Synthesis

An approach to link the understanding of each part, aspect and attribute of a thing into an organic and unified whole in thinking to grasp the essence and objective law of a thing as a whole. Objective things are an organic whole composed of many parts, aspects and attributes. Synthesis is not a mechanical patchwork and superposition of these parts, aspects and attributes, but a reproduction of the internal organic connection of things in thinking to achieve a comprehensive and specific understanding of things. In the history of western philosophy, rationalists put emphasis on synthesis and regarded it as the only way to obtain truth. R. Descartes attached great importance to the study of epistemology and methodology and focused on the study of rational deduction and synthesis. He argued that the only way to obtain correct ideas is rational intuition. Only by using synthesis can we know the truth. He derived the concept of talent from rational intuition and innate synthesis ability, believing that once people use reason, they can discover the concept of talent. Descartes tried hard to overcome the one-sidedness of empiricists, which emphasized perceptual experience, analysis and induction, while neglecting rational intuition, synthesis and deduction, yet he also fell into one-sidedness. B. Spinoza’s epistemology was permeated with an integrated or systematic thought that attaches importance to synthesis. He argued that nature is an organic whole, and no specific thing in the world can be outside this whole, nor can it exist in isolation from its causal connection with other things. Therefore, a synthetic, systematic and integrated approach must be adopted to study specific things. Rationalists regard synthesis as the most perfect way to obtain truth. Hegel regarded external things as the result of the externalization of ideas, and regarded the analysis and synthesis of things as the process of the movement and development of ideas in various links. He argued that the philosophical method should be “both analytical and synthetic”. He regarded analysis and synthesis as absolute concepts rather than the internal stipulation of objective things and fell into the theoretical misunderstanding of objective idealism. Engels criticized the abstract and absolutely synthetic thinking methods in the field of natural science. He pointed out that for synthetic natural science, even in each individual department, the abstract identity is completely inadequate; although in general, this abstract identity had now been ruled out in practice, it still dominated people’s minds in theory. Objective things are the unity of diversity and contradiction. When understanding objective things, we must adopt the method of combining analysis with synthesis, instead of one-sided synthetic research…

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