“We have shown that socialism is an incoherent combination of thesis and antithesis, which contradict and destroy one another. Catholicism, on the contrary forms a great synthesis which includes all things in its unity, and infuses them in its sovereign harmony. It may be affirmed of Catholic dogmas, that, although they are diverse, they are one. Only an absolute negation can be opposed to this wonderful synthesis. The Catholic word is then invincible and eternal. Nothing can diminish its sovereign virtue.”

— Juan Donoso Cortés

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

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Juan Donoso Cortés 4

Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat 1809–1853

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“Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Context: Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

“Truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

“Man is a synthesis of psyche and body, but he is also a synthesis of the temporal and the eternal. In the former, the two factors are psyche and body, and spirit is the third, yet in such a way that one can speak of a synthesis only when the spirit is posited. The latter synthesis has only two factors, the temporal and the eternal. Where is the third factor? And if there is no third factor, there really is no synthesis, for a synthesis that is a contradiction cannot be completed as a synthesis without a third factor, because the fact that the synthesis is a contradiction asserts that it is not. What, then, is the temporal?”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, The Concept of Anxiety (1844), p. 85

“The science of anti-Semitism has as its object Judaism as a social problem, being thus, necessarily, the synthesis of all sciences that can contribute to its solution.”

A.C. Cuza (1857–1947) Romanian politician

From "Ştiinţa antisemitismului" ("The Science of Anti-Semitism"), Apararea Nationala ("The National Defense") No. 16, Nov. 15, 1922, lst year.

“But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
Context: The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are usually not realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. The philosopher Hegel said that truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.

“Although we can discuss the question of what socialism is, what is its program and what are its tactics, one thing is obvious: the official Italian Socialist Party has been reactionary and absolutely conservative.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Mussolini's March 23, 1919 speech to announce the first Fasci di Combattimento (League of Combat). Published in Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the Resistance in Italy: 1919 to the Present, Stanislao G. Pugliese, Lanham: Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (2004) p. 43
1910s

“Either one or the other [ analysis or synthesis ] may be direct or indirect. The direct procedure is when the point of departure is known-direct synthesis in the elements of geometry. By combining at random simple truths with each other, more complicated ones are deduced from them. This is the method of discovery, the special method of inventions, contrary to popular opinion.”

André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) French physicist and mathematician

André-Marie Ampè, in André-Marie Ampère: Enlightenment and Electrodynamics http://books.google.co.in/books?id=QWZKQWB-sbQC&pg=PA159, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 159

“But in her striving toward education, woman must remember that all educational systems are only the means for the development of a higher knowledge and culture. The true culture of thought is developed by the culture of spirit and heart. Only such a combination gives that great synthesis without which it is impossible to realize the real grandeur, diversity, and complexity of human life in its cosmic evolution. Therefore, while striving to knowledge, may woman remember the Source of Light and the Leaders of Spirit—those great Minds who, verily, created the consciousness of humanity. In approaching this Source, this leading Principle of Synthesis, humanity will find the way to real evolution.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

1 March 1929

“There is an important caveat to its liberal social values. For historic reasons that I won't get into, the Liberal party gets the votes of most Catholics in the country, including many practising Catholics.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

1990s, Speech to the Council for National Policy (1997)

“Whoever participates in universal Knowledge will regard two apparently contradictory truths as he would two points situated on one and the same circumference that links them together by its continuity and so reduces them to unity; in the measure in which these points are distant from and thus opposed to one another there will be contradiction and this contradiction will reach its maximum when the two points are situated at the extremities of a diameter of the circle; but this extreme opposition or contradiction only appears as a result of isolating the points under consideration from the circle and ignoring the existence of the latter.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions

The Transcendent Unity of Religions (1953; revised edition 1984)

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