Introduction

Abstract

To claim that it is impossible to write a history of the analytic–synthetic distinction in the introduction to a journal issue devoted precisely to this topic may seem either as a joke for philosophers or a literary imitation of Magritte’s masterpiece. Yet we believe that neither description is accurate and not merely because there are accounts that prove incompatible, or at least untranslatable due to heterogeneity of the conceptual background and the consequent changes in the use of terms. Rather, it is impossible to write a unified history of the analytic–synthetic distinction because the same terminology has been used to frame entirely different problems–which are linked to that distinction but cannot be reduced to it.