Synthesis (philosophy)

“ The Place of Synthesis in Knowledge. What position does synthesis occupy in the total process of knowledge? Is synthesis one of the factors or elements of knowledge? Is synthesis on the same level with the sensations, the feelings, the imaginations? No, it is very different. The synthesis that Kant is describing is not the product or conclusion from an inference. Kant does not mean by synthesis the combination of facts as a result, such as a biologist might make in framing the law of the habits of animals from his observation of them. ”

“ There is no justification for concluding from the unity of psychic life, which manifests itself in synthesis, the fundamental form of consciousness, that the soul is a being which is distinct from the body or a substance. Synthesis is only a form, which we are not permitted to regard as a separate substance. It is impossible for psychology to be more than a science of experience. ”

“ Synthesis is the knowing process rather than the known product. It is constitutive; it is creative; it conditions experience and puts the material of experience together. It must not be thought to be a voluntary act of the mind, which the mind will or will not do, as it pleases. When the mind acts, it synthesizes.
Furthermore, the synthetic functioning of all human minds everywhere is the same. However much their sensations differ, they combine and orderly arrange their sense-materials in the same ways. The synthesis of the human mind is the source of the universality belonging to knowledge ”

“ Thus it comes about that the concrete or adequate synthesis which should have appeared in the self-conscious thought of the period, when it reflected upon what it was, has been replaced by a narrow and one-sided formula, an abstract and formal universal, a universal which does not express all the particulars. One predominant side of the synthesis steals the place of the total: what should have been a comprehensive universal has lowered itself into a particular. ”

“ But in this sphere we cannot attain anything more than a hypothetical scheme, for the synthesis which forms the completion of our knowledge cannot be carried out positively—as in the cases of the finite synthesis of the special departments of phenomena. But this nevertheless furnishes us a criterion by which to judge the various metaphysical systems: such a system is complete in proportion as both multiplicity as well as unity, analysis as well as synthesis, receive due recognition (L'avenir de la Metaphysique, 1889) . ”

“ Causality, therefore, is an example of a synthesis which over-arches sequences. The fact that the phenomena are sequent does not affect the principle involved. Whenever we contemplate an example of synthesis, that is, defined differentiæ of some sort, and a defined underlying unity of some sort, the mind affirms that reality exists. There are degrees of reality. ”

“ In ordinary life we attach but little importance to this machinery of cognition. We incline to let the fact of synthesis drop out of sight, as if it required no further study or notice, and we regard the things connected as exclusively worth attending to. ”

“ The universal synthesis which is to constitute philosophy must express the total operation accomplished by the cooperation of these factors. The law which shall formulate this synthesis must be a law of the changes in forces under the two phases, matter and motion, by which they are manifested to us: it must be a principle of dynamics holding good both for the whole of the cosmos, and for its every detail. The changes of an object are all produced by new arrangements of the matter constituting it, and by a new distribution of the forces which belong to it. ”

“ Mental synthesis is constitutive of the world in which we are actually engaged—mental synthesis is shot through and through all our experiences. Mental synthesis is the framework of the universe, and therefore Kant says, “The world is my representation.” ”

“ The conception, extension, is contained in the conception, body; but heaviness is an entirely foreign idea, which we can unite to the conception, body, only because experience authorizes it. Only with this addition is there properly synthesis. The union of ideas which results from the conception of the thing, although comparison may be necessary in order to fecundate them, does not make a synthesis. The conceptions are not wholly absolute, they contain relations, and the discovery of these relations does not give a synthesis, but a more complete analysis. ”

“ Absolute synthesis is as much purely ideal as absolute analysis. The Real occurs only in Nature as product; but Nature is not product, either when thought as absolute involution or as absolute evolution ”

“ In teaching, for example, when a new fact is brought into connexion with already acquired knowledge and the learner puts them together ("synthesizes") , the result is "synthetic" and the process is "synthesis." The reverse process is analysis, as in grammar when a child breaks up a sentence into subject, verb, object, &c. Thus all inductive reasoning is synthetic in character. The term "synthesis" is much used in philosophy. ”

“ With the discovery of sociological laws, a synthesis on the basis of Science becomes possible, science being now concentrated on the study of Humanity
When Science had expanded sufficiently to exist apart from Philosophy, it showed a rapid tendency towards a synthesis of its own, alike incompatible with metaphysics and with theology. ”

“ As synthesis is predominant in his view of things, so a harmonizing, conciliatory tendency asserts itself in his relations to his predecessors: the results of previous philosophers are neither discarded out of hand nor accepted in the mass, but all that appears in any way useful or akin to the new system is wrought in at its proper place, though often with considerable transformation. ”

“ The truly general syntheses are so extraordinarily few in the history of the human mind, they lead to such wide and unexpected results when they stir the interest of the philosophic world, that any substantial synthesis lives and moulds opinion, even when its details are rejected and its conclusions are ignored. ”

“ Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the mere operation of the imagination—a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious. ”

“ What we have here is not four ideas, but one idea of there being four chairs. A sum of ideas is not the same thing as the idea of their sum, just as in algebra the sum of squares is not the same as the square of the sum. I think a sentence took a stroll in the forest yesterday morning. The sentence, forms a multiplicity of words, but in spite of all that multiplicity, the phrase appears in consciousness as one whole, as a synthetized unity. Synthetic unity is the essence, the backbone of thought. ”

“ In fact, the power of what may be termed analytic synthesis,—the mental power which first resolves words or things into their elements, and then puts them together in new forms,—is a creative or co-ordinating force, indicative of a higher natural capacity than the act of mere analysis. ”

“ In short, a veritable synthesis, comprising the entire circle of the phænomena of the universe, ought to be able to resume in itself, and in a few words, all the particular facts which have been previously studied. This method being useful even to those who are already familiarised with the laws of the universe, I recommend them, while still pursuing without intermission the study of nature, which contributes more than anything else to the tranquillity and happiness of life, to make a concise statement or summary of their opinions. ”

“ That the synthesis must exist would, on the hypothesis we are considering, be beyond doubt. For if both the lines of argument which lead respectively to the eternal reality of the Absolute Idea, and the existence of change could be known to be, not merely unrefuted, but true, then they must somehow be compatible. ”

“ We may say that it is also possible that the two predicates should be combined in a higher unity. This would leave it scarcely correct to say, without qualification, that either is asserted or either denied of the subject. But synthesis is itself a process of reasoning, and unites its two terms by a category in which we recognise the nature of each extreme as a subordinate moment, which is harmonised with the other. The harmony involves that, wherever a synthesis is possible, reason is supreme. ”

“ Seen in its proper place, analysis has for its chief function to prepare the way for synthesis; and, to keep a due mental balance, there must be not only a recognition of the truth that synthesis is the end to which analysis is the means, but there must also be a practice of synthesis along with a practice of analysis. ”

“ Proposition I. affirms that, along with whatever a man is cognisant of, he must be cognisant of himself. In thinking, therefore, of the independent universe as a synthesis of objects plus another subject, must he not take himself into account as well, and must not the total synthesis of thought, in that case, be objects plus another me plus me? It is true that the synthesis which each of us cogitates is of this character. But the explanation is this: Propositions I. and II. lay down the essential constituents of all cognition, and, consequently, of all conception. ”

“ Thus when one carries one’s thoughts back to a series of events, one constructs a psychic whole made up of parts which take definite shape and character by their mutual interrelations. This process is called conceptual synthesis, the possibility of which is a sine qua non for the exchange of information by speech and writing. ”

“ There are thus no innate ideas, and no extranate ideas; but every idea or cognition has an element which is innate, and an element which is not so—every cognition, in short, is both innate and extranate—is a synthesis constituted by an a priori part and an a posteriori part. ”

“ Are we, in our trial to establish the necessary connections, simply to draw upon our innate power of synthesis, again once more to stimulate the much-jaded faculty of mental constructiveness? Assuredly, if the material for the verification of any logical supposition had been extant, the master-minds, who have so admirably dealt with this great subject of synthetical continuity, would have left no material chasm unbridged. ”

“ To have the idea of a conglomeration, of a multiplicity of objects, images or ideas, a synthetizing moment consciousness is required, a moment-consciousness that should take cognizance of all these objects, images or ideas and synthetize them into a unity, the one idea of the many. The many words, the many ideas must be synthetized in one moment-consciousness before the idea of the sentence can emerge, This synthesis, in fact, is that one idea. Ideas, images, thoughts, feelings do not come together, fuse into one, and make one idea. ”

“ And all the confusion may be eliminated if there is borne in mind the simple and single consideration that in studying an effect it is the qualities of a combination with which we are properly concerned. And to expect to find in analysis that which is the product of synthesis is in the highest degree absurd. ”

“ Analytic and Synthetic Deduction.—Alexander the Commentator defined synthesis as a progress from principles to consequences, analysis as a regress from consequences to principles; and Latin logicians preserved the same distinction between the progressus a principiis ad principiata, and the regressus a principiatis ad principia. No distinction is more vital in the logic of inference in general and of scientific inference in particular ”

“ As the analysis of a substantial composite terminates only in a part which is not a whole, that is, in a simple part, so synthesis terminates only in a whole which is not a part, that is, the world. ”

“ One of the fundamental principles of psychology is mental synthesis. Objects that appear within the same consciousness are synthetized in a unity, if they are taken cognizance of. An object a may be presented to consciousness, and another object b may be similarly perceived. They remain two and separate as long as consciousness does not take cognizance of their duality, of their being two objects, but as soon as the two appear in consciousness together and are perceived as two, they are by this very fact synthetized into a unity. ”

“ A very widespread error consists in believing that when we have resolved a complex whole into its elements we have all the constituents. We are apt to forget that the greater number of combinations resemble rather chemical combinations than simple mixtures, that they are not formed by simple addition, and that there is more in the synthesis than there can be in the analysis.
The elimination of the synthetic point of view becomes less and less admissible as we rise from inorganic nature to life, consciousness, society. ”

“ Unless the qualities, properties and attributes are clearly and fully perceived, we cannot properly define the object itself.
Synthesis is a term denoting: "The act of joining or putting two or more things together; in Logic: the method by composition, in opposition to the method of resolution or analysis." In stating a definition we must necessarily join together the various essential qualities, properties and attributes, which we have discovered by the process of analysis; and the synthesized combination, considered as a whole, is the definition of the object expressed by the term. ”

“ The value of the a priori synthesis lies in its efficacy in putting an end to doubts as to the objectivity of thought and the cognizability of reality, and in making triumphant the power of thought over the real, which is the power of the real to know itself. ”