Analytic and Synthetic Propositions: I. Kant’s Criticisms and N.O. Lossky's Intuitionism

The subject of the study is the development of epistemological and logical doctrine by outstanding Russian philosopher Nikolay Onufriyevich Lossky in connection with the influence of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy on him. The formation of Lossky’s logical and epistemological views followed the path of development and, at the same time, creative “overcoming” of Kant’s critical philosophy. Special attention is paid to solving the problem of analytic and synthetic propositions in Lossky’s system of logic based on the epistemology of intuitionism and ideal-realism. Relying on Kant’s achievements in transcendental logic, related to the discovery of synthetic propositions a priori, justification of the possibility of universal and necessary synthetic propositions, Lossky comes to his own original view of the problem “analytic - synthetic”, manifested in the statement of all propositions (including the propositions of mathematics and logic) as having a synthetic structure, the rejection of analytic propositions, the extension of this position to the theory of inference, according to which syllogism is also synthetic. The views of N.O. Lossky on the problem of correlation between traditional logic and modern mathematical logic are considered. The text of N.O. Lossky’s article “Analytic and Synthetic Propositions and Mathematical Logic”, which has not been published in Russian before, is analysed. The introduction of new archival material into the scientific turnover will make it possible to outline more clearly the contours of N.O. Lossky’s logic as the most important part of his philosophical system, to study the development of the thinker’s logical ideas in the 1950s at the late stage of his work (the American period of the Russian philosopher’s life and work) and to understand the specifics of his “discussion” with representatives of neopositivism (R. Carnap, B. Russell, L. Wittgenstein).