The synthetic method It is an analytical reasoning process that seeks to reconstruct an event in a summarized way, using the most important elements that took place during said event. In other words, it is one that allows human beings to make a summary of something we know.
Synthesis is a mental process that seeks to compress the information present in our memory. This process operates in such a way that we are able to identify everything that we know and abstract the most important parts and peculiarities of it. In this way, we are able to reintegrate these parts, creating a short version that can express the most important information about what is known..
This method is analytical, as it is a process that goes beyond the merely mechanical. The analytical method abstracts the essence of knowledge in an organized and premeditated way. This is how you can advance in knowledge, only repeating what is worth repeating, and not the totality of what is known.
In this sense, Friedrich Engels affirmed that analysis is essential for the existence of the synthetic method, since it allows us to cover the totality of what is known and only take what is most relevant and integrate it to express the same idea in a more concise way..
Article index
- The synthetic method is built on the basis of knowledge and a methodology.
- This methodology has the function of analyzing and clarifying the different parts that make up knowledge. That is, the principles, definitions, notions and other resources must be well defined, making their potential and possible consequences clear..
- The purpose of these knowledge analyzes is to improve the criteria to act in the most appropriate way in the development of research.
- The synthetic method always seeks the truth about general questions. This knowledge can be deconstructed and rebuilt later.
- When seeking to reconstruct an event in a summarized way, the synthesis must be applied, that is, the reconstruction and integration of the whole. For this, the nature of the synthetic method is always to go from the universal or abstract to the particular or concrete.
- The synthetic method has a direct link with the analytical method. In addition, it is a process that includes reflective intuition and common sense..
Synthesis is a process that takes place only in thought. In this sense, it is a conscious process that is far from arbitrariness.
It is in charge of gathering the most relevant elements present in consciousness, in order to create complete, real and concise units of knowledge..
It is a process that goes from the abstract to the concrete, since it takes all the parts of knowledge, its essential aspects and relationships, subsequently deconstructs and restructures them only by taking the fundamental elements.
It is said then that the synthesis allows to gather isolated elements (abstract), to turn them into real knowledge (concrete).
When the synthesis takes various abstract elements and structures them within a unit of knowledge, it is said to pass into the concrete. In this sense, the concrete is a theoretical compression that tends to “compact” more and more with the passage of time..
The nature of the synthetic method will always lead to theoretical thinking, where it will increasingly seek to specify and specify the information.
This method is a natural mental action that human beings carry out as a theoretical way of acting..
Although synthesis involves making use of analysis, synthetic and analytical judgment differ on some points. These two judgments are usually complementary and enrich each other (one cannot exist without the other), however, they can sometimes contradict each other..
Analytical judgment is responsible for breaking down knowledge into its component parts. It uses mental operations that allow dividing the totality of any phenomenon.
For its part, the synthetic judgment is responsible for uniting the most relevant heterogeneous elements of knowledge in order to find a general truth.
Analysis is then an activity that goes from the particular to the general, while synthesis is responsible for going from the general to the particular..
This is why all natural sciences use the synthetic method to produce hypotheses about particular elements or elements of the same order..
The hypotheses start from the synthesis process, insofar as they bring together several concepts to establish a specific judgment..
The synthesis creates concepts that, when put together, produce hypotheses. In this sense, a hypothesis can be understood as a type of synthesis where concepts are associated in a simple or complex way..
For example, if I decided to link the concepts of emotional stress and work accidents, the synthesis would allow me to establish the following judgment as a hypothesis: when workers suffer from emotional stress they are more likely to suffer work accidents.
1 - They must present clearly and precisely the object to be clarified. Critical points related to this object should also be mentioned. In this way, it will be possible to produce rational knowledge about the object in question..
2 - The object to be treated must be separated from the other objects. That is, pluralities should be avoided in order to be able to pay attention to a single element at the same time..
3 - The observation of the object must begin with the simplest or already known things about it. The process of knowledge is always gradual and successive, therefore, it usually proceeds from the easiest to the most complicated. In other words, go from the known to the unknown.
4 - The means used to reach knowledge must be related to the object that is being observed. This is because, the ways to reach a truth will always depend on the type of truth that you want to know.
1- Observation of the phenomenon and accumulation of knowledge.
2- Description. Once all the parts of knowledge have been accumulated, identify its elements, resources, behaviors or components so that they are well clarified and do not give rise to doubts..
3- Deconstruction. Critical examination and analysis of every detail of the collected and defined parts of the knowledge. Observe possible links between them.
4- Construction. Rearrangement of each of the parts to re-form a whole, this time with clarified information.
5- Conclusion. Analysis of the results obtained and subsequent explanation of them to give answers to the observed phenomenon.
To solve a crime we must first go from the general information we have about it.
Only then can we slowly put together the pieces of information that we have on hand to find answers and to be able to explain how the events related to said crime took place..
In other words, a whole is arrived at from its parts..
To give a medical diagnosis to a person, prior to executing some type of laboratory examination, the doctor asks the individual about their symptoms.
In this case, the doctor joins the information that the patient gives him to determine what type of disease he has.
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