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Two Kinds of Truth is the 31st novel written by Michael Connelly . It features LAPD detective Harry Bosch and is the twentieth in the series of books featuring the character . Also, this is the eighth to feature Los Angeles defense attorney Mickey Haller . The book was released on 31 October 2017 in the United States .

• 1 Development
• 3 Characters
• 4.1 Part 1 - Cappers
• 4.2 Part 2 - The South Side of Nowhere
• 4.3 Part 3 - The Intervention
• 5 Audiobook
• 6 References

Development [ ]

Synopsis [ ].

Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando police and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town’s 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of prescription drug abuse.

Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch’s LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren’t keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison.

The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

Characters [ ]

• Detective Harry Bosch
• LA Defense Attorney Mickey Haller - Bosch's half-brother
• Esme Tavares - subject in unsolved missing person case
• Detective Bella Lourdes - San Fernando PD, Bosch's current partner
• Detective Oscar Luzon - San Fernando PD, colleague in Bosch's squad
• Detective Danny Sisto - San Fernando PD, colleague in Bosch's squad
• Captain Trevino - San Fernando PD, Bosch's commanding officer
• Chief of Police Anthony Valdez - San Fernando PD
• Detective Lucia Soto - LAPD open unsolved unit, Bosch's former partner
• Detective Bob Tapscott - LAPD open unsolved unit, Soto's new partner
• Horace Tapscott - late South LA jazz musician and community activist (non-fictional mentioned character)
• LA Assistant District Attorney Alex Kennedy
• Preston Borders - convicted murderer seeking exoneration
• Detective "Huey" - San Fernando PD, robbery squad
• Detective "Duey" - San Fernando PD, robbery squad
• Detective "Luey" - San Fernando PD, robbery squad
• LA District Attorney Tak Kobayashi
• Danielle Skyler - murder victim, killed by Preston Borders
• Donna Timmons - murder victim, believed to have been killed by Preston Borders
• Vicki Novotny - murder victim, believed to have been killed by Preston Borders
• Lucas John Olmer - deceased convicted rapist, implicated in Preston Borders case

Chapters [ ]

Part 1 - cappers [ ].

• Chapter 1 - Bosch is interrupted while working on the Esmerelda Tavarez cold case in the cells at San Fernando PD by a visit from his old partner Lucia Soto. Soto is accompanied by ADA Alex Kennedy and has bad news - a murderer Bosch put away, Preston Borders, is seeking exoneration by claiming Bosch framed him.
• Chapter 2 - Bosch is thrown by the challenge against the solid case he built against Borders. He learns that a review of the samples obtained at the crime scene has shown DNA from another man who died in prison years earlier. Bosch is convinced of Borders' guilt and initially believes the evidence must have been tampered with. However, Soto shows him video of them reviewing the evidence and the intact seals they found. Lourdes enters with news of a double homicide at a pharmacy. Bosch is informed that should Borders be exonerated he plans on suing both the city and Bosch personally.
• Chapter 3 - Bosch arrives at the pharmacy and takes command of the crime scene. He nominates Lourdes as lead investigator and tells her to observe everything. Forensics arrives.
• Chapter 4 - Bosch explores the scene, discovers a ~50 yr old male pharmacist shot at close range behind the counter of the small family pharmacy. A second body of a male in early 20s was found shot three times from behind evidently trying to flee, including a point-blank shot in the rectum. Two different weapons were used and no shell casings were found. The pharmacy had surveillance cameras. Pills were scattered around the floor, and there are signs others had been stolen. Soto calls, saying she's trying to deflect blame to Harry's former partner or the lab. Harry requests all files, and Soto declines. The wife and mother of victims arrives and Lourdes agrees to interview her, with Bosch advising her to focus on the son, saying the rectal shot indicates the shooter knew him and wanted to make a statement.
• Chapter 5 - Cameras reveal two ski-masked gunmen executed the pharmacists in a well planned operation. Bosch returns home and receives an envelope from Soto containing the Skyler files and spends the night reviewing them, remembering how aspiring actors Border and Skyler met in a casting agency.
• Chapter 6 - Bosch continues to review the old file, documenting the missing seahorse necklace from the victim and taking Borders in for questioning. He's charged and a search of his house finds the seahorse necklace and two other pieces of women's jewelry hidden which were traceable to other victims, but without strong enough connections to Borders, no charges were made. The seahorse necklace proves to be the key piece of evidence at trial, and a conviction is reached. Borders is sentenced to death.
• Chapter 7 - Bosch calls Mickey Haller who informs him that he is unlikely to be held personally financially liable in any lawsuits that follow the Borders case, but warns him that ADA Kennedy is not to be trusted.
• Chapter 8 - The detective team meets, reviews the video. Interviews with the mother indicate the victims were not getting along at the time of their deaths.
• Chapter 9 - Bosch contacts Soto, who implies there is more in the old file than new DNA evidence. Lourdes informs Bosch that records confirm that Junior had filed a complaint against a clinic in nearby Pacoima for overprescribing oxycodone. His father had been filling the prescriptions, either enjoying the additional sales or fearful of the consequences of not filling them. Junior declares he will no longer fill them. Bosch and Lourdes visit the clinic where a van of suspected "pill shills" arrive and leave 20 minutes later, with the van taking them to nearby Whiteman Airport. The van leaves, and a small plane takes off.
• Chapter 10 - They visit air traffic control to ask after the small plane, where they are told that the plane flies regularly with 15-20 vagrants flying in and out most days. The owners of the craft receive paperwork in Calexico and are not required to file flight plans and flights are also free to come and go at any time in the evening, when the airport is unsecured and even used for drag racers. The pilot reportedly has a Russian accent. Bosch inspects the records of the comings-and-goings of the airfield, with the involved plane being used most often. Video footage exists for up to a month. The plane should be equipped with a transponder and can be tracked with a day's notice.
• Chapter 11 - Bosch and Lourdes meet with the Medical Board, where Bosch's former partner Jerry Edgar is now an investigator. Edgar informs them that Pacoima Pain and Urgent Care is headed by a Dr. Efram Herrera who has been writing hundreds of prescriptions per week. Edgar that "cappers" recruit unscrupulous doctors and pharmacists to fill prescriptions and provide pills for destitute addicts, with the pills kept by the cappers for resale. Edgar notes that a Russian-Armenian cartel is one of the illicit industry's largest players and is run by a "Santos" who is supposedly based in the desert in mobile caravans, and that the DEA is aware of the operation. Edgar provides the contact to DEA Agent Charlie Hovan.
• Chapter 12 - Bosch receives a call from the prison where he learns that Borders and the deceased Olmer have the same lawyer. They return to the office where video from the pharmacy shows an altercation between the van driver and Jose, followed by an argument later between father and son. They agree to get a search warrant for Whiteman Airport and to involve the DEA.
• Chapter 13 - Continuing to work through the Borders case file, Bosch learns how the proceedings to vacate the conviction were initiated, and that Borders has told investigators that Bosch had planted the seahorse necklace in his possession before the original arrest.
• Chapter 14 - Watching over the video footage at the airfield, the detectives see two men land and later fly out of the airport, allowing ample time for the shootings. Bosch develops a plan to approach the van driver and attempt to scare him into giving up his bosses within their organization. They also take the clipboard with records of air traffic from the air-field. Harry talks to Maddie as he drives home and, upon arriving, finds Edgar waiting outside for his return. Edgar tells him that he had vouched for Bosch with DEA Agent Hovan. He says he is unsatisfied with his job and misses Detective work, and has come to ask if he could be involved in the case. Bosch invites him to join the war-room meeting the following morning.
• Chapter 15 - Bosch notices in the old records that Olmer's DNA had been supplied earlier to his attorney and that there was no record of it being returned to the State. Haller calls and Bosch tells him he wants to use his services to oppose the release of Borders, but that at this stage he did not have any proof that the evidence box had been tampered with. Haller tells Bosch that Borders previous lawyer David 'Legal' Siegel was their father's former partner, and that he was still alive and remains close to Haller, and that Haller will set up a meeting between Bosch and the aging lawyer. Bosch arrives at the war-room meeting, with Edgar and Hovan both in attendance.
• Chapter 16 - Hovan suggests that instead of scaring a driver into reporting a higher-up will not work. Boss Santos will be too insulated for that to work. He proposes Bosch go undercover with the vagrants who are all similarly aged to him and insert him into the group of pill-shills. Bosch agrees.
• Chapter 17 - Bosch meets Haller and Siegel at a nursing home. In a video recording, Haller interviews Siegel over the original Borders case. After summarizing the original case, Siegel states he's aware of the new proceedings and that he's been accused of suborning perjury. Siegel denies this and says that he had urged Borders to not testify at all, and that the detectives that investigated the case were unimpeachable.
• Chapter 18 - Bosch realizes that lawyer Cronyn was the architect of his framing, motivated by the money from the ensuing civil suit. Having preserved Olmer's DNA, he then approached Borders with the opportunity to be cleared and receive a large settlement. Bosch considers the means by which the DNA could have been planted on the victim's pajamas in the sealed evidence box.
• Chapter 19 - Harry meets Haller's investigator Cisco to help prepare him for undercover life as an opioid addict. Cisco gives him a knee brace and a cane that turns out to contain a concealed weapon. They watch the box opening video together and Cisco spots another man watching from outside as the box was being opened who Bosch recognizes as a civilian employee of the evidence center. Bosch enlists Cisco's help to track the property officer. Cisco tails him home and calls Bosch informing him that the staffer's name is Terry Spencer and that he may be in debt against his home. Bosch places a call to Cronyn posing as Spencer at it becomes clear that they have some kind of relationship.
• Chapter 20 - Bosch tells Cisco to carefully follow Spencer further, and alerts Cisco that Spencer is likely aware of the surveillance. Haller confirms that Spencer has major urgent financial trouble and is about to lose his home. Haller then tells Bosch that Spencer's foreclosure lawyer later became Cronyn's wife.
• Chapter 21 - Bosch and Haller develop a theory on how Spencer became involved. Cisco sends them both a video of Spencer meeting with Kathy Corbyn.

Part 2 - The South Side of Nowhere [ ]

• Chapter 22 - Bosch goes to a pain clinic and is searched by two Russians at the same same time as the DEA busts their other shills
• Chapter 23 - Russians return with prescription and recruit Bosch as a replacement shill. He has his phone and gun confiscated and is put in a van, then boards a plane filled with 11 other "pill shills" - addicts who are working for the drug ring to collect prescription medications in slave like conditions. The plane transports them to a desert camp where the addicts live.
• Chapter 24 - Bosch arrives at the encampment, and gets in a scuffle with a man named Brody, costing Brody a second pill. He is given food and a cot in an old school bus and warned by a tattooed woman that Brody will be coming for him.
• Chapter 25 - Bosch is attacked by Brody in his cot but easily subdues him. He then asks another man where the bathroom is and uses that as an excuse to explore the camp further. He sees the two killers playing cards in a room, with a naked woman on the sofa beside them. Security notice him and he claims to be retuning from the toilet. Questioned by the assassin he keeps his cover, despite having to play a round of Russian roulette with his own doctored gun.
• Chapter 26 - Bosch and the pill shills are flown and driven around the state to collect pills from various pharmacies. Back in LA, Lourdes waits for him in a pharmacy and tells him they lost him the previous day. He tells her the location of the camp and asks her to arrange a raid, removing Brody and the tattooed woman who had tipped him off to the risk. The van flees without the 4 people arrested in the raid.
• Chapter 27 - Bosch is woken Sunday morning and bundled into a plane by the two Russians. It takes off, with Bosch sure he's not supposed to survive the journey.
• Chapter 28 - One of the Russians shows Bosch a newspaper article on the DNA case, recognising Bosch from the photo. He admits to the pharmacy killing as well as the killing of Santos then attacks Bosch who produced the blade from the cane and stabbed him to death. Bosch took his gun and the other Russian jumps from the plane into the water below. Bosch approaches the pilot, directs him to return to LA and radios control to inform Hovan at DEA of the status.
• Chapter 29 - Bosch is taken in for a debriefing where he first reads the LA Times article. He denies it to those in attendance and explains what happened in the plane.
• Chapter 30 - Bosch cleans up, finds an envelope on his table, then drives home to a mountain of messages from his daughter, lawyer, a journalist and former partner.
• Chapter 31 - Harry tells Maddie the full story of the pharmacy murders and the Borders frame. She leaves and Bosch calls to check on the tattooed woman - Elizabeth - and Brody. Both had been released. He leaves to try to find her.
• Chapter 32 - Edgar tells Bosch of a nearby clinic where Elizabeth may go. He finds Brody waiting for her. Brody attacks him and is beaten once again. Bosch raids the clinic and finds her. He accosts the doctor and learns that he had had sex with Elizabeth. Edgar arrives to the clinic.
• Chapter 33 - The doctor slips out. Bosch takes Elizabeth and places her in the care of recovering addict Cisco.
• Chapter 34 - Bosch and Haller meet. Haller informs him that Spencer had been hidden but Cisco had tracked him and he's been subpoenaed to appear in court. Haller requests Bosch track down the victim's sister Dani as a potential witness.
• Chapter 35 - Bosch returns to SFPD an finds media waiting. Lourdes shows him a video of the second Russian's body being recovered from the water and learns additional background on their identities and organization. He then looks into Dani's whereabouts and finds an updated address for her.

Part 3 - The Intervention [ ]

• Chapter 36 - Bosch and Maddie head to the courthouse. One by one witnesses, lawyers and the DA team arrive. Finally Borders is led into the courtroom.
• Chapter 37 - Court convenes. Haller's motion is heard first, over objections from both the state and the defense. However the judge rules that the LA Times article had damaged his reputation and he was allowed to answer to that in his own defense. Spencer arrives, shocking the defense. Haller asks for a private meeting in chambers to present his case. The judge clears the courtroom instead.
• Chapter 38 - Haller lays out the entire conspiracy to frame Bosch, free Borders and sue the city for the judge, ending with Spencer's willingness to go on the stand.
• Chapter 39 - Borders laughs and condemns his lawyers. The state withdraws its motions. Borders is taken out of the court. The judge cautions the Corbyns, finds then the n contempt and asks a deputy to take them into custody. The judge says he will be telling the media what had happened and demands the State apologize publicly to Bosch. Cisco tells Bosch that Spencer planned to take the 5th.
• Chapter 40 - Bosch briefs an LA Times reporter, sees Maddie off, then joins Haller and Cisco at a bar. He tells Haller he knows he tipped the LA Times previously to make it public and ensure the reputation defense strategy would be valid. Bosch objected to the strategy, saying it nearly got him killed undercover and damaged Maddie's opinion of him. A staredown follows and Cisco brokers a tentative peace with a "cheers" and glass-clink.
• Chapter 41 - Bosch arrives home and finds Soto waiting. She knows now that Spencer was taking the 5th, but got a warrant, searched his house, and learned that he was able to open and reseal old boxes with a stockpile of old tape he'd collected. He'd also been stealing and pawning old evidence when it was valuable. The Corbyns are negotiating their future. She apologises and Harry accepts. He asks her to pull the file on Elizabeth's murdered daughter - Daisy Clayton - and she agrees.
• Chapter 42 - Bosch opens his safe and takes all his emergency earthquake cash - about $10000 - and heads out, calling Lourdes for a rehab center recommendation. He gives the money to Cisco and asks him to take her to a center. He returns home and finds the envelope from 3 days earlier. It's a tip on a cold case for Esmerelda Tavarez, the case he'd been working on at the beginning.
• Chapter 43 - Angela - the author of the note - turns out to be Esmerelda, having fled an abusive relationship and abandoned her baby daughter, moving to Utah and then later back to LA and living under another new name. She has surfaced now so that a lawyer could process her divorce and she could remarry.
• Chapter 44 - Harry returns to his storage cell to process the paperwork and mull the cases. He calls Soto to ask about Daisy, she's reviewing it and he asks to be involved in the investigation.

Audiobook [ ]

The audiobook is narrated by Titus Welliver , who plays Harry Bosch in the television adaptation Bosch .

References [ ]

• Amazon.com product page
• 1 Eleanor Wish
• 2 Irvin Irving
• 3 Hieronymus Bosch

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Two Kinds of Truth Summary & Study Guide

Two Kinds of Truth Summary & Study Guide Description

The following edition of this book was used to create this study guide: Connelly, Michael. Two Kinds Of Truth: A Bosch Novel. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.

The grizzled, veteran detective Harry Bosch works as a volunteer detective in the tiny San Fernando police department, a handful of years after his unceremonious departure from his career-long employer, the Los Angeles Police Department. One day, at almost the same time, two urgent cases are dropped in Bosch's lap. He is due in court in less than two weeks because a murder suspect Bosch had helped sentence decades earlier, Preston Borders, now appears to have been wrongfully convicted due to new DNA evidence. Also, two independent pharmacists -- a father-son duo -- have been found shot dead in a local pharmacy. Bosch spends the next few days working around the clock, pursuing the murder case during the day while spending nights reviewing the new evidence in the Borders case. The files providing the new evidence are given to him by his old detective partner, Lucia Soto, who is still in the LAPD.

Together with the young detective Bella Lourdes in San Fernando, Bosch learns that the pharmacists were intentionally murdered by two hit men who are part of an organized "pill mill." The criminal organization effectively imprisons addicts who are addicted to painkillers, shuttling them around in unmarked vans and through small, no-security airports, filling bogus prescriptions for painkillers in as many pharmacies as possible. One of the San Fernando pharmacists had filed a letter of complaint to the California medical board, threatening to expose the bogus system of prescriptions, which prompted the criminal organization to carry out the hit.

On the advice of a DEA agent, Bosch goes undercover as a painkiller addict, visiting a known bogus doctor's office in pursuit of painkillers before being unceremoniously shuffled onto the vans and airplanes along with the other addicts. Between a few days of filling prescriptions up and down California, Bosch and the other addicts stay in a tent shantytown in the middle of the California desert. Bosch's cover is blown when a newspaper article about the Preston Borders case appears in the Los Angeles Times. Two of the pill mill bosses force Bosch to board an open-door plane, where they will presumably drop Bosch into the large inland saltwater lake, the Salton Sea. After Bosch is able to kill one of the men with a knife hidden in his prop cane, the second man simply jumps out of the plane. Bosch busts into the cockpit and hails the police over the radio. The entire operation is shut down within a few days, and the man Bosch killed in the plane is identified as a mid-level Belarusian criminal boss who was directing the operation from Belarus.

As Bosch prepared for his entry into the undercover realm, his lawyer Mickey Haller and Haller's personal investigator, nicknamed Cisco, are first at a loss at how to proceed with the case, in the face of seemingly rock-solid DNA evidence. Bosch learns that Preston Borders is accusing him of illegally planting evidence in the initial case. While Bosch knows that he conducted that case with integrity, and that he did not plant evidence, he is at a loss about how to prove it. However, the team eventually discovers a lead that establishes a connection between a civilian employee who works in the LAPD's evidence department, Terry Spencer, and Borders' new lawyer, Lance Cronyn. Heading in to the day in court, the team is able to establish evidence that Cronyn is extorting Spencer, and they subpoena Spencer. However they are unable to establish an explanation for how the new DNA evidence was planted.

In court, Haller is able to bluff around this gap in their knowledge brilliantly, and Cronyn and Borders quickly fold when Haller presents Spencer as a witness, to their great surprise. Even though Bosch's name is cleared -- with Borders returning to jail and Cronyn being arrested on the spot -- there is still a feeling of melancholy, as Bosch realizes that Haller had intentionally leaked the story about his potentially planting evidence to the Los Angeles Times. It turned out to be a calculated gamble by Haller: because Cronyn's side had apparently besmirched Bosch's name, Haller was allowed to proceed with his motion when he otherwise would not have been able to. Still, Bosch is uncomfortable with this murky moral compromise that was necessary to clear his name.

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Two Kinds of Truth (Film Review Essay on the ethno-fiction of Jean Rouch)

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Named one of  the New York Times Best Crime Novels of 2017 by Marilyn Stasio Named one of the New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2017 by Janet Maslin Named one of SouthFlorida.com’s Best Mystery Novels of 2017 by Oline Cogdill

“It is Connelly’s descriptions and Bosch’s investigation that help make TWO KINDS OF TRUTH one of the author’s most intriguing books in a consistently brilliant career. …Bosch and Haller have fans beyond the literary environs of the Connelly novels, thanks to Haller’s cinematic turn and Bosch’s presence on streaming television. The really good stuff, though, remains between the covers of these books, and TWO KINDS OF TRUTH is a sterling example of the full potential of both characters fully realized.” – Joe Hartlaub, BookReporter.com

“Harry Bosch is a one-of-a-kind hero” – Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

“Two Kinds of Truth is vintage Connelly” – Charles Finch, USA Today

“Connelly tells two compelling stories that individually would make a terrific read but together make an instant classic.” – Jeff Ayers, Associated Press

“This is a book you want to read ravenously, but also to savour and stretch out for as long as possible. It left me with a feeling of regret that it had ended – a sure sign of a bloody good read. …Michael Connelly is an artist of words, and this book is among his best.” – CrimeFictionLover.com

“It is a reflection of Connelly’s talent that after 19 books chronicling Bosch’s career, this iteration feels fresh and authentic. This is Bosch at his F-you best, pursuing his mission, seeking justice and speaking for the dead.” – Robert Anglen, Arizona Republic

“Undercover thriller, courtroom drama, locked room mystery. The menace of drug rings and the menace of venal DAs and Rat Squad cops. And Harry Bosch, whose character remains as deeply compelling as ever. Michael Connelly remains the best in the business.” – Michael Carlson, Irresistible Targets

“Connelly is one of the few authors who can use the idea of truthiness as a springboard for a gripping thriller about corruption, opioids, politics and the minutiae of a police investigation. …It’s become an annual refrain — but Connelly truly is one of the finest mystery writers. And that’s the truth.” – Oline Cogdill, SouthFlorida.com

“Michael Connelly’s ‘Two Kinds of Truth’ is Bosch at his best” – Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times

“The real beauty of this series for me lies in its continued freshness, despite how long we’ve been along for the ride with Harry. Bosch has evolved over the series. He’s principled yet fallible, stubbornly loyal to those close to him. With a veteran character like this, it has to feel plausible that he’s still out there fighting the good fight after all these years, and that’s exactly what Connelly achieves.” – Rob Scragg, Shots Crime & Thriller eZine

“Reading Connelly is like listening to a well-oiled machine purring softly, as if by magic and, once again, he makes the reading (and the writing) so easy, unshowy, intelligent and gripping. A crime author in full control of his craft!” – Maxim Jakubowski, Crime Time

“Connelly remains atop the heap of contemporary crime writers thanks to his rare ability to combine master plotting and procedural detail with a literary novelist’s feel for the inner lives of his or her characters. Both talents are on abundant display this time.” – Bill Ott, Booklist starred review

“This series, now twenty books in, just keeps getting better and better. Two Kinds of Truth is some of Michael Connelly’s finest work yet, and a real contender for best crime novel of the year.” – The Real Book Spy

“the book unfolds with great urgency and a sense of righteous indignation, particularly about the opioid crisis (“Fifty-five thousand dead and counting”). The two truths of the title encapsulate Bosch’s world: “ truth that was the unalterable bedrock of one’s life and mission. And the other, malleable truth of politicians, charlatans, corrupt lawyers and their clients.” …a solid procedural sure to please his many fans.” – Publishers Weekly

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Of Truth, by Francis Bacon

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• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

"Of Truth" is the opening essay in the final edition of the philosopher, statesman and jurist  Francis Bacon 's "Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral" (1625). In this essay, as associate professor of philosophy Svetozar Minkov points out, Bacon addresses the question of "whether it is worse to lie to others or to oneself--to possess truth (and lie, when necessary, to others) or to think one possesses the truth but be mistaken and hence unintentionally convey falsehoods to both oneself and to others" ("Francis Bacon's 'Inquiry Touching Human Nature,'" 2010). In "Of Truth," Bacon argues that people have a natural inclination to lie to others: "a natural though corrupt love, of the lie itself."

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly, there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief, affecting free-will in thinking as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum [the wine of devils] because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God in the works of the days was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below"*; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business: it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge. Saith he, "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards man." For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold that when Christ cometh, "He shall not find faith upon the earth."

*Bacon's paraphrase of the opening lines of Book II of "On the Nature of Things" by Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus.

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Kant’s Theory of Judgment

Theories of judgment, whether cognitive (i.e., object-representing, thought-expressing, truth-apt) judgment or practical (i.e., act-representing, choice-expressing, evaluation-apt) judgment, bring together fundamental issues in semantics, logic, cognitive psychology, and epistemology (collectively providing for what can be called the four “faces” of cognitive judgment [see also Martin 2006]), as well as action theory, moral psychology, and ethics (collectively providing for the three “faces” of practical judgment): indeed, the notion of judgment is central to any general theory of human rationality. But Kant’s theory of judgment differs sharply from many other theories of judgment, both traditional and contemporary, in three ways: (1) by taking the innate capacity for judgment to be the central cognitive faculty of the rational human mind , (2) by insisting on the semantic, logical, psychological, epistemic, and practical priority of the propositional content of a judgment , and (3) by systematically embedding judgment within the metaphysics of transcendental idealism . Several serious problems are generated by the interplay of the first two factors with the third. This in turn suggests that the other two parts of Kant’s theory of judgment can be logically detached from the strongest version of his transcendental idealism and defended independently of it. This entry also includes five supplementary documents covering (i) the debate about Kant’s conceptualism vs. Kant’s non-conceptualism, (ii) the epistemology of Kantian judgment and the ethics of Kantian belief, (iii) Kant’s logic in relation to his theory of judgment, (iv) kinds of use for judgments, and (v) completing the picture of Kant’s metaphysics of judgment.

1.1 The power of judgment and the other faculties of cognition

1.2 judgments are essentially propositional cognitions, 1.3 judgments, objective validity, objective reality, and truth.

• Supplement: The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism
• Supplement: Judging, Believing, and Scientific knowing

2.1 Kinds of logical form

• Supplement: Do the Apparent Limitations and Confusions of Kant’s Logic Undermine his Theory of Judgment?

2.2 Kinds of propositional content

• Supplement: Kinds of Use

3.1 Judgment, transcendental idealism, and truth

3.2 is kant a verificationist.

• Supplement: Completing the Picture of Kant’s Metaphysics of Judgment

4.1 The bottom-up problem: essentially non-conceptual intuitions, rogue objects, and the gap in the B Deduction

4.2 the top-down problem: judgment, transcendental affinity, and the systematic unity of nature, 4.3 the dream-skeptical problem: judgment, problematic idealism, and the gap in the second analogy, 4.4 conclusion: judgment without strong transcendental idealism, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the nature of judgment.

Theories of cognitive judgment both prior to and after Kant tend to divide dichotomously into the psychologistic and platonistic camps, according to which, on the one hand, cognitive judgments are nothing but mental representations of relations of ideas, as, e.g., in the Port Royal Logic (Arnaud & Nicole 1996), or mentalistic ordered combinings of real individuals, universals, and logical constants, as, e.g., in Russell’s early theory of judgment (Russell 1966), or on the other hand, cognitive judgments are nothing but assertoric psychological states or attitudes aimed at mind-independent, abstract propositions or thoughts, as, e.g., in Bolzano’s and Frege’s theories of judgment (Bolzano 1972, Frege 1979, Frege 1984). And, seemingly, never the twain shall meet (Martin 2006, Hanna 2006a, ch. 1). But by sharp contrast to both the psychologistic and platonistic camps, Kant’s theory of judgment is at once cognitivist, anti-psychologistic, and anti-platonistic. More precisely, according to Kant, judgments are complex conscious cognitions that (i) refer to objects either directly (via intuitions) or indirectly (via concepts), (ii) include concepts that are predicated either of those objects or of other constituent concepts, (iii) exemplify pure logical concepts and enter into inferences according to pure logical laws, (iv) essentially involve both the following of rules and the application of rules to the objects picked out by intuitions, (v) express true or false propositions (truth-aptness), (vi) mediate the formation of beliefs and other intentional acts, and (vii) are unified and self-conscious.

The three leading features of this account are, first, Kant’s taking the innate capacity for judgment to be the central cognitive faculty of the human mind, in the sense that judgment, alone among our various cognitive achievements, is the joint product of all of the other cognitive faculties operating coherently and systematically together under a single higher-order unity of rational self-consciousness ( the centrality thesis ); second, Kant’s insistence on the explanatory priority of the propositional content of a judgment over its basic cognitive-semantic constituents (i.e., intuitions and concepts), over the logical form of judgments, over the inferential role of judgments, over the rule-like character of the judgment, over the self-conscious psychological states in which propositions are grasped as well as the non-self-conscious psychological processes in which propositions are synthetically generated, over epistemic beliefs in those propositions, over all other propositional attitudes, and also over intentional acts guided and mediated by those propositions, including non-epistemic acts of various kinds ( the priority-of-the-proposition thesis ); and third, Kant’s background metaphysical doctrine to the effect that judgments are empirically meaningful (objectively valid) and true (objectively real) if and only if transcendental idealism is correct ( the transcendental idealism thesis ).

According to Kant, a “judgment” ( Urteil ) is a specific kind of “cognition” ( Erkenntnis )—which he generically defines as any conscious mental representation of an object (A320/B376)—that is the characteristic output of the “power of judgment” ( Urteilskraft ). The power of judgment, in turn, is a cognitive “capacity” ( Fähigkeit ) but also specifically a spontaneous and innate cognitive capacity, and in virtue of these it is the “faculty of judging” ( Vermögen zu urteilen ) (A69/B94), which is also the same as the “faculty of thinking” ( Vermögen zu denken ) (A81/B106).

For Kant the mind is essentially active and vital—“the mind ( Gemüt ) for itself is entirely life (the principle of life itself)” (5: 278)—and a cognitive capacity in turn is a determinate conscious propensity of the mind to generate objective representations of certain kinds under certain conditions. What do spontaneity and innateness add to a mere capacity for cognition, so that it becomes a “ faculty of cognition” ( Erkenntnisvermögen )? A cognitive faculty is spontaneous in that whenever it is externally stimulated by raw unstructured sensory data as inputs, it then automatically organizes or “synthesizes” those data in an unprecedented way relative to those inputs, thereby yielding novel structured cognitions as outputs (B1–2, A50/B74, B132, B152). So cognitive spontaneity is a structural creativity of the mind with respect to its representations. It is a controverted question of recent Kant-interpretation whether cognitive spontaneity derives exclusively from the conceptual or discursive capacity of the rational human mind (B152) (Longuenesse 1998, chs. 1–3, 5, 8), or can also derive independently from the intuitional, non-conceptual, or sensible capacity of the rational human mind, shared with minded non-rational human or non-human animals (B151) (Hanna 2006b, ch. 1, McLear 2011). Correspondingly, it is also a controverted question whether according to Kant there is only one basic kind of synthesis, i.e., conceptual/discursive synthesis, or two basic kinds, i.e., conceptual/discursive synthesis and intuitional/non-conceptual/sensible synthesis. These controverted questions, in turn, are closely connected with the recent vigorous debate about Kant’s conceptualism vs. Kant’s non-conceptualism in relation to his theory of judgment, and the implications of this for interpreting and critically evaluating Kant’s transcendental idealism and the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, a.k.a. “the Categories” (see the supplementary document The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism and Sections 4.1 to 4.2 below).

Kant also uses the term ‘spontaneity’ in a somewhat different sense in a metaphysical context, to refer to a mental cause that can sufficiently determine an effect in time while also lacking any temporally prior sufficient cause of itself (A445/B473). Call this practical spontaneity. What is shared between the two senses of spontaneity, practical and cognitive, is the unprecedented, creative character of the mind’s operations. But in the cognitive sense of spontaneity, what is crucial is that the sensory data manifest “poverty of the stimulus” (Cook & Newson 1996, 81–85)—significant underdetermination of the outputs of an embodied cognitive capacity by the relevant inputs to that capacity, plus previous experiences or habituation—although the faculty’s spontaneity must also always be minimally conditioned by external sensory triggering (B1–2). Correspondingly, a Kantian cognitive faculty is innate in the threefold sense that (i) it is intrinsic to the mind, hence a necessary part of the nature of the rational animal possessing that faculty, (ii) it contains internal structures that are necessarily or strictly underdetermined by any and all sensory impressions and/or empirical facts—which is the same as their being a priori (B2), and (iii) it automatically systematically synthesizes those sensory inputs according to special normative rules that directly reflect the internal structures of the faculty, thereby generating its correlatively-structured outputs. So Kantian innateness is essentially a procedure-based innateness, consisting in an a priori active readiness of the mind for implementing normative rules of synthesis, as opposed to the content-based innateness of Cartesian and Leibnizian innate ideas, according to which an infinitely large supply of complete (e.g., mathematical) beliefs, propositions, or concepts themselves are either occurrently or dispositionally intrinsic to the mind. But as Locke pointed out, this implausibly overloads the human mind’s limited storage capacities.

In contrast to both Rationalists and Empiricists, who hold that the human mind has only one basic cognitive faculty—reason or sense perception, respectively—Kant is a cognitive-faculty dualist who holds that the human mind has two basic cognitive faculties: (i) the “understanding” ( Verstand ), the faculty of concepts, thought, and discursivity, and (ii) the “sensibility” ( Sinnlichkeit ), the faculty of intuitions/non-conceptual cognitions, sense perception, and mental imagery (A51/B75). The essential difference between the faculties of understanding and sensibility, and correspondingly the essential difference between concepts and intuitions (A50–52/B74–76), as distinct kinds of cognition, is a fundamental commitment of Kant’s theory of cognition generally and of his theory of judgment more specifically. Concepts are at once (a) general representations having the logical form of universality (9: 91), (b) discursive representations expressing pure logical forms and falling under pure logical laws (A68–70/B92–94, A239/B298), (c) complex intensions ranging over “comprehensions” ( Umfangen ) that contain all actual and possible objects falling under those intensions, as well as other narrower comprehensions (9: 95–96), (d) mediate or indirect (i.e., attributive or descriptive) representations of individual objects (A320/B376–377), (e) rules for classifying and organizing perceptions of objects (A106), and (f) “reflected” representations expressing the higher-order unity of rational self-consciousness, a.k.a. “apperception” (B133 and 133n.). Intuitions by contrast are conscious object-directed representations that are (1) singular (A320/B377) (9: 91), (2) sense-related (A19/B33, A51/B75), (3) object-dependent (B72) (4: 281), (4) immediate, or directly referential (A90–91/B122–123, B132, B145), and, above all, (5) non-conceptual (A284/B340) (9: 99) (Hanna 2001, ch. 4).

Understanding and sensibility are both subserved by the faculty of “imagination” ( Einbildungskraft ), which when taken generically is the source or engine of all sorts of synthesis, but which when taken as a “dedicated” or task-sensitive cognitive faculty, construed as either “productive” or “reproductive,” more specifically generates (α) the spatial and temporal forms of intuition, (β) novel mental imagery in conscious sensory states, (γ) reproductive imagery or memories, and (δ) “schemata,” which are supplementary rules for interpreting general conceptual rules in terms of more specific figural (spatiotemporal) forms and sensory images (A78/B103, B151, A100–102, A137–142/B176–181) (7: 167). At least in principle, then, the imagination mediates between the understanding and the sensibility by virtue of being an autonomous third basic cognitive capacity containing elements of each of the basic dual capacities (see,e.g., A115–119 and A139–142/B178–181)—which would, in effect, make Kant a cognitive-capacity trinitarian . But sometimes, contrariwise and somewhat incoherently, Kant seems instead to say that the imagination at once (i) belongs to sensibility and yet also (ii) is caused by the action of the understanding on sensibility. This deep unclarity about the nature of the imagination, in addition to being a flashpoint for important longstanding disagreements in Kant-scholarship on his theory of judgment (see, e.g., Heidegger 1990, Waxman 1991, Longuenesse 1998), also has some serious implications for Kant’s theory of judgment itself (again, see the supplementary document The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism and Sections 4.1 to 4.2 below).

Just as understanding and sensibility are sub served by the bottom-up cognitive processing of the imagination, so in turn they are also super served by the top-down cognitive processing of the faculty of “reason” ( Vernunft ), which produces logical inferences, carries out pragmatic or moral choices and decisions, a.k.a. “practical judgments”), imposes coherence and consistency on all sorts of cognitions, and above all recognizes and implements strongly modal and categorically normative concepts such as necessary truth and unconditional obligation, in the form of lawlike “principles” ( Principien , Grundsätze ) (A299–304/B355–361, A800–804/B828–832).

Finally, the objective unity of any judgment whatsoever is guaranteed by the faculty of apperception or rational self-consciousness, which plays the “executive” role in the corporate organization of the mind by introducing a single higher-order unity into all of its lower-order representations, via judgment, and whose characteristic output is the cogito-like self-directed judgment-forming representation “ I think ” ( Ich denke ): as in “I think about X ” (where X is some concept, say the concept of being a philosopher) or “I think that P ” (where that- P is some proposition, say the proposition that Kant is a philosopher) (B131–132). The I think according to Kant is “the vehicle of all concepts and judgments whatever” (A341/B399), because it is both a necessary condition of the objective unity of every judgment and also automatically implements one or another of a set of primitive pure a priori logical forms or functions of unity in judgments or thoughts—“the pure concepts of the understanding” or “categories” (A66–83/B91–116)—in the several semantic constituents of that judgment.

The power of judgment, while a non-basic faculty, is nevertheless the central cognitive faculty of the human mind. This is because judging brings together all the otherwise uncoordinated sub-acts and sub-contents of intuition, conceptualization, imagination, and reason, via apperception or rational self-consciousness, for the purpose of generating a single cognitive product, the judgment, under the overarching pure concepts of the understanding or categories, thereby fully integrating the several distinct cognitive faculties and their several distinct sorts of representational information, and thereby also constituting a single rational human animal. For Kant then, rational humans are judging animals .

But what exactly are judgments? Kant’s answer, in a nutshell, is that they are essentially propositional cognitions—from which it immediately follows that rational humans are, more precisely, propositional animals . In what sense, however, is this the case?

Logicians before Kant, e.g., the Port Royalists, tended to define judgment as a “representation of a relation between two concepts” (B140). This pre-Kantian definition implied that all judgments are of subject-predicate form; but in fact, as Kant points out (here following the Stoic logicians), some judgments—e.g., disjunctive judgments, and hypothetical conditional judgments—are truth-valued relational complexes of subject-predicate judgments and thus, apparently, have essentially truth-functional form, not subject-predicate form. This idea later heavily influenced George Boole’s ground-breaking view of logic as a set of a priori “laws of thought” governing a formal calculus of binary functions that mimic the “bipolar” behavior of the classical truth and falsity of propositions (Boole 1854). Perhaps even more importantly however, the pre-Kantian definition also failed to explain the unity of a judgment, and the difference between a judgment and a mere list of concepts. So in order to solve this “unity-of-the-judgment” problem—which later re-surfaced as “the problem of the unity of the proposition” in early analytic philosophy (Hylton 1984, Linsky 1992)—Kant offers a radically new conception of the judgment as a higher-order cognitive binding function for different types of lower-order objective representational content. In a pre-Critical essay, “The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures,” he says that a judgment is an act of logical predication whereby a concept is applied to a thing, as expressed by the copula ‘is’ or ‘are’ (2: 47). In his logical textbook, the Jäsche Logic , he says that it is a representation of the unity of consciousness linking together several other representations, or a representation of their relation in a single concept (9: 101). And in the Critique of Pure Reason he characterizes judgment at least four times:

Judgment is … the mediate cognition of an object, hence the representation of a representation of it. In every judgment there is a concept that holds of many [representations], and that among this many also comprehends a given representation, which is then immediately referred to the object. (A68/B93)

All judgments are … functions of unity among our representations, since instead of an immediate representation a higher one, which comprehends this and other representations under itself, is used for the cognition of the object, and many possible cognitions are hereby drawn together into one. (A69/B94)

A judgment is nothing other than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective unity of apperception. That is the aim of the copula is in them: to distinguish the objective unity of given representations from the subjective. (B141).

[Pure general logic] deals with concepts , judgments , and inferences , corresponding exactly to the functions and order of those powers of the mind, which are comprehended under the broad designation of understanding in general… If the understanding in general is explained as the faculty of rules, then the power of judgment is the faculty of subsuming under rules, i.e., of determining whether something stands under a given rule ( casus datae legis ) or not. (A130–132/B170–172)

Despite the superficial differences in emphasis and formulation, these six characterizations all converge on the same basic account: a judgment is a higher-order complex conscious cognition that refers to objects either directly (via the essentially indexical content of intuitions/non-conceptual cognitions)or indirectly (via the essentially attributive or descriptive content of concepts); in which concepts are predicated either of those objects or of other constituent concepts; in which concepts are intrinsically related to one another and to intuitional/non-conceptual cognitions by pure general logical forms/pure concepts of the understanding that express various modifications and, apparently, truth-functional compounds of the predicative copula; which enters into inferences according to a priori laws of pure general logic; which essentially involves both the following of rules and the application of rules to the perceptual objects picked out by intuition/non-conceptual cognition; and in which a composite objective representation is generated and unified by the higher-order executive mental processing of a single self-conscious rational subject. The crucial take-away points here are (a) a judgment’s referential bottoming-out in intuitions/non-conceptual cognitions, which thereby constitute directly-referential singular terms in singular categorical judgments, that cannot be semantically replaced by individual concepts or definite descriptions without change or loss of meaning (contrast, e.g., Thompson 1972 and Hanna 2001, ch. 4), (b) the “privileging of predication” (Longuenesse 1998, 104) over other sorts of logical operations, (c) the intrinsic logico-syntactic and logico-semantic form of the judgment, based on modifications or compound truth-functional relations of the predicative copula, (d) the rule-like character of the judgment, (e) the judgment’s unified conscious objective representational (i.e., semantic) content, and above all (f) its higher-order rationally self-conscious ground of objective unity. As such, Kantian judgments are neither merely psychological objects or processes (as in psychologistic theories of judgment), nor are they essentially mind-independent, abstract objects (as in platonistic theories of judgment), nor again are they inherently assertoric takings of propositions to be true (as, e.g., in Frege’s theory of judgment). Instead, Kantian judgments are intersubjectively shareable, rationally communicable, cognitively-generated mental-act structures or types whose logically-structured truth-apt semantic contents can be the targets of many different kinds of epistemic or non-epistemic propositional attitudes.

As just noted, every judgment has an intrinsic logical form that is both syntactic and semantic in nature, centered on predication. Even more fundamentally however, every judgment also has an “intension” ( Inhalt ) or semantic content : the “proposition” ( Satz ). A propositional content is not monolithic but rather a unified composite of individually meaningful proper parts. More specifically, a proposition is the logically well-formed and semantically well-composed, truth-valued, unified objective representational content of a judgment; and more generally it is “what is judged” in the act of putting forward any sort of rational claim about the world (9: 109) (14: 659–660) (24: 934). Although a proposition is always generated by means of psychological processes, it is not , however, psychologically private and incommunicable: on the contrary, it is intersubjectively shareable and rationally communicable, due to the fact that the very same propositional form-and-content can be individually generated by many different judging animals, provided they are all equipped with the same basic cognitive architecture. In this way judgments for Kant are essentially propositional cognitions, in that the primary function of the faculty of judgment is just to generate these logically well-formed, semantically well-composed, truth-valued, intersubjectively shareable, rationally communicable, unified objective representational contents.

Given the seminal role of the judgment’s propositional content, it is easy to see then that for Kant the propositional function of the judgment is more basic than its inferential role—although every judgment does indeed play an inferential role (Longuenesse 1998, 90–95)—and for this reason Kant’s logical constants (i.e., all, some, this/the, affirmation, propositional negation, predicate-negation, the predicative copula, if-then, disjunction, necessarily, possibly, and actually) are defined strictly in terms of their specific roles in the propositional content of judgments, quite apart from the ways those judgments can enter into inferences (A69–76/B94–102). In recent years, however, inferentialist treatments of Kant’s theory of judgment and Kant’s logic, which treat the semantic contents and logical constants of judgment as essentially dependent on and determined by their inferential roles, have become increasingly popular and influential (see, e.g., Landy 2009 and Leech 2012).

The characteristically rational activity of taking-for-true implies the subjective validity of a judgment, or its apparent meaningfulness and apparent truth for an individual rational cognizer. By contrast, the “objective validity” ( objektiv Gültigkeit ) of a judgment is its empirical meaningfulness, precisely because it is compositionally based on the empirical “reference” ( Beziehung )—whether singular or comprehensional—of the basic constituent objective representations of any judgment, namely intuitions and concepts. The empirical reference of intuitions and concepts, in turn, is necessarily constrained by the specifically aesthetic or sensible, non-conceptual, non-discursive, and pre-rational or proto-rational dimension of human experience, which itself is jointly determined by (a) the brute givenness of material objects to our receptive capacity for empirical intuition, via the relation of external affection, and (b) the necessary and non-empirical forms of empirical intuition, our representations of space and time (A19–22/B33–36), which ultimately express the outer and inner sensory aspects of the embodiment of our minds). In this way, an intuition is objectively valid if and only if either (i) it directly refers to some individual actual or possible external sensible object or to the subject’s phenomenally conscious inner response to this outer reference (this accounts for the objective validity of empirical intuitions), or else (ii) it represents a phenomenally immanent necessary condition of empirical intuitions (this accounts for the objective validity of the forms of intuition) (A239–240/B298–299). By contrast, a concept is objectively valid if and only if either it applies to some actual or possible objects of empirical intuition (this accounts for the objective validity of empirical concepts) or else it represents a necessary condition of empirical concepts (this accounts for the objective validity of pure concepts) (A239–240/B298–299, A240–242/B299–300).

A necessary but not sufficient condition of the objective validity of a judgment is its logico-syntactic well-formedness (grammatical correctness) and logico-semantic well-formedness (sortal correctness) (A73/98, A240–248/B300–305). So a judgment is objectively valid if and only if it is logically well-formed and all of its constituent intuitions and concepts are objectively valid (A155–156/B194–195). Otherwise put, and fully spelled-out, the objective validity of a judgment is its anthropocentric rational empirical referential meaningfulness . Kant also sometimes uses the notion of “objective reality” ( objektive Realität ) to characterize objectively valid representations that apply specifically to actually or really existing objects, and not to merely possible objects (A242 n.). True judgments are thus objectively real propositions. Objective validity, in turn, is a necessary but not sufficient condition of truth, and hence of objectively real propositions, for false judgments are also objectively valid (A58/B83). In this way the objective validity of a judgment is equivalent to its propositional truth-valuedness , but not equivalent to its propositional truth.

By contrast, all judgments that are not objectively valid are “empty” ( leer ) or truth-valueless. Nevertheless, it must be noted that for Kant empty judgments can still be rationally intelligible and not in any way nonsensical, if all the concepts contained within them are at least logically consistent or “thinkable” (Bxxvi n.). In this way, e.g., some judgments containing concepts of noumenal objects (things-in-themselves, or real essences) or noumenal subjects (rational-agents-in-themselves, or persons) are empirically meaningless and truth-valueless, hence empty, yet also are rationally intelligible targets of what Kant calls “doctrinal” belief (see the supplementary document Judging, Believing, and Scientific Knowing ), and even, at least from a certain Critical meta-philosophical standpoint, essential both to Kant’s theoretical metaphysics (A254–255/B309–310, A650–654/B678–682) and also to his practical metaphysics of freedom and morality (A530–558/B566–586).

So much for truth-valuedness: but what is truth? According to Kant, truth is a predicate of whole judgments, and not a predicate of the representational proper parts of judgments, i.e., intuitions/non-conceptual cognitions and concepts (A293/B350). Furthermore we already know that objective validity is a necessary but not sufficient condition of the truth of a judgment. Kant also holds that logical consistency is a necessary but not sufficient condition of the truth of a judgment (A60/B85). Most importantly however, according to Kant the “nominal definition” of truth is that it is the “agreement” or “correspondence” ( Übereinstimmung ) of a cognition (i.e., in this context, an objectively valid judgment) with its object (A58/B82). Now a Kantian nominal definition is a special type of analytic definition that picks out the “logical essence” of that concept—i.e., the generic and specific intensional criteria for bringing things under that concept—but without also picking out the “inner determinations” or real essences of the things falling within the comprehension of that concept, which would be the job of a real definition (9: 142–143). So the nominal definition of truth means that for Kant truth just is agreement or correspondence, which can then be further unpacked as a relation between a judgment and an object such that (i) the form or structure of the object is isomorphic with the logico-syntactic and logico-semantic form of the proposition expressed by the judgment, (ii) the judger cognitively orients herself in the world by projecting the object under specific “points of view” ( Gesichtspunkte ) or modes of presentation that would also be typically cognitively associated with the constituent concepts of the judgment by any other rational human animal in that context (8: 134–137) (9: 57, 147) (24: 779), and (iii) the object represented by the judgment really exists (Hanna 2006b, ch. 5). Another way of putting this is to say that truth is nothing but the objective reality of the total propositional form-and-content of the judgment : that is, nothing but the real existence of that which is precisely specified by the logico-syntactic and logico-semantic features of the judgment taken together with the judger’s intersubjectively rationally communicable cognitive orientation. Or in still other words, true judgments are nothing but ways of rationally projecting ourselves onto actual truth-makers . This is not what is nowadays called a “deflationist” conception of truth, however, because Kant is not saying that truth is nothing but asserting the corresponding actual facts. On the contrary, for Kant truth is irreducible to merely asserting the facts, because for him the concept of truth also inherently expresses both the judger’s fundamental rational interest in “getting it right” (whether theoretically via true judgment or practically via good intentional action) and also her intersubjectively shareable and rationally communicable cognitive orientation , as well as belonging intrinsically to the core moral concept of sincerity .

In any case, the nominal definition of truth must be sharply distinguished from the real definition of truth, i.e., the “criterion” ( Kriterium ) of truth, which is a rule for determining the truth or falsity of judgments in specific contexts (A58/B82). According to Kant there is no all-purpose or absolutely general criterion of truth (A58–59), such as the “clarity-and-distinctness” criterion of the Cartesians. Nevertheless there are special criteria of truth for each of the basic classes of judgments: analytic judgments, synthetic a posteriori (or empirical) judgments, and synthetic a priori judgments (for more details about this threefold distinction and the special truth-criteria, see Section 2 ).

The truth of empirical judgments is the bottom-level sort of truth for Kant, in that all of the other kinds of truth presuppose it. In turn, the proper object of an empirical judgment is an actual or possible “object of experience” ( Gegenstand der Erfahrung ), which is an empirical state-of-affairs, or a really possible individual material object insofar as it has macroscopic physical or “phenomenological” (in the Newtonian sense) properties and can enter into causal or otherwise dynamical relations in the spatiotemporal material world according to necessary laws of nature (A176–218/B218–265). By the nominal definition of truth as agreement or correspondence, this entails that actual objects of experience are the truth-makers of empirical judgments. It also leads to what Kant calls “the criterion of empirical truth” which states that since the objectively valid propositional content of an empirical judgment can be specified as a necessary conceptual rule of sensory appearances, then if that rule is effectively applied to the temporal succession of our sensory representations of the phenomenal material world, and that rule coheres with the causal-dynamic laws of nature, then that judgment is true (A191/B236, A451/B479) (4: 290) (18: 234).

See the supplementary documents:

The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism Judging, Believing, and Scientific Knowing

2. Kinds of Judgments

One of the most controversial, influential, and striking parts of Kant’s theory of judgment is his multiple classification of judgments according to kinds of logical form and kinds of semantic content. Indeed the very importance of Kant’s multiple classification of judgments has sometimes led to the misconception that his theory of judgment will stand or fall according to the fate of, e.g., his analytic-synthetic distinction, or his doctrine of synthetic a priori judgments. Important as these classifications are however, it is crucial to remember that the core of Kant’s theory of judgment consists in the centrality thesis, the priority-of-the-proposition thesis, and the transcendental idealism thesis, all of which can still hold even if some of his classifications of judgments are rejected.

The modern conception of logical form—as found, e.g., in the symbolic and mathematical logic of Gottlob Frege’s Begriffsschrift (“Conceptual Notation”) (Frege 1972), Bertrand Russell and A.N. Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica (Whitehead and Russell 1962), and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein 1922)—owes much to Kant’s conception of logical form, if not so very much to his particular conception of logic, which from a contemporary point of view can seem “terrifyingly narrow-minded and mathematically trivial,” as Allen Hazen has drily put it (Hazen 1999). On the other hand, however, it is clearly true that Kant’s conception of mathematical form, which is found in his theory of pure or formal intuition, substantially influenced Wittgenstein’s view of logical form in the Tractatus (Wittgenstein 1922, props. 2.013, 5.552, 5.61, and 6.13). There is an ongoing scholarly debate about whether Kant’s conception of mathematical form is a direct expression of the narrow-mindedness of his logical theory, or instead a direct expression of the striking originality of his philosophy of mathematics (Parsons 1983, Friedman 1992, Shabel 2003, Hanna 2006b, ch. 6, Shabel 2006). But even more importantly, Kant’s deep idea that logic and logical form can exist only in the context of the judging activities and judging capacities of rational human animals , has heavily influenced some heavily influential philosophers of logic, linguists, philosophers of language, and cognitive scientists from Boole and Wilhelm von Humboldt (Von Humboldt 1988), to Frege, the later Wittgenstein, and Noam Chomsky (Wittgenstein 1953, para. 241–242, Chomsky 1975, Bell 1979, Bell 1987).

2.1.1 Pure general logic and the table of judgments

As mentioned in Section 1 , every judgment for Kant has an intrinsic logical form. These logical forms correspond one-to-one to the pure concepts of the understanding or categories, a claim which is argued-for in what Kant calls the metaphysical deduction of the categories (A76–83/B102–109, B159). On the basis of this, it is possible to argue that all concepts, whether pure or empirical, have a logical ground (Newton 2015). In any case, the total set of such logical forms/pure concepts is the “table of judgments,” which Kant also describes as “the functions of unity in judgments ” (A69/B94, emphasis added). He does this in order to draw special attention to the fact that for him the very idea of a logical form/pure concept is essentially judgment-based: logical form is nothing but the intrinsic logico-syntactic and logico-semantic form of and in a proposition. So for Kant the propositional content of a judgment is more explanatorily basic than its logical form or pure-conceptual structure.

The table of judgments, in turn, captures a fundamental part of the science of pure general logic: pure , because it is a priori, necessary, hence strictly universally true, and also without any associated sensory content; general , because it is strictly underdetermined by all objectively valid representational contents and also abstracts away from all specific or particular differences between represented objects (cf. MacFarlane 2002), and thereby “has to do with nothing but the mere form of thinking” (A54/B78); and logic because, in addition to the table of judgments, it also systematically provides categorically normative conditio sine qua non rules for the truth of judgments (i.e., the law of non-contradiction or logical consistency) and for valid inference (i.e., the law of logical consequence) (A52–55/B76–79) (9: 11–16).

In this connection, there are two crucial points to note about Kant’s pure general logic.

First, pure general logic is sharply distinct from transcendental logic, in that, although both logics are pure and a priori, whereas pure general logic is “general” in that it is strictly underdetermined by all objectively valid representational contents and also abstracts away from all specific or particular differences between represented objects, hence is ontically unrestricted , nevertheless transcendental logic is “special” in that it is ontically restricted , i.e., objectually-committed, and thereby presupposes the existence of certain specific categories or kinds (including natural kinds) of objects (A55–57/B79–82). In this way, transcendental logic presupposes pure general logic, and is synthetic a priori, not analytic. Some recent Kant-commentators, however, have argued that on the contrary, pure general logic presupposes transcendental logic (see, e.g., Rödl 2008, Tolley 2012), on the grounds that for Kant, thought by its very nature is object-directed. But the generality and inherently formal character of pure general logic is fully consistent with its being objectively valid: hence the fact that thought by its very nature is object-directed does not by itself imply that the logic governing thought is ontically restricted or objectually-committed.

Second, pure general logic is absolutely binding on any rational human thinker and provides an unconditional logical ought : the laws of logic are the categorically normative laws of thought for all actual and possible rational animals. Thus pure general logic is both a formal science and also a moral science , but not a natural science . As such, pure general logic fully heeds the lesson of the Naturalistic Fallacy, that is, the irreducibility of the ought to the is . Correspondingly, just like the unconditional moral ought , as expressed by the Categorical Imperative, the logical ought , as expressed by, e.g., the law of non-contradiction, is rarely correctly obeyed in the real world by finite flawed thinkers like us, who commit logical fallacies and moral sins with comparable frequency: sadly, ought does not entail is . Still, as non-naturalistic, Kant’s pure general logic is irreducible to all contingent facts and especially to all empirical psychological facts; hence his logic is thoroughly anti-psychologistic, which exploits the flip-side of unconditional obligation, whether logical or moral: happily, is does not entail ought .

Kant’s table of judgments lays out a (putatively) exhaustive list of the different possible logical forms of propositions under four major headings, each major heading containing three sub-kinds, as follows.

Table of Judgments Quantity of Judgments: Universal, Particular, Singular. Quality: Affirmative, Negative, Infinite Relation: Categorical, Hypothetical, Disjunctive Modality: Problematic, Assertoric, Apodictic (A70/B95)

Consistently with Kant’s “privileging of predication,” it is arguable that his logical forms are all either modifications or else truth-functional compounds of simple monadic (i.e.,1-place) categorical (i.e., subject-predicate) propositions of the general form “ Fs are Gs .”

In this way, e.g., the three kinds of quantity of judgments are supposed by Kant to capture the three basic ways in which the comprehensions of the two constituent concepts of a simple monadic categorical proposition are logically combined and separated. So Kant says that universal judgments are of the form “All Fs are Gs ”; that particular judgments are of the form “Some F s are G s”; and that singular judgments are of the form “This F is G ” or “The F is G .”

By contrast, the three kinds of quality of judgments are supposed by Kant to capture the three basic ways in which the constituent concepts of a simple monadic categorical judgment can be either existentially posited or gesetzt , or else existentially cancelled or aufhebe , by respectively assigning non-empty actual extensions to concepts, or null actual extensions to concepts (A594–595/622–623). So Kant says that affirmative judgments are of the form “it is the case that F s are G s” (or more simply: “ F s are G s”), negative judgments are of the form “no F s are G s”; and infinite judgments are of the form “ F s are non- G s.”

By contrast again, the three kinds of relation of judgments are supposed by Kant to capture the three basic ways in which simple 1-place subject-predicate propositions can be either atomic (elementary) or molecular (compound) in respect of their truth-values. So Kant says that categorical judgments repeat the simple atomic 1-place subject-predicate form “ F s are G s”; molecular hypothetical judgments are of the form “If F s are G s, then H s are I s” (or: “If P then Q ”); and molecular disjunctive judgments are of the form “ Fs are either G s or H s or …” (where each partition of the total domain is mutually exclusive and the total set of partitions is exhaustive).

By contrast yet again and finally, the three kinds of modality of a judgment are supposed by Kant to capture the three basic ways in which the copula of a simple 1-place subject-predicate proposition “contributes nothing to the content of the judgment … but rather concerns only the value of the copula in relation to thinking in general” (A74/B99–100). This doctrine might seem to confuse the three propositional attitudes of “opining” ( Meinen ), epistemic belief, and certainty (A820–823/B848–851), as discussed in the supplementary document Judging, Believing, and Scientific Knowing , with the alethic modal notions of possibility, actuality, and necessity. Or even worse, it might seem to psychologize modality.

And this in turn raises in a pointed way a general difficulty in the common interpretation of Kant’s theory of judgment: the tendency to hold that his logic and theory of judgment are at bottom epistemological or empirical psychological theories. But this common interpretation, as specifically applied to Kant’s view of the modality of judgments, should be rejected for four reasons. First, he explicitly isolates and discusses propositional attitudes in the context of his epistemology of judgment and his ethics of belief, so it is obvious that he does not confuse logical modality with propositional attitudes. Second, he firmly rejects logical psychologism, as we have already seen. Third, the notion of “value” ( Wert ) here clearly means the truth -value of a whole proposition, not its propositional content specifically, which explains why a modal predicate “contributes nothing to the content of a judgment,” i.e., it contributes nothing to the specific content of a judgment over and above its truth-value. Fourth and most importantly, the notion of “thinking in general” for Kant is the conceptual equivalent of Leibnizian logically possible worlds (Bxvii n., A573/B601). Thus the three kinds of modality of a judgment for Kant are, at bottom, the three basic ways in which truth can be assigned to simple 1-place subject-predicate propositions, or to non-categorical sentential propositions, across logically possible worlds—whether to some worlds (possibility), to this world alone (actuality, as essentially indexically determined by human sensory intuition/non-conceptual cognition), or to all worlds (necessity). So Kant says that problematic judgments are of the form “Possibly, F s are G s” (or: “Possibly P ”); assertoric judgments are of the form “Actually, F s are G s” (or: “Actually P ”); and apodictic judgments are of the form “Necessarily, F s are G s” (or: “Necessarily P ”).

See the supplementary document:

Do the Apparent Limitations and Confusions of Kant’s Logic Undermine his Theory of Judgment?

For Kant, as we have seen, the propositional content of a judgment is more basic than its logical form. The propositional content of a judgment, in turn, can vary along at least three different dimensions: (1) its relation to sensory content, (2) its relation to the truth-conditions of propositions, and (3) its relation to the conditions for objective validity.

2.2.1 A priori judgments and a posteriori judgments

The notion of “cognitive content” for Kant has two sharply distinct senses: (i) intension or Inhalt , which is objective and representational (semantic content); and (ii) sensory matter or Materie , which is subjective and non-representational, reflecting only the immediate conscious response of the mind to the external impressions or inputs that trigger the operations of the faculty of sensibility (phenomenal qualitative content) (A19–20/B34, A320/B376). To be sure, for Kant just as for the Empiricists, all cognition “begins with” ( mit … anfange ) the raw data of sensory impressions. But in a crucial departure from Empiricism and towards what might be called a mitigated rationalism , Kant also holds that not all cognition “arises from” ( entspringt … aus ) sensory impressions: so for him, a significant and unique contribution to both the form and the objective representational content of cognition arises from the innate spontaneous cognitive capacities (B1). This notion of cognition’s “arising from” either sensory impressions or innate spontaneous cognitive capacities can best be construed as a strict determination relation (similar to what is nowadays called “strong supervenience”) such that X strictly determines Y if and only if the X -features of something are sufficient for its Y -features, and there cannot be a change in anything’s Y -features without a corresponding change in its X -features. This allows us to say that a cognition is a posteriori, empirical, or dependent on sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts just in case it is strictly determined in its form or in its semantic content by sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts; but a cognition is a priori, non-empirical, or absolutely independent of all sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts just in case it is not strictly determined in its form or in its semantic content by sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts and is instead strictly determined in its form or in its semantic content by our innate spontaneous cognitive faculties (B2–3). It should be noted that the apriority of a cognition in this sense is perfectly consistent with all sorts of associated sensory impressions and also with the actual presence of sensory matter in that cognition, caused by contingent natural objects or facts, so long as neither the form nor the semantic content is strictly determined by those sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts. “Pure” a priori cognitions are those that in addition to being a priori or absolutely independent of all sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts, also contain no sensory matter whatsoever (B3). So in other words, some but not all a priori cognitions are pure.

Applying these notions to judgments, it follows that a judgment is a posteriori if and only if either its logical form or its propositional content is strictly determined by sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts; and a judgment is a priori if and only if neither its logical form nor its propositional content is strictly determined by sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts, and both are instead strictly determined by our innate spontaneous cognitive faculties, whether or not that cognition also contains sensory matter. Kant also holds that a judgment is a priori if and only if it is necessarily true (Axv, B3–4, A76/B101). This strong connection between necessity and apriority expresses (i) Kant’s view that the contingency of a judgment is bound up with the modal dependence of its semantic content on sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts, i.e., its aposteriority (B3), (ii) his view that necessity is equivalent with strict universality or strenge Allgemeinheit , which he defines in turn as a proposition’s lack of any possible counterexamples or falsity-makers (B4), and (iii) his view that necessity entails truth (A75–76/B100–101). Furthermore Kant explicitly holds that not only do a priori judgments really exist in various sciences, including physics and legitimate (i.e., transcendental idealist) metaphysics, but also that there really are some pure a priori judgments, e.g., in mathematics (B4–5, B14–18).

2.2.2 Analytic judgments and synthetic judgments

Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments is the historical origin of, and therefore significantly related to, but—crucially—not precisely equivalent, either in intension or extension, with the nowadays more familiar analytic-synthetic distinction, according to which (1) analyticity is truth by virtue of linguistic meaning alone, exclusive of empirical facts, (2) syntheticity is truth by virtue of empirical facts, and (3) the necessary statement vs. contingent statement distinction is formally and materially equivalent to the analytic-synthetic distinction. By 1950 this more familiar distinction was accepted as gospel truth by virtually all analytic philosophers: but in the two decades after the publication of W.V.O. Quine’s iconoclastic “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” in 1951 (Quine 1961), it was gradually replaced by the new-and-improved post-Quinean gospel truth that there is no such thing as an acceptable analytic-synthetic distinction. This plain historical fact is closely related to the highly regrettable further fact that Kant’s analytic-synthetic distinction is nowadays often wrongly interpreted (i) in terms of the more familiar and now largely discredited analytic-synthetic distinction, and also (ii) as reducible to an epistemic distinction between uninformatively or trivially true a priori judgments and informative judgments. Ironically Frege, the father or grandfather of analytic philosophy, was much nearer the mark in the Foundations of Arithmetic when he correctly construed Kant’s theory of analyticity semantically , as a theory about necessary internal relations between concepts; although at the same time he not quite so correctly said that Kantian analyticity boils down to “simply taking out of the box again what we have just put into it” (Frege 1953, 101). Frege’s 19th century characterization of Kantian analyticity, it turns out, has significant parallels with the 18th century Leibnizian and Wolffian theories of conceptual and/or logical truth that heavily influenced Kant’s work on analyticity (Anderson 2015). Backing away now from Frege and the Leibniz-Wolff tradition, however, the crucial fact is that Kant’s analytic-synthetic distinction concerns two irreducibly different kinds of semantic content within objectively valid propositions (Hanna 2001, chs. 3–4), and this distinction is neither primarily epistemic in character (although it does have some important epistemic implications [Hanna 2006b, 362–379]) nor does it specifically concern the logical form of judgments (4: 266).

Frege regarded Kant’s notion of analyticity as trivial; and, correspondingly, it is also true that if the Leibniz-Wolff approach to conceptual and/or logical truth largely determined Kant’s theory of analyticity, then Kant’s notion of analyticity is impoverished (Anderson 2015). But on the contrary Kant’s notion of analyticity is substantive, by virtue of five important ideas: first, Kant’s pro-Leibnizian idea that all concepts have intensional microstructures, or what he calls “logical essences” or “conceptual essences” (9: 61); second, his anti-Leibnizian idea that logically possible worlds are nothing but maximal logically consistent sets of concepts, not things-in-themselves (A571–573/B599–601); third, his referentialist idea that all grammatically well-formed, sortally correct, and logically consistent concepts have non-empty cross-possible-worlds extensions (a.k.a. “comprehensions”) (A239/B298–299) (9: 95–96); fourth, his semantic restrictionist idea that all and only objectively valid propositions have truth-values; and fifth, finally, and most importantly, his logical analyticity idea that the notion of analyticity covers not only the so-called “containment”of predicate-concepts in subject-concepts in categorical propositions, and not only the intensional identity of subject-concepts and predicate-concepts, but also all the logical truths of truth-functional logic and monadic predicate logic. Then for Kant a judgment is analytic if and only if its propositional content is necessarily true either by virtue of necessary internal relations between its objectively valid conceptual microstructures and/or its conceptual comprehensions, or by virtue of its truth-functional logical connectives, or by virtue of its monadic predicate logical connectives (Hanna 2001, ch. 3), leaving open the question of whether for Kant all logical connectives are strictly truth-functional. In any case, let this be repeated with strong emphasis: Kant does not define analyticity in terms of either the containment or the identity of concepts, which are at best sufficient conditions for analyticity and not also necessary conditions for analyticity. On the contrary, Kant explicitly states a universal, necessary, and sufficient semantic criterion for the truth of analytic judgments, namely that a judgment is analytically true if and only if its denial entails a contradiction, in a broad sense of “entailment” that includes intensional entailment and not merely classical deductive entailment (A151/B190–191). This criterion also directly connects the notion of an analytic truth with the notion of a logical truth in a correspondingly broad sense that fully includes the tautologies and valid sentences of truth-functional logic and monadic predicate logic, but is neither restricted to nor reducible to (with the addition of “logical definitions” [Frege 1953], whatever they actually turn out to be on Frege’s account, which is not at all clear [Benacerraf 1981]) the truth-functional tautologies and valid sentences of classical polyadic predicate logic.

Needless to say, however, if one holds that the Kantian definition of analyticity is truth-in-virtue-of-containment, and also that the Kantian definition of syntheticity is truth-in-virtue-of-non-containment, together with a Kantian conceptualist view of the nature of judgment, then one’s conception of Kant’s analytic and synthetic judgments will be correspondingly different (Anderson 2004, Anderson 2005, Anderson 2009, Anderson 2015).

But what about syntheticity? Since for Kant the analytic-synthetic distinction is exhaustive in the sense that every proposition is either analytic or synthetic but not both, his two-part doctrine of analyticity in turn provides him with a two-part negative doctrine of syntheticity: A proposition is synthetic if and only if its truth is not strictly determined by relations between its conceptual microstructures or conceptual comprehensions alone, or by truth-functional logic or monadic predicate logic alone (which for Kant is expressively captured by the table of judgments and the table of pure concepts of the understanding); and a judgment is synthetically true if and only if it is true and its denial does not entail a contradiction. But this negative characterization of course does not tell us what the truth of synthetic judgments positively consists in. In order to do this, Kant directly connects the semantics of syntheticity with the semantics of intuitions, just as he directly connects the semantics of analyticity with the semantics of concepts (including both empirical concepts and the pure concepts of the understanding). Then positively put, a judgment is synthetic if and only if its meaning and its truth are strictly determined by its constituent intuitions, whether empirical intuitions or pure intuitions (A8, A154–155/B193–194, A721/B749) (8: 245) (11: 38). This is not to say either that synthetic judgments do not contain any concepts (in fact they always do contain empirical or pure concepts), or even that the conceptual components of a synthetic judgment are irrelevant to its meaning or truth (in fact empirical or pure concepts always are semantically relevant), but only to say that in a synthetic judgment it is the intuitional components that strictly determine its meaning and truth, not its empirical-conceptual or pure-conceptual components. In short, a synthetic judgment is an intuition-based proposition .

2.2.3 Synthetic a priori judgments

Every reader of the Critique of Pure Reason knows that Kant glosses his philosophical project in that book as a complete and systematic answer to the question, “how are synthetic a priori judgments possible?” (B19). Also every reader of the first Critique knows that Kant asserts the existence of synthetic a priori judgments in mathematics, physics, and metaphysics (B14–18, A158/B197). But fewer readers are aware that this assertion, whether right or wrong, is certainly the boldest and perhaps also the most important claim in post-Cartesian metaphysics. This is because it posits the thesis of modal dualism , or the claim that there are two irreducibly different basic types of necessary truth, in the face of the almost universally-held counter-thesis of modal monism , or the claim that there is one and only basic type of necessary truth, i.e., analytically or logically necessary truth. Given Kant’s theory of truth, modal dualism also implies the worldly existence of two irreducibly different types of modal facts as truth-makers for analytically and synthetically necessary truths respectively. In short if Kant is right, then there are fundamentally more things in heaven and earth than modal monists are prepared to acknowledge. Moreover Kant holds that all the basic statements of traditional metaphysics are, at least in intention, synthetic a priori judgments (B18). Hence his famous critique of traditional metaphysics in the Transcendental Dialectic is nothing but a deepened and extended investigation of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments.

But what is a synthetic a priori judgment? Combining the a priori-a posteriori distinction with the analytic-synthetic distinction, Kant derives four possible kinds of judgment: (1) analytic a priori, (2) analytic a posteriori, (3) synthetic a priori, and (4) synthetic a posteriori. By virtue of the fact that analytic judgments are necessarily true, and given Kant’s thesis that necessity entails apriority, it follows that all analytic judgments are a priori and that there is no such thing as an analytic a posteriori judgment. By contrast, synthetic judgments can be either a priori or a posteriori. Synthetic a posteriori judgments are empirical, contingent judgments, although they may vary widely as to their degree of generality. Synthetic a priori judgments, by contrast, are non-empirical, non-contingent judgments.

More precisely however, synthetic a priori judgments have three essential features. First, because a synthetic a priori judgment is a priori, its meaning and truth are strictly underdetermined by sensory impressions and/or contingent natural objects or facts, and it is also necessarily true. Second, because a synthetic a priori judgment is synthetic, not analytic, its truth is not determined by conceptual/truth-functional-logical/monadic-predicate-logical factors alone, and its denial is logically consistent. Third, as is the case with all synthetic judgments, the meaning and truth of a synthetic a priori judgment is intuition-based. This third factor is the crucial one. For while the meaning and truth of synthetic a posteriori judgments is based on empirical intuitions , the meaning and truth of synthetic a priori judgments is based on pure intuitions or our a priori formal representations of space and time (B73) (8: 245) (11: 38). Now since according to Kant our a priori formal representations of space and time are both necessary conditions of the possibility of human experience and also necessary conditions of the objective validity or empirical meaningfulness of judgments, which in turn confers truth-valuedness upon propositions, it then follows that a synthetic a priori judgment is a proposition that is true in all and only the humanly experienceable possible worlds and truth-valueless otherwise (Hanna 2001, 239–245). By sharp contrast, analytic judgments, as logical truths in either a narrow (truth-functional or syllogistic) or broad (intensional logic) sense, are true in all logically possible worlds, including those logically possible worlds in which human experience is not possible, i.e., the worlds containing non-phenomenal or non-apparent entities, especially including things-in-themselves, i.e., the “noumenal worlds.”

So analytic and synthetic a priori judgments sharply differ not only in the nature of their semantic content (i.e., concept-based/truth-functional-logic-based/monadic-predicate-logic-based vs. intuition-based) but also in their modal scope (true in all logically possible worlds vs. true in all and only humanly experienceable worlds and truth-valueless otherwise). Nevertheless, despite this sharp difference in modal scope—from which it follows, perhaps surprisingly, that for Kant there are logically possible worlds in which synthetic a priori propositions such as “7+5=12” are thinkably deniable—since synthetic a priori judgments are either true or truth-valueless in every logically possible world , it also follows that they are never false in any logically possible world and thus satisfy Kant’s general definition of a necessary truth, i.e., that a proposition is necessary if and only if it is strictly universally true, in that it is true in every member of a complete class of possible worlds and has no possible counterexamples or falsity-makers (Hanna 2001, ch. 5). Less abstractly and gallumphingly put, a synthetic a priori judgment is a necessary truth with a human face .

In the discussion so far, judgments are essentially identified with their propositional contents. But according to Kant it is also possible for a rational cognizer to use the very same propositional content in different ways. The fundamental difference in uses of judgments is between (a) theoretical judgments and (b) non-theoretical judgments. But there are also some crucial differences between theoretical uses of judgments. For a discussion of these kinds of use, see the following supplementary document:

Kinds of Use

3. The Metaphysics of Judgment: Transcendental Idealism

There is a very real sense in which Kant’s positive metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason is essentially an elaboration of his theory of judgment: “it is not at all [traditional] metaphysics that the Critique is doing but a whole new science, never before attempted, namely the critique of an a priori judging reason” (10: 340). This results directly from the conjunction of the centrality thesis and the transcendental idealism thesis: judgment is the central cognitive activity of the human mind, and judgments are objectively valid and true if and only if the metaphysics of transcendental idealism is correct. In this section, the crucial connection between judgment and transcendental idealism will be spelled out in more detail.

Transcendental idealism is the conjunction of two theses: (1) cognitive idealism , which says that all the proper objects of human cognition are nothing but mind-dependent sensory appearances or phenomena, not things-in-themselves or noumena (A369), and (2) representational transcendentalism , which says that all representations and their contents necessarily conform to the forms or structures of our innate spontaneous cognitive capacities (Bxvi, A11/B25) (4: 373 n.). There are weaker and stronger interpretations of these theses (see, e.g., Allais 2015), but in any case transcendental idealism in its strongest version directly entails that all the objects of human experience are token-identical with objectively-valid sensory representational contents:

You put the matter quite precisely when you say The content ( Innbegriff ) of a representation is itself the object; and the activity of the mind whereby the content of a representation is represented is what is meant by ‘referring to the object. (11: 314)

Longuenesse aptly dubs this Kantian thesis “the internalization to representation of the object of representation” (Longuenesse 1998, 20, 108). But perhaps even more importantly, Kant’s “internalization to representation of the object of representation” entails that all the basic phenomenal forms or structures of those objects of experience are type-identical with the forms or structures introduced into representations by the innately pre-programmed spontaneous operations of our cognitive faculties, and in particular with the spatiotemporal structures of our subjective forms of sensory intuition. Indeed, Kant explicitly holds that space and time are nothing but our subjective forms of intuition, which is his controversial thesis of “the transcendental ideality of space and time” (A28–30/B44–45, A36/B52–53, A42–43/B59–60). The upshot is that according to the strongest version of transcendental idealism, all the objects of human experience are nothing but what we represent them to be, when we represent sensory objects according to the a priori normative principles of our understanding and our reason : so our cognition does not conform to the objects we cognize, rather those objects necessarily conform to our innate a priori normatively-governed faculties of cognition (Bxvi, A92/B125–126).

Now assume that this strongest version of transcendental idealism is correct. Then add to this assumption Kant’s centrality thesis, to the effect that judgment is the central human cognitive faculty, and also the priority-of-the-proposition thesis. It follows immediately that all the objects of human experience are token-identical with the propositional contents of objectively valid empirical judgments , and also that all the basic phenomenal forms or structures of objects of human experience are type-identical with the spatiotemporal and logico-syntactic and logico-semantic forms or structures that are inherent in the propositional contents of empirical judgments, which we can now see to be forms or structures that have been introduced directly into nature by the acts of the cognitive faculties of sensibility, imagination, understanding, apperception, and reason, which are all brought together and fused in the unifying act of judgment or thought . In short, the strongest version of Kant’s transcendental idealism is also a judgment-based idealism , according to which actual or non-actual/merely possible empirical objects or states-of-affairs are nothing but true or false empirical propositions, and according to which the basic phenomenal contours of the world we cognize are precisely the same as the innate intuitional, formal-syntactic, and semantic contours of the several cognitive faculties that jointly generate our judgments.

Kant’s judgment-based idealism has some crucial consequences for his theory of truth. If the strongest version of transcendental idealism is correct, then to every true empirical judgment there necessarily corresponds an actual empirical fact, and conversely, and also to every true a priori judgment there necessarily corresponds some objectively real conceptually-represented or intuitionally-represented structure across a complete set of logically or experientially possible worlds. What this means is that whereas Kant’s theory of truth is explicitly realistic at the empirical level—which is what he calls his “empirical realism” (A28/B44, A35/B52, A370–373)—in that actual empirical facts or modal facts (whether these are conceptually-represented logical world-structures or intuitionally-represented non-logical world-structures) always present themselves as in some irreducible respects external or extrinsic to our cognition, and therefore not controlled by us, nevertheless at the transcendental level his theory of truth is fully anti-realistic: transcendentally speaking, we impose truth upon the world . In short, the strongest version of transcendental idealism plus the centrality thesis plus the priority-of-the-proposition thesis jointly necessarily guarantee that all and only the cognitively well-generated judgments are true. This is what Kant calls the “transcendental truth” of judgments (A146/B185). Transcendental falsity, by contrast, is always the result of some special idiosyncrasy or accidental glitch in the cognitive generation of a given judgment, and thus represents a mere “performance error” in the operation of our cognitive faculties, and not a gap in our transcendental cognitive “competence.” Thus any sort of serious skepticism at the transcendental level of Kant’s theory of judgment is automatically ruled out of court.

One important critical question that needs to be raised is whether, in view of the strongest version of his transcendental idealism, Kant’s theory of judgment is reductionist in some basic respects, and in particular whether he reduces the meaning or propositional content of a judgment to a rule for confirming or disconfirming the assertion of that propositional content in the tribunal of sensory experience. This is of course the thesis of verificationism. Several important Kant commentators—e.g., Bird 1962, Strawson 1966, and Stroud 1968—have held that Kant’s theory of judgment is verificationist. Familiar problems with verificationism include its susceptibility to epistemic skepticism, its commitment to an implausible coherence theory of truth, and specific difficulties about how to confirm or disconfirm judgments about the non-immediate past or future.

It cannot be denied that there are some verificationist strands in Kant’s theory. For one thing, his “criterion of empirical truth” (see Section 1.3 above) is in effect verificationist. Moreover, to the extent that both Kant’s theory of transcendental truth and also his verificationism are anti-realist and judgment-based, there is at least an elective affinity if not precisely an equivalence between the two doctrines. Nevertheless, Kant is not a reductionist about meaning. In other words, he is not committed to the thesis that the propositional content of a judgment is nothing but a rule for confirming or disconfirming the assertion of that propositional content in the tribunal of sensory experience. While he does seem to be committed to the thesis that the propositional content of a judgment will be empirically meaningful or objectively valid only if it contains a rule for confirming or disconfirming the assertion of that propositional content in the tribunal of sensory experience, this does not by any means exhaust the propositional content of that judgment. Over and above its verificationist element, the propositional content of every judgment also contains a “thick” or non-deflationary correspondence-relation to relatively external or extrinsic actual facts (see Section 1.3 above). Furthermore the propositional content of every judgment contains a set of a priori logical forms deriving from the pure understanding, as well as a higher-order a priori rational subjective unity deriving from the faculty for apperception or rational self-consciousness (see Section 2.1.1 above). What this means is that Kant is at most a weak verificationist, and that the verificationist elements of his theory of judgment are significantly tempered by his semantic non-reductionism, his empirical realism, and his mitigated rationalism.

A more complete picture of Kant’s metaphysics of judgment is obtained by sketching in accounts of judgments of experience and transcendental judgments. These are discussed in the following supplementary document:

Completing the Picture of Kant’s Metaphysics of Judgment

4. Problems and Prospects

The basic parts of Kant’s theory of judgment are now all in place. In this concluding section, we will look briefly at several serious problems for Kant’s theory. These problems, which come to a head in the debate about Kant’s conceptualism vs. Kant’s non-conceptualism (see the supplementary document The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism ), all ultimately stem from the interplay between either the centrality thesis or the priority-of-the-proposition thesis, and the transcendental ideality thesis. This in turn suggests that the other two parts of Kant’s theory can be logically detached from his transcendental idealism and defended independently of it.

What can be called the bottom-up problem for Kant’s metaphysics of judgment follows directly from his non-conceptualism (see the supplement The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism ), and exposes a fundamental gap in the B Deduction. In our discussion of the B Deduction (see the supplement Completing the Picture of Kant’s Metaphysics of Judgment ) it was noted that Kant’s argument for the objective validity of the categories will go through only if all the objects of human intuition are necessarily also objects of human experience, that is, are necessarily also objects correctly represented by true judgments of experience, that is, are necessarily also objects falling under all of the categories, or at the very least under the principle of the Second Analogy of Experience, which provides the criterion of the objectivity of objects of experience. But if this claim fails, then there can in principle be nomologically ill-behaved or “rogue” objects of human intuition that fall outside the scope of judgments of experience and thus also outside the categories, or at least outside the scope of the Second Analogy. As several Kant-interpreters have pointed out, given the possibility of essentially non-conceptual intuitions, then the B Deduction is in big trouble (Kitcher 1990, Hanna 2016b). More precisely, Kant’s non-conceptualism entails that there can be objectively valid empirical intuitions that are both autonomous from and also independent of concepts, and thereby directly refer to objects. Since the cognition of these objects does not require either concepts or the faculty of understanding, and since these intuitions consciously represent objects over and above any conceptual content whatsoever, then some of these intuitions can pick out rogue objects that fall outside the constraints of all the categories, and thereby outside the constraints of the Second Analogy in particular. So it is not true that the categories and principles of pure understanding necessarily apply to all objects of conscious human perception, and the categorial anarchy of at least some sensory objects is really possible. Therefore the B Deduction is unsound.

The bottom-up problem has a metaphysical mirror-image, which can be called the top-down problem . This problem afflicts Kant’s transcendental doctrine of judgment, and consequently also his theory of the principles of pure understanding (see the supplement Completing the Picture of Kant’s Metaphysics of Judgment ). The worry here is simply that even allowing for the transcendental schematism of the judgment, there is still no absolute guarantee that a given universal transcendental principle or transcendental concept of the understanding, construed as a rule for ordering sensory appearances or sensory objects, has been completely applied to sensory appearances or objects. In other words, even allowing for his transcendental doctrine of the judgment, Kant has not given us good reason to think that there cannot be any sensory appearances or objects that fail to be subsumed under the transcendental principles of nature. In the Critique of Pure Reason , Kant calls the specifically causal-law-governed or nomological interconnection of all sensory appearances or objects under transcendental principles the “transcendental affinity”of the sensory manifold of intuitions (A114). In the A edition of the first Critique, Kant asserts that if the categories are objectively valid, then the transcendental affinity of the manifold automatically follows. Then, assuming the strongest version of transcendental idealism, he further asserts that from transcendental affinity, an “empirical affinity” of the sensory manifold of intuitions also directly follows (A115). Now since empirical affinity is the complete application to actual empirical nature of the system of causal laws under transcendental principles, it follows that empirical affinity is the same as the systematic unity of nature . So Kant is saying that the systematic unity of nature is a trivial consequence of transcendental affinity.

In the first Critique ’s Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic however, Kant quietly but very significantly backtracks on this crucial point and treats the principle of the systematic unity of nature as stemming only from a regulative but not a constitutive use of judgment, although this principle is also asserted to have some sort of transcendental force (see the supplement Kinds of Use ). Then in the first Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment , Kant explicitly says that

[it] is quite possible in itself (at least as far as the understanding can make out a priori), [that] the multiplicity of these [empirical] laws, along with the natural forms corresponding to them, being infinitely great, [could] … present to us a raw chaotic aggregate and not the least trace of a system, even though we must presuppose such a system in accordance with transcendental laws. (20: 209)

In other words, now Kant is saying that the transcendental affinity of the manifold does not entail an empirical affinity of the manifold or the systematic unity of nature. To be sure, in the third Critique , he also explicitly ties together the principle of systematic unity with the regulative use of reflective judgments of taste, and says that it is a subjectively necessary transcendental principle presupposed by legitimate judgments of taste (see the supplement Kinds of Use ). But if the principle of systematic unity is only subjectively and not in fact objectively necessary, then Kant has not shown us that the system of causal laws of nature must be completely applied to sensory appearances or objects. Rather he has shown only that we must epistemically believe it to be completely applied to sensory appearances or objects. So there remains the real possibility of relatively or absolutely chaotic aggregates of sensory appearances or objects that are not subsumed or even in principle cannot be subsumed under the transcendental affinity of the manifold, i.e., the real possibility of the categorial anarchy of rogue objects. In other words, for all that Kant has argued, and by his own reckoning, even assuming transcendental affinity there might still be no complete application of transcendental laws to nature. So the transcendental schematism of the pure concepts is insufficient to bridge the gap between categories and sensory appearances, and the transcendental doctrine of judgment fails.

As we saw in the supplement Completing the Picture of Kant’s Metaphysics of Judgment , the Second Analogy of Experience, if true, guarantees both the objectivity and the universal diachronic or temporally successive causal necessitation of objects of experience and all of their parts, under natural laws. As we also saw in Section 1.3, the “criterion of empirical truth” for a judgment of experience says that since the objectively valid propositional content of an empirical judgment can be specified as a necessary conceptual rule of sensory appearances or objects, then if that rule is effectively applied to the temporal succession of our sensory representations of the phenomenal material world, and that rule coheres with the causal-dynamic laws of nature, then that judgment is true. And finally, as we also saw in Section 3.1, the centrality thesis, the priority-of-the-proposition thesis, and the transcendental idealism thesis jointly entail the “transcendental truth” of judgment, which is that necessarily every well-generated judgment of experience is true and corresponds to an actual object of experience, that is, to an actual empirical fact.

But here is a simple objection to this three-part doctrine, borrowed from Descartes’s famous “dream skepticism” in the first of the Meditations on First Philosophy . Kant calls this form of skepticism “problematic idealism” (B274). To generate the relevant version of problematic idealism, suppose that all the sensory appearances or objects currently falling under the Second Analogy, the criterion of empirical truth, and the principle of transcendental truth are nothing but causally well-ordered parts of my inner sense alone . Then any object of experience corresponding to my currently true judgment of experience might be nothing but a very coherent dream or a hallucination. Nothing Kant has said can rule this out. Even the famous Refutation of Idealism in the first Critique , if sound, says only that “inner experience is possible only through outer experience in general” (B278–279), and Kant explicitly concedes that at any given time, for all we know, we could be dreaming or hallucinating:

from the fact that the existence of outer objects is required for the possibility of a determinate consciousness of our self it does not follow that every intuitive representation of outer things includes at the same time their existence, for that may well be the mere effect of the imagination (in dreams as well as delusions). (B278)

So even if inner experience and outer experience are necessarily connected in general, the truth and objectivity of any particular judgment of experience, by Kant’s own criteria for truth and objectivity, are consistent with the possibility that the particular object of experience corresponding to that judgment is nothing but very coherent dream or a hallucination. After all, I can perfectly well dream or hallucinate a boat going downstream, as well as actually seeing one. It is true that Kant does remark in the General Note on the System of Principles in the B edition of the first Critique that “in order to understand the possibility of things in accordance with the categories, and thus to establish the objective reality of the latter, we do not merely need intuitions, but always outer intuitions” (B291). This seems correct. But unfortunately, given what Kant says at B278, nothing in his transcendentally idealistic metaphysics of judgment will guarantee that any set of sensory appearances or objects satisfying his criteria for the truth and objectivity of judgments of experience on any particular occasion will in fact be material objects in space corresponding to outer intuitions, and not merely causally well-ordered mental imagery corresponding to inner intuitions, i.e., mere “phantoms of my brain.” So the Second Analogy’s criterion of objectivity is ultimately insufficient to yield the empirical truth of judgments of experience, despite Kant’s explicit claim that this criterion does yield both their objective validity and their empirical truth (A202/B247).

As we have seen in Sections 4.1 to 4.3, Kant’s theory of judgment leads to at least three serious problems when it is taken in conjunction with the issue about his conceptualism vs. his non-conceptualism (in the supplement The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism ) and his metaphysics of strong transcendental idealism (Section 3.1 and the supplement Completing the Picture of Kant’s Metaphysics of Judgment ). Does this mean his theory of judgment is philosophically unacceptable and at best an antiquarian curiosity of 18th century German philosophy? No. This is because it seems very likely that the problems in Kant’s theory of judgment are principally due to his conjoining the centrality thesis and the priority-of-the-proposition thesis with the thesis of transcendental idealism. But suppose that the strongest version of transcendental idealism is false, and that the transcendental idealism thesis is either logically detached from the other two theses or else retained but instead based on a significantly weaker version of transcendental idealism (Hanna 2006b, ch. 5): what remains? We are left with a general Kantian theory of human rationality that is essentially oriented towards judgment, and then in turn with specific Kantian accounts of the nature of judgment and of the various irreducibly different kinds of judgment, that are essentially oriented towards the anthropocentric empirical meaningfulness and truth of the proposition. As such, Kant’s theory of judgment is thoroughly cognitivist but also anti-psychologistic and anti-platonistic, and it thereby smoothly combines the several “faces” of judgment into a unified doctrine. So the fact that Kantian non-conceptualism (see the supplement The Togetherness Principle, Kant’s Conceptualism, and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism ) makes serious trouble for the B Deduction (Section 4.1), together with the further fact that the strongest version of transcendental idealism is very likely false—since the unqualified transcendental ideality thesis, when conjoined with the centrality thesis and the priority-of-the-proposition thesis, collectively entail contradictions in Kant’s theory that are not entailed by the conjunction of the other two theses alone—do not ultimately compromise the inherent philosophical interest, contemporary relevance, and critical defensibility of the other basic parts of Kant’s theory of judgment.

Internal references to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason contain page numbers from both the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions. All other internal references to Kant’s writings are cited using the relevant volume and page number from the standard “Akademie” edition of Kant’s works: Kants Gesammelte Schriften , edited by the Königlich Preussischen (now Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1902–).

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• “The Role of Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Experience” , by Wilfrid Sellars.

analytic/synthetic distinction | a priori justification and knowledge | cognitive science | concepts | idealism | innateness: historical controversies | intentionality | Kant, Immanuel: philosophy of mathematics | Kant, Immanuel: view of mind and consciousness of self | logic: classical | logical form | logicism and neologicism | meaning, theories of | mental content: nonconceptual | mental representation | propositions | -->rationality --> | reference | truth: correspondence theory of | truth: deflationism about

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The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2023 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Issue Analysis / Logical Argument

Types of claims.

Claims usually fall into one of three types:

• Claims of fact
• Claims of value
• Claims of policy

Claims of Fact

A claim of fact makes an assertion about something that can be proved or disproved with factual evidence. However, keep in mind the basic quality of claims, that they have to be debatable, and offer an assertion about an issue. So a claim of fact for a logical argument cannot simply consist of a statistic or proven fact. It needs, instead, to focus on an assertion which uses facts to back it up, but for which the evidence might still be debatable.

Inappropriate claim of fact – a statistic or fact that is not debatable:

“the month of March 2017 was 1.03°C (1.9°F) above the 20th century average—this marked the first time the monthly temperature departure from average surpassed 1.0°C (1.8°F) in the absence of an El Niño episode in the tropical Pacific Ocean.” (from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration, NOAA, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201713 )

Appropriate claim of fact – makes a claim that is debatable using factual evidence

Decreasing carbon dioxide emissions from car exhaust, manufacturing processes, fertilizers, and landfills, while slowing deforestation, may help slow the process of global warming.

Claims of Value

Sample claims of value:

It’s better to apply good nutritional choices at home than teach them at school, because good nutrition then becomes ingrained in the child’s experience.

Although immunotherapy has produced some good results in fighting cancer, overall it is less effective than chemotherapy.

Claims of Policy

Sample claims of policy:

The city’s board of education should institute an honors program not only for high school students, but for elementary and junior high school students as well.

Just as smoking ads have been banned in order to decrease the urge to engage in an unhealthy behavior, soda ads should be banned for the same reason.

No matter the type of claim, you will usually combine many types of support for that claim in order to write a logical argument, including facts, case studies, reasons, personal interviews, and more, as appropriate.

To strengthen your understanding of types of claims, take this nine question self-test. See if you can identify which type of claim the statement is making, then check the answer.

• Vaping can lead to increased blood pressure, lung disease, and insulin resistance. Show Answer Claim of fact
• The basic keys to success are perseverance and discipline. Show Answer Claim of value
• Studies have shown that exposure to violent media is a risk factor for violent behaviors. Show Answer Claim of fact
• The Career Support Network is an excellent resource for people who are considering a mid-life career change. Show Answer Claim of value
• In order to insure that graduates are competitive for top jobs in their fields, the college must put additional resources into its career services office and internship programs. Show Answer Claim of policy
• Although the International Astronomical Union announced that Pluto is not actually a planet, experts disagree on what characteristics define a planet. Show Answer Claim of fact
• Increased investments in solar power will benefit national security by reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Show Answer Claim of policy
• Parents should not only be aware of how their children are using social media, but also understand the potential positive and negative impacts of social media use. Show Answer Claim of policy
• Advances in computer modeling have made it possible to create completely new types of architectural structures. Show Answer Claim of fact
• Types of Claims. Authored by : Susan Oaks. Provided by : Empire State College, SUNY OER Services. Project : College Writing. License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• image of magnifying glass over multiple iterations of the word Fact. Authored by : geralt. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/en/magnifying-glass-facts-examine-1607160/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• image of a hand and three emoticon faces, one neutral, one positive, and one negative. The hand is pointing to the positive one.. Authored by : Tumisu. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/en/feedback-opinion-customer-1977986/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• image of four people, each holding an idea bubble. Authored by : rawpixel. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/en/woman-man-group-office-teamwork-3365370/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Short Story › Analysis of Amy Tan’s Two Kinds

Analysis of Amy Tan’s Two Kinds

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 4, 2022

Two Kinds is a selection from Amy Tan ’s (1952– ) critically acclaimed The Joy Luck Club (1989), which critics saw as an intricately woven “novel.” But that Tan intended the book to be read not as a novel but as a collection of short stories is evident. “Two Kinds” stands on its own as a story that explores the struggles between a Chinese immigrant mother, Suyuan Woo, and her firstgeneration American daughter, Jing-mei (the narrator of the story). Suyuan Woo dreams of her daughter’s becoming a child prodigy, but Jing-mei resists these ambitions and attempts to express her own free will. The story expresses the themes that run throughout The Joy Luck Club : “the struggle for control between mothers and daughters; the daughters’ bids for independent lives; the mothers’ attempts to understand the dynamics of life in the New World and somehow to blend the best of their Old World culture with a new way of life that they do not comprehend” (Huntley 43). These themes appear in the first two paragraphs, where Jing-mei begins with her mother’s, not her own, perspective: “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (585). At the core of the struggle between mother and daughter is the conflict between Suyuan Woo’s belief in America as the land of unlimited potential and Jing-mei’s more realistic expectations. However, Tan does more than merely present an unrealistic optimist in Suyuan Woo; with an allusion to Suyuan Woo’s past, Tan suggests why immigrants perceive America differently than their Americanized progeny: “She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better” (585). The date of her arrival in America coincides with the end of the Sino-Japanese War and hints at the tragedies that befell her in her war-ravaged home country. Instead of dwelling on these tragedies, she invests all hope in the future, specifically in her daughter.

Amy Tan (HarperCollins / Julian Johnson)

In the third paragraph, the story shifts focus from Suyuan Woo’s perspective to young Jing-mei’s impressions of her mother. For instance, Jing-mei notes that her mother’s search for the type of prodigy she might become was implemented through reading magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest, and she explains, “My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment” (586). Jing-mei offers no comment on, seems to have no empathy for, the hard work her mother does in order to achieve a better life for her family. Furthermore, she does not seem to appreciate the sacrifice involved in the deal Suyuan Woo makes with a neighbor, “Old Chong,” in order to get her piano lessons: “My mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons and a piano for me to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.” When learning about the deal for piano lessons, she focuses on her own obligations and concludes, “I felt as though I had been sent to hell” (588). Jing-meidoes not seem to recognize the IRONY of this comment. Despite her mother’s losses and sufferings in China and her sacrifices in America, Jing-mei sees only her own loss of free time in this piano deal. In this way, the story emphasizes differences between immigrant parents and their Americanized children. The children are largely unaware of the hardships the parents endure to get a piece of the American Dream in which they have so much faith.

However, there is more to Jing-mei’s resistance to and resentment of her mother’s ambitions than a mere desire to spend her free time watching television; it is not that she is just “lazy,” as her mother sometimes accuses her. Her resistance is a sign that instead of seeing America as the land of opportunity, Jing-mei sees it as the land of freedom, freedom of choice and of will. At first Jing-mei goes along with her mother’s crazy schemes to get rich quick, but she eventually perceives the unreality of these dreams and, instead, sees her ability to assert her free will. After yet another failure with her mother, Jing-mei looks at herself in the mirror and sees “only my face,” an “ordinary face.” With this she begins to cry, seeing herself as a “sad” and “ugly” girl. It is at this moment that she realizes a different kind of potential than the potential her mother sees: “Then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me—because I had never seen that face before. . . .The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” (587). Her prodigy self is the self who is able to resist authority, to choose her own course of life, a distinctly American ambition.

While mother and daughter each cling to American values, the values they cling to are opposing. When Jing-mei tries to assert her free will by refusing to play the piano, Suyuan Woo tells her that there are only “two kinds of daughters. . . . Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!” Her mother further tells her that “only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter” (592). While the mother urgently desires an Americanized daughter, one who achieves great things, one with the potential to become rich and famous, she cannot come to terms with other American characteristics, those of self-determination and independence. Despite its emphasis on the immigrant experience, as E. D. Huntley points out, Tan’s fiction has a more universal theme: “Tan also writes about love and loss and redemption, about individuals coming to terms with the facts of their lives and about the workings of fate in human existence” (34).

Analysis of Amy Tan’s Stories

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Bella. Amy Tan: Contemporary World Writers. New York: Manchester University Press, 2005. Huntley, E. D. Amy Tan: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Amy Tan: A Literary Companion. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Tan, Amy. “Two Kinds.” In The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction. New York: Scribner, 1999.

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Course: LSAT   >   Unit 1

• Getting started with Logical Reasoning
• Introduction to arguments
• Catalog of question types

Types of conclusions

• Types of evidence
• Types of flaws
• Identify the conclusion | Quick guide
• Identify the conclusion | Learn more
• Identify the conclusion | Examples
• Identify an entailment | Quick guide
• Identify an entailment | Learn more
• Strongly supported inferences | Quick guide
• Strongly supported inferences | Learn more
• Disputes | Quick guide
• Disputes | Learn more
• Identify the technique | Quick guide
• Identify the technique | Learn more
• Identify the role | Quick guide
• Identify the role | learn more
• Identify the principle | Quick guide
• Identify the principle | Learn more
• Match structure | Quick guide
• Match structure | Learn more
• Match principles | Quick guide
• Match principles | Learn more
• Identify a flaw | Quick guide
• Identify a flaw | Learn more
• Match a flaw | Quick guide
• Match a flaw | Learn more
• Necessary assumptions | Quick guide
• Necessary assumptions | Learn more
• Sufficient assumptions | Quick guide
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• Strengthen and weaken | Quick guide
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• Explain or resolve | Quick guide
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• When an arguer's conclusion is a recommendation for something, he or she often will provide one good reason to do that thing. One thing to be aware of here is the assumption that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
• When an arguer's conclusion is a prediction , the arguer may be assuming that the current evidence will remain unchanged in the future.

Comparisons

• It’s clear that this year’s candidate is stronger than last year’s candidate.
• It’s clear that this year’s candidate understands the public’s wishes better than she did a year ago.
• Last night, I took cough medicine and today I feel much better. So that cough medicine is really effective. ( Cause: cough medicine; effect: feeling better)
• Jonathan gets good grades without trying very hard, and his teachers have said multiple times how much they like him. The only possible way that Jonathan maintains his good grades is because of how much his teachers like him. ( Cause: teachers liking Jonathan; effect: good grades)

Assessments

• The flower is beautiful .
• This policy is very helpful .
• The outcome will be important .

Recommendations

• In treating this disease, then, physicians should favor Treatment X.
• It’s likely that extending the warranty is the only way to gain new customers.

Predictions

• Obviously, the tennis match will be rescheduled.
• Our homeless population may not be reduced by next year.

Simple Beliefs

• It’s clear that the student cheated on the test.
• The thief is probably still in the house somewhere.

Degrees of conclusion

Definite conclusions, indefinite conclusions.

• Likelihood: likely, unlikely, possible, could, might
• Quantity: some, most, more
• Frequency: rarely, seldom, often, sometimes, usually
• Proximity: almost, nearly

Of Truth by Francis Bacon Summary & Analysis

In this essay, Bacon has presented the objective truth in various manifestations.Similarly, Bacon shares with us the subjective truth, operative in social life. “OF TRUTH” is Bacon’s masterpiece that shows his keen observation of human beings with special regard to truth. In the beginning of the essay, Bacon rightly observes that generally people do not care for truth as Pilate, the governor of the Roman Empire, while conducting the trial of Jesus Christ, cares little for truth:

“What is truth? Said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.”

Advancing his essay, Bacon explores the reasons why the people do not like truth. First, truth is acquired through hard work and man is ever reluctant to work hard. Secondly, truth curtails man’s freedom. More than that the real reason of man’s disliking to truth is that man is attached to lies which Bacon says “a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.” Man loves falsehood because, Bacon says that truth is as if the bright light of the day and would show what men, in actual, are. They look attractive and colourful in the dim light of lies.He futher adds,

“A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.”

It is a fact that man prefers to cherish illusions, which make his life more interesting. With a profound observation of man’s psychology, Bacon states that if deprived of false pride and vanities, the human mind would contract like a deflated balloon and these human beings would become poor, sad and ill. However, poetic untruth is not gone unnoticed by Bacon’s piercing intellect. He says though poetic untruth is a wine of the Devil in priest’s eyes, yet it is not as harmful as the other lies are. Bacon being a literary artist illustrates this concept with an apt imagery that the poetic untruth is but the shadow of a lie. The enquiry of truth, knowledge of truth and belief of truth are compared with the enjoyment of love. Such a comparison lends the literary charm to this essay.Bacon further says in that the last act of creation was to create rational faculty, which helps in finding truth, is the finished product of God’s blessing as he says:

“… The last was the light of reason…is the illumination of his spirit.”

Bacon’s moral idealism is obvious when he advancing his argument in favour of truth asserts that the earth can be made paradise only with the help of truth. Man should ever stick to truth in every matter, do the act of charity and have faith in every matter, do the act of charity and have faith in God. Bacon’s strong belief in truth and Divinity is stated thus:

“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.”

From the objective truth, Bacon passes judgment, to the subjective truth, which he calls “the truth of civil business”. It is the compelling quality of truth, Bacon observes, that the persons who do not practice truth, acknowledge it. Bacon’s idealistic moral attitude is obvious in these lines when he says: “….. that clear and round dealing is the honour of man’s nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work better, but it embaseth it.”

Bacon further asserts that the liars are like a snake that goes basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. Imagery comprising comparison is apt and convincing. Moreover, Bacon refers to Montaigne who is of the view that “a lie faces God and shrinks from man”. Bacon adds that falsehood is the height of wickedness and as such will invite the Judgment of God upon all human beings on Doom’s day. Therefore, Bacon concludes his essay with didacticism with a tinge of Christian morality.

In the essay, “OF TRUTH”, there is no digression. All the arguments in the essay pertain to the single main idea, truth. Bacon’s wide learning is clearly observed when he refers to Pilate (history), Lucian (Greek literature), Creation, Montaigne (a French essayist). “OF TRUTH” is enriched with striking similes and analogies, such as he equates liars as a snake moving basely on its belly, mixture of falsehood is like an alloy of gold and silver.Similarly, truth is ‘open day light’ whereas lie is ‘candle light i.e fake dim light. Truth is ‘a pearl’ i.e worthy and precious whereas ,lie is ‘a diamond’ that reflects light illusions when placed in daylight.

The essay “OF TRUTH” is not ornamental as was the practice of the Elizabethan prose writers. Bacon is simple, natural and straightforward in his essay though Elizabethan colour is also found in “OF TRUTH” because there is a moderate use of Latinism in the essay. Economy of words is found in the essay not alone, but syntactic brevity is also obvious in this essay. We find conversational ease in this essay, which is the outstanding feature of Bacon’s style. There is a peculiar feature of Bacon i.e. aphorism. We find many short, crispy, memorable and witty sayings in this essay.

Therefore, Bacon’s essay “OF TRUTH” is rich in matter and manner. This is really a council ‘civil and moral’.

More From Francis Bacon

• Of Adversity
• Of Ambition
• Of Discourse
• Of Followers and Friends
• Of Friendship
• Of Great Place
• Of Marriage and Single Life
• Of Nobility
• Of Parents and Children
• Of Simulation and Dissimulation
• Of Superstition
• Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature