system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why does Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason draw the distinction between analytic/synthetic and a priori/ a posreriori?
gpt
It's all about the historical debate between empiricists and rationalists. Hume was one of the former, Kant one of the latter. Hume (according to Kant) basically showed that all that could be known about the world had to be known empirically through the senses, or that it had to be synthetic and *a posteriori*.

Kant's *CoPR* attempts to demonstrate that there can, in fact, be synthetic *a priori* judgments: that is, we can make judgments about this world that are must be true in every case. These synthetic a priori judgments tie the world that we live in to the realm of reason, allowing Kant to reject Hume's empiricism.

So, to summarize, Kant made the distinction so he could dismantle the Empiricism of Hume and argue for a world governed by rational principles.