West, David. An Introduction to Continental Philosophy. Cambridge MA: Polity Press, 1996.
Analytic truth: straightforward definitions, can be found to be either true or false simply in virtue of the meanings of the terms they contain or, in other words, by analysis. “A bachelor is an unmarried male” is, simply true by definition. In Kantian terms, the concept of the predicate (‘… is an unmarred male’) is included in the concept of the subject (‘A bachelor’). Analytic truths, which depend simply on the meanings of the terms we use and tell us nothing about the real world, are plausible examples of a priori knowledge. We don’t find out that they are true by observation or experience.
The truth of synthetic peopositions, on the other hand, cannot be decided in this way. That “No woman has ever been President of the USA” is a truth that can be known only synthetically. In this case the concept of the predicate is clearly not included in the concept of the subject (being male is not part of the definition of President). factually informative based on actual evidence or experience, and therefore are a posteriori truths
Kant’s philosophy imples that we can have substantive or non-trivial knowledge of the structure of experience independently of all experience. TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM
A moral action must be motivated purely by the intention to do what is right, not by any particular interest or desire of the individual. The ‘synthetic a priori principles of orality must be derived, therefore, fromteh abstract notion of a rational will or agent, from which all distinguishing inidivudal features have been expunged. The inidivudla acts freely andmorally when he or she acts purely in obedience to a universal moral law that is the product of reason alone.
Accordingly, Kant’s famous ‘categorical imperative’ invites agents to ‘universalize’ the maxim of their actions: ‘Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’