https://www.rit.edu/cla/philosophy/quine/analytic_synthetic.html wrote:
Analytic sentences are true by definition, and are generally self-explanatory. Additionally, they often have little to no informative value. Examples of analytic sentences include:
Frozen water is ice.
Bachelors are unmarried men.
Two halves make up a whole.
No additional meaning or knowledge is contained in the predicate that is not already given in the subject. Analytic sentences are redundant statements whose clarification relies entirely on definition. Analytic sentences tell us about logic and about language use. They do not give meaningful information about the world.
Synthetic statements, on the other hand, are based on our sensory data and experience. The truth-value of a synthetic statements cannot be figured out based solely on logic. If one had had no sensory input from the world, then studying the statement would not yield the meaning of the sentence, as it would for an analytic sentence. Examples of synthetic sentences are:
Children wear hats.
The table in the kitchen is round.
My computer is on.
Synthetic sentences are descriptions of the world that cannot be taken for granted. Sentences that are possibly true but not necessarily true are synthetic.
So while this _seems_ to be a significant idea that Cindy is trying to bring up, in reality it just means that she is talking about non-tautalogical statements, such as "Children are messy", or "Most Schlock comics are funny", or "Howard's tweets are entertaining".
As opposed to "tautalogically" true statements, like "Petey is annoying".
Now, I actually cut off a section of that page. There's a philosophical question as to whether or not there is a valid distinction here -- "Water ice is solid cold water" requires knowing more information to establish its truth value, and apparently, no one has managed to come up with a way to distinguish the types without effectively deciding on a case by case basis.
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