 In any case, while the semantic conditions of a language might provide a basis for securing a priori knowledge of claims about mind-dependent domains, such as those of perhaps ethics and aesthetics, in the case of mind-independent domains, such as logic and mathematics, or the nature of worldly phenomena such as life or thought, the prospects seem more problematic. There may be analytic claims to be had here, but at least in these cases they would, in the immortal words of Putnam (1965 [1975], p. 36), “cut no philosophical ice…bake no philosophical bread and wash no philosophical  windows.”[18]  We would just have to be satisfied with theorizing about the mind-independent domains themselves, without being able to justify our claims about them by appeal to the meanings of our words alone. Reflecting on the difficulties of the past century’s efforts on behalf of the analytic, it’s not clear why anyone would really want to insist otherwise.