The Objectivist theory of concepts undercuts the theory of the
analytic-synthetic dichotomy at its root. . . . Since a concept is an
integration of units, it has no content or meaning apart from its units. The
meaning of a concept consists of the units—the existents—which it integrates,
including all the characteristics of these units.
Observe that concepts mean existents, not arbitrarily selected portions of
existents. There is no basis whatever—neither metaphysical nor
epistemological, neither in the nature of reality nor of a conceptual
consciousness—for a division of the characteristics of a concept’s units into
two groups, one of which is excluded from the concept’s meaning. . . .
The fact that certain characteristics are, at a given time, unknown to man,
does not indicate that these characteristics are excluded from the entity—or
from the concept. A is A; existents are what they are, independent of the
state of human knowledge; and a concept means the existents which it
integrates. Thus, a concept subsumes and includes all the characteristics of
its referents, known and not-yet-known.