SYNTHETIC METHOD: CHARACTERISTICS, LAWS AND EXAMPLES - SCIENCE - 2025

The synthetic method is an analytical process of reasoning that seeks to reconstruct an event in a summarized way, using the most important elements that took place during that 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 particularities 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 of greater relevance and integrate it to express the same idea in a more concise way.

Features of the synthetic method

- 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. In other words, 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 the research.

- The synthetic method always seeks the truth on 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 thoughtful intuition and common sense.

Elements of the synthetic method

Synthesis

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, then 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).

The 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 more and more will be sought to specify and specify the information.

This method is a natural mental action that human beings carry out as a theoretical way of acting.

The analysis

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 be opposed.

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 in charge of 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 in charge of 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.

Hypotheses

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.

Laws of the synthetic and analytical method

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 arrive at 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.

Methodology for applying the synthetic method

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.

Examples of synthetic method

Resolution of a crime

To solve a crime we must first go from the general information we have about it.

Only in this way can we slowly put together the pieces of information we have on hand to find answers and to be able to explain how the events related to this crime took place.

In other words, a whole is arrived at from its parts.

Medical diagnostic

To give a medical diagnosis to a person, prior to performing some type of laboratory examination, the doctor asks the individual about his symptoms.

In this case, the doctor joins the information that the patient gives him to determine what type of disease he has.

References

1. Cline, A. (February 12, 2017). Thoughtco. Obtained from Analytic vs. Synthetic Statements: thoughtco.com
2. (2017). Kairos. Obtained from Synthetic-Analytic Approach: kairos.technorhetoric.net
3. Limón, RR (2007). net. Obtained from HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT: eumed.net
4. Philosophy, SE (August 14, 2003). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Obtained from The Analytic / Synthetic Distinction: plato.stanford.edu
5. Russell, G. (2017). Oxford Bibliographies. Obtained from Analytic / Synthetic Distinction: oxfordbibliographies.com.