Little known in France, the analytic-synthetic distinction is one of the cornerstones of empiricism in general and the scientific method in particular. Indeed, it translates, into everyday language, the fact that scientific knowledge derives either from experience (that is, from observation) or from logic applied to experience. The origins of the distinction date back to the fourteenth century and William of Ockham, but it was David Hume and then Immanuel Kant who gave it its definitive expression.
