Synthesis
- This article is about the philosophical concept. For the magazine, see Synthesis (Magazine).
Synthesis (from the ancient Greek σύνθεσις, σύν (with) and θεσις (placing)), is commonly understood to be an integration of two or more pre-existing elements which results in a new creation. The term is found is a wide variety of contexts, but it has had two central roles in philosophy: describing a certain type of resolution to a argumentative conflict, and describing a mental process that combines representations. The latter usage stems primarily from the work of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant. These uses are only loosly related, and will be discussed in turn.
Synthesis As The Process Of Resolving A Conflict
The 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis' terminology is often associated with the philosophy of Hegel, though Hegel himself never employs these terms.
Synthesis As A Mental Process
In Kant's extremely nuanced picture of the mind (whose central presentation is the Critique of Pure Reason of 1781), 'synthesis' is defined as, "the action of putting different representations together with each other and comprehending their manifoldness in one cognition" (A77/B103, Guyer/Wood Translation).
Sir Peter Strawson, in his influential work on Kant, The Bounds of Sense, claimed that the notion of sythesis was part of an unfortunate aspect of Kant's philosophy which Strawson referred to as "the imaginary subject of transcendental psychology" (Strawson 1966, 32). Kitcher.
External links
- Analysis and Synthesis: On Scientific Method based on a study by Bernhard Riemann From the Swedish Morphological Society.
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