Analytics

ANALYTICS. - Term derived from analysis. In Aristotle, the Analytics (Prior and Posterior) are the names of the two books of logic that deal with the syllogism and with demonstration. In Kant, a. is the science of the forms of knowing, and transcendental a., according to the sense given by Kant to the term "transcendental," is that part of logic which analyzes the faculty of knowing in order to discover in it the elements and the a priori forms of the pure knowledge of the intellect (concepts and principles) without which it is impossible to think any object.

As a noun that has entered common philosophical language, not to speak here of its wide use in mathematics and geometry, one may say that a. expresses the strong sense of analysis, almost as an abbreviation of analytic science or inquiry: that is, the methodical, resolutive study of a phenomenon, of a problem, of a doctrine, etc., in its causes, in its elements, in its principles. It is in this sense that we can speak, for example, of an a. of thought, an a. of experience, an a. of Thomism.

Ugo Viglino