Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 1 (of 2)Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy
Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Balmes, Jaime Luciano
Philosophy, Spanish
285. Synthesis, properly so called, requires something to be added
to the conception, which in nowise belongs to it, as the example
brought by Kant shows. The conception, extension, is contained in
the conception, body; but heaviness is an entirely foreign idea,
which we can unite to the conception, body, only because experience
authorizes it. Only with this addition is there properly synthesis.
The union of ideas which results from the conception of the thing,
although comparison may be necessary in order to fecundate them, does
not make a synthesis. The conceptions are not wholly absolute, they
contain relations, and the discovery of these relations does not give
a synthesis, but a more complete analysis. If it be said that in this
case there is something more than the primitive conception, we answer
that the same thing happens in all not purely identical. We may also
add that by the comparison a new total conception is formed resulting
from the primitive conceptions; and the properties of the relations
are then seen, not by synthesis, but by the analysis of the total
conception.
According to Kant, true synthesis requires the union of things so
different from one another, that the bond uniting them is a sort of
mystery, an x, whose determination is a great philosophical problem. If
this x is found in the essential relation of the partial conceptions
constituting the total conception, the problem is resolved by a simple
analysis, or, to speak more exactly, it is shown that the problem did
not exist, because the x was a known quantity.
We know of no judgment more analytical than that in which we see the
parts in the whole, since the whole is only the parts united. If we
say, one and one are two, or, two is equal to one plus one; it cannot
be denied that we have a total conception, two, in the decomposition
of which, we find one plus one. If this be not an analytic conception,
that is to say, if the predicate be not here contained in the idea
of the subject, it will be hard to tell what is. But even here there
are different conceptions, one plus one; unite them, and they form
the total conception. The relation, although most simple, exists; and
whether it be more or less, simple or complicated, and, consequently,
seen with more or less facility, does not alter the character of the
judgments, or from synthetic convert them into analytic.
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