What is a synthesist?

Answer 1

Hi Well, I suppose you could be a synthesist if you play a synthesizer, but there is a more philosophical meaning to the term.

If you look inside the word synTHESISt you see thesis. A thesis is an idea that you may or may not be able to prove, but suppose you said "All dinosaurs are extinct and we know this because..."

Now someone else comes out and has a thesis against your argument. This is called the ANTI-thesis (anti meaning against or opposed to). His thesis might be "Dinosurs still roam the planet to this day because...

Now the synthesist looks at both theses, for and against the modern existence of dinosaurs, and out of the two arguments he might synthesize or create one argument that says "Dinosaurs like triceratops are certainly extinct, but the skeletal structure of crocodiles is so close to the skeletons of (some extinct dinosaur; I'm not that smart) we could say that crocodiles are modern dinosaurs.