What is synthetic thinking?

What is synthetic thinking? Before getting into the matter, let’s remember that thoughts are products of the mind that appear through different processes, whether rational and logical or more abstract processes (imagination). The American pedagogue and philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952), for his part, defined thought as the result between what we already know, our memory, and what we perceive.

According to Dewey, through these three elements, we give meaning to events, we create, we infer ideas… and, from all of this, thought arises. But luckily, there is not just one type of thinking, but many of them. There are thought processes that lead us to reflect, others to debate, analyze, synthesize, summarize, explore…

Today we will learn about a very specific type of thinking: synthetic thinking. What characterize it? What is it for? What examples of it do we find? Find out through this article.

Synthetic thinking: What is it?

Etymologically, the concept of synthesis has its origin in Latin; Specifically, it comes from synthesis. However, its most remote roots are found in a Greek word. This term refers to the presentation of a whole thanks to the highlighting of its most interesting or outstanding parts. For its part, the RAE defines synthesis as ‘the composition of a whole by the meeting of its parts’ and ‘the sum and compendium of a subject or something else’.

Well, we already know what synthesis is, but what about synthetic thinking? It would be the one who It operates when a person needs to reduce the size of the objects and processes they are familiar with to condense or unify them into a smaller unit. This unit will incorporate the most outstanding elements of each segment.

Examples

For example, synthetic thinking is what allows us to study the different organs of the human body; In this case, the organs are found within a larger system (endocrine, digestive, cardiovascular, nervous system…) and, in turn, these systems are found within an even larger system, the one that makes up the human body.

Another example of this type of thinking It is what we use to reach a final conclusion in a conversation, forum, discussion… It is also the one that we use to summarize a text, an experience, a book, a movie, etc.

Relationship with analytical thinking

Analytical thinking would be the “opposite” of the synthetic system. Thus, while Analytical thinking is concerned with breaking down the whole into simpler and more independent parts., the synthetic groups information. On the other hand, analytical thinking seeks to solve or explain each of the parts, as well as integrate these explanations to explain the whole; In synthetic thinking the opposite occurs, that the parts are unified to create a global and meaningful content.

To make it more visual and better understand these concepts, let’s imagine, for example, the work team of a hospital; If we use analytical thinking, we will analyze each of the team members individually (their contributions, interests, functions…). Instead, Through synthetic thinking, we will take each of the team members and reunify them into a whole as a work team. That is, we will reflect on what teamwork brings, its advantages, how the team operates as a whole, etc.

The creation of systems thinking

Why have we also talked about analytical thinking? Because this type of thinking, added to synthetic thinking, creates what is called systemic thinking. For its part, Systemic thinking is that which allows phenomena to be interpreted as a whole made up of parts of the system.in order to make decisions.

We find other definitions for this type of thinking, such as the one proposed by Francisco Sáez. Thus, Sáez affirms that systemic thinking seeks to understand the patterns that determine how different systems behave, how they interact, and how they influence each other. That is, it would be a fairly global type of thinking that would interrelate different elements.

We have seen various types of thinking, but the idea that we should be left with is that each of them will be useful for one task or another; What ultimately matters most is our cognitive flexibility in adapting this thinking to the task at hand. In synthetic thinking, synthesizing, grouping, and gathering conclusive information are prioritized.… Therefore, it is a type of thinking that can be very useful in academic tasks, for example, or when we must summarize or find key ideas from a large amount of information.

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