There are several major philosophical projects that having a viable analytic/synthetic distinction would advance. For example: Analytic (true) sentences are supposed to have their truth values solely in virtue of the meanings (together with the syntactic arrangement) of their constituents; in effect, their truth values are supposed to supervene on their linguistic properties alone (Quine 1953). So they are true in every possible world where they mean what they mean here. So they are necessarily true. So if there were a viable analytic/synthetic distinction, we would understand the necessity of at least some necessary truths. If, in particular, it were to turn out that the logical and/or the mathematical truths are analytic, we would understand why they are necessary (Gibson 1988, Quine 1998).

An account of necessity according to which necessary truths are analytic has special virtues. Necessity is not...