is, content whose âtruth is never in virtue of conceptual contentâ (p. 153â4). However, in properly Kantian terms, it strikes me as a matter of course, and as the whole point of Kantâs Critical metaphysics, that any truth about strictly-non-conceptual matters, facts in the world, must at least in some sense be internally related, in virtue of the synthetic a priori, to whatever conceptual truth about those facts is stated in propositional form, for how else could we express true statements about and have true knowledge of these facts? In other words, strictly-conceptual truths and strictly-non-conceptual truths are grounded in a truth they share: the transcendental truth which grounds both alike. This is most emphatically expressed by the famous Leitfaden passage at A79/B104â5, where Kant writes:
The same function that gives unity to the different representations in a judgment also gives unity to the mere synthesis of different representations in an intuition, which, expressed generally, is called the pure concept of the understanding. The same understanding, therefore, and indeed by means of the very same actions through which it brings the logical form of a judgment into concepts by means of the analytical unity, also brings a transcendental content into its representations by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition in general, on account of which they are called pure concepts of the understanding that pertain to objects a priori. (A79/B104â5)
Kant does not say or suggest here that there could not be intuitions or sensible content that are or is not subsumed or at least subsumable under concepts (either a priori or empirical concepts). Conceptualists who take this passage to refute Kantian nonconceptualism are simply wrong (see Schulting 2017, ch. 5; see also Allais 2016 and Golob 2016). But he does say or at least strongly suggest that given any particular judgement p, the empirical, sensible or intuitional content of p is combined by the same function that combines the concepts in p. This function, which is the necessary original, hence a priori, synthetic unity of apperception, both unites concepts analytically and provides p with transcendental content synthetically, namely it constitutes its very aboutness, the âfactâ that the judgement is about objects or events in the world. This means that the âcategorically sharp contrastâ between a priori truth in virtue of conceptual content and a posteriori truth in virtue of nonconceptual content is not stipulated by Kant in the Leitfaden, but rather the opposite, at least insofar as synthetic a priori truth is concerned. The very same function that unites concepts insofar as their basic analytical subordination relation is concerned also establishes synthetic a priori truth in terms of the application of the categories to any empirical content in a judgement p (that is, the manifold of representations in an intuition that is the x underlying the subject term of a categorical judgement), and hence, because synthetic a priori truth (transcendental truth) is the necessary condition of synthetic a posteriori truth (material or empirical truth), it also thereby establishes synthetic a posteriori truth, given sensory input of course.
One might want to argue that here in the Leitfaden Kant says nothing about analytic truths, and technically speaking thatâs right. But recall Kantâs remark in that [âŠ] footnote to the B-Deduction, in which Kant makes the sideways observation that original apperception is a condition even on the whole of logic. [âŠ] This could be interpreted in such a way that analytic statements, which are prima facie governed merely by the rules of what Kant calls general or formal logic (B79; B170), are also constrained by the necessary rules of transcendental logic, in that they are as much thoughts with semantic content as judgements about objects are, even though the analysis of their purely conceptual content does not require reference to the functions of thought as metaphysical categories, let alone to actual objects. To put this differently, analytic truths are not in any way reducible to synthetic a priori truths (which would result in an inverse kind of âschmanalyticityâ), but clearly the distinction between the analytic and the synthetic cannot be a âcategorically sharpâ one, as Hanna believes, lest one dismiss this idea of transcendental logic being a condition on logic itselfâbut then, if he were to do so, Hanna would contradict his own attempts to reintroduce or reappraise the analytic-synthetic distinction, and a fortiori, the synthetic a priori, as a means of explaining the very possibility of analyticity or the principles of sheer logic, and its distinction from syntheticity.
© Dennis Schulting, 2017, 2022.
References:
Allais, L. (2016), âConceptualism and Nonconceptualism in Kant: A Survey of the Recent Debateâ, in D. Schulting (ed.), Kantian Nonconceptualism (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 1â25.
Golob, S. (2016), âWhy the Transcendental Deduction is Compatible with Nonconceptualismâ, in D. Schulting (ed.), Kantian Nonconceptualism (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 27â52.
Schulting, D. (2010), âKant, non-conceptuele inhoud en syntheseâ, Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 72,4: 679â715.
â (2015), âProbleme des âkantianischenâ Nonkonzeptualismus im Hinblick auf die B-Deduktionâ, Kant-Studien 106,4: 561â80.
â (2017), Kantâs Radical Subjectivism: Perspectives on the Transcendental Deduction (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Even apart from explanatory problems with the meaning of âanalyticityâ, I have often wondered why someone would declare him- or herself specifically an analytic philosopher. To me, to do so is more a political or ideological gesture, so as to mark out oneâs turf, or at any rate to make it clear that one is not a continental philosopher, whatever that means (with all the institutional benefits that brings). If it is not political, then certainly the moniker âanalytic philosophyâ is pleonastic. As if philosophy could be anything other than analytical. Isnât philosophy about analysis tout court? On the other hand, one may doubt if an âanalytically orientedâ approach to Kantâs Critical philosophy is actually appropriate. Kant used the phrase in an early Anthropology lecture (in the Winter Semester of 1775â76); he is reported to have said the following: «Indeed, there exist sciences of the kind, and this is analytical philosophy [analytische Philosophie], in which one sheds light on obscure representations by uncovering them» (V-Anth/Fried, AA 25:480, Lectures on Anthropology, trans. and ed. A. Wood et al [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], p. 56). In the later Anthropology Mrongovius (1784â85), Kant says: «In analytic philosophy [Analytischen Philosophie], I simply make obscure representations in the soul clear» (V-Anth/Mron, AA 25:1222; Lectures on Anthropology, p. 353). Given these definitions, what Kant says in an introductory passage in the Transcendental Analytic, in the run-up to the Metaphysical Deduction would seem to interdict an âanalytically oriented approachâ to transcendental philosophy, which would subvert the latter if it were applied to it; Kant says namely that «I understand by an analytic of concepts not their analysis, or the usual procedure of philosophical investigations, that of analyzing the content of concepts that present themselves and bringing them to distinctness, but rather the much less frequently attempted analysis of the faculty of understanding itself, in order to research the possibility of a priori concepts by seeking them only in the understanding as their birthplace and analyzing its pure use in general; for this is the proper business of a transcendental philosophy; the rest is the logical treatment of concepts in philosophy in general» (A65â6/B90â1; boldface added).
By way of anecdotal evidence, in Brian Leiterâs recent survey âThe Most Important Western Philosophers of All Timeâ, so as recent as last April (!), voters rated Quine as the 4th most important 20th century philosopher after Frege, Wittgenstein and Russell, and the 22nd of all time, above Epicurus and Rousseau! It is striking that Husserl and Heidegger didnât get enough votes to end up in the top-30. The other 20th-century philosophers in the top-30 are, predictably, Kripke, Lewis, Rawls and Carnap, the latter by far the more interesting and important of the bunch.