Syncretism in philosophy: meaning, use of the term in other areas and religious syncretism

Assimilation of two or more originally separate religious traditions

For the linguistic term, see Syncretism (linguistics).

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Gautama Buddha in Greco-Buddhist style, 1st-2nd century AD, Gandhara (modern eastern Afghanistan).
Syncretism

/ˈsɪŋkрəтɪzəm/ is a combination of different beliefs, mixing practices of different schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally separate traditions, especially the theology and mythology of religion, thereby asserting an underlying unity and allowing an inclusive approach to other faiths. Syncretism is also often found in expressions of art and culture (known as eclecticism) as well as politics (syncretistic politics).

Nomenclature

The English word is first attested in the early 17th century,[1] from Modern Latin Syncretism

, drawing on the Greek συγκρητισμός (
syncretism
), which supposedly means "Cretan federation", but this is a false etymology from a naive idea in the 1st century AD Plutarchess "Brotherly Love (Peri Philadelphia)" in his collection
Morals
(2.490b).
He gives the example of the Cretans who compromised and reconciled their differences and formed an alliance when faced with external dangers. “And this is their so-called Syncretism
[Union of the Cretans].” Rather, the etymology is sun- ("with") plus kerannumi ("mixture") and its cognate noun "krasis", "mixture".

Erasmus probably coined the modern use of the Latin word in his Adagia

("Proverbs"), published in the winter of 1517–1518, to indicate coherence among dissenters despite differences in theological views. In a letter to Melanchthon dated April 22, 1519, Erasmus specifically cited Plutarch's Cretans as an example of his proverb, "Concord is a mighty rampart."

Signs of syncretism

The main characteristics and signs of syncretism in a child’s thinking are as follows:

A child's judgment about an object comes down to its external perception.

The resulting impression relates to the connections of this object and acts as its characteristics.

The mental functions of a child act inseparably.

A child's inference involves perception, impression, and memory in one inextricable pattern. For a more clear example, it is worth recalling the experiment that psychologists conducted on the topic of syncretism.

Giphy

Children were asked to look at a model of nature with a memorable landscape, after which they were asked to choose an image of this landscape from several photographs that would fully correspond to the view opening in front of them. But when he was asked to find a photo of nature that another child who was sitting opposite him had seen, he definitely chose “his” photo.

Inability to reason logically, which is based on true knowledge.

This characteristic confirms that in mental operations the child still relies on an external impression of a situation or object, since he is not able to link all actual connections into one scheme.

One way or another, syncretism is an integral part in the intellectual development of a child, and this mental function undergoes repeated transformation throughout the child’s development, right up to adolescence.

Social and political roles

The use of elephant-shaped column brackets in the Lahore Fort buildings reflects Hindu influences on Mughal architecture during the reign of Akbar.
Islam prohibits the representation of living figures. Apparent syncretism in folk beliefs may indicate cultural acceptance of an alien or previous tradition, but the "other" cult may survive or infiltrate without permitting syncresis

. For example, some conversos developed a kind of cult for the martyred victims of the Spanish Inquisition, including elements of Catholicism resisting it.

The Kushite kings ruled Upper Egypt for approximately a century and all of Egypt for approximately 57 years, from 721 to 664 BC, constituting the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Manetho's Aegyptiaca

, developed a syncretic worship identifying their own god Dedun with the Egyptian Osiris. They maintained this worship even after they were expelled from Egypt. A temple dedicated to this syncretic god, built by the Kushite ruler Atlaners, was discovered on Jebel Barkal.[2][3]

Syncretism was common during the Hellenistic period, with rulers regularly identifying local deities in various parts of their domains with a corresponding god or goddess of the Greek pantheon as a means of increasing the cohesion of their kingdom. This practice was accepted in most places, but was categorically rejected by the Jews, who considered the identification of Yahweh with the Greek Zeus as the worst of blasphemy. The Roman Empire continued the practice, first identifying traditional Roman deities with Greek ones, creating a single Greco-Roman pantheon, and then identifying members of that pantheon with local deities of various Roman provinces. An allegedly undeclared form of syncretism was the transfer of many of the attributes of the goddess Isis, the worship of which was widespread in the Late Roman Empire, to the Christian Virgin Mary. Some religious movements embrace explicit syncretism, such as the merging of Shinto beliefs with Buddhism or the supposed fusion of Germanic and Celtic pagan views into Christianity during its spread to Gaul, Ireland, Great Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia. In later times, Christian missionaries to North America identified Manitou, the spiritual and fundamental life force in the traditional beliefs of the Algonquin groups, with the God of Christianity. Similar identifications were made by missionaries from other places in the Americas and Africa whenever they encountered local belief in a Supreme God or Supreme Spirit.

Indian influences are visible in the practice of Shia Islam in Trinidad. Others have emphatically rejected it as devaluing and jeopardizing precious and genuine differences; examples include post-Exile Second Temple Judaism, Islam, and much of Protestant Christianity.[ further explanation required

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Syncretism tends to promote coexistence and unity between different cultures and worldviews (intercultural competence), a factor that recommended it to the rulers of a multinational kingdom. Conversely, the rejection of syncretism, usually in the name of "piety" and "orthodoxy", can help to generate, maintain or confirm a sense of uncompromising cultural unity in a clearly defined minority or majority.

Intellectual development and syncretism

Human intellectual development goes through different stages in a given age period. It is pointless to compare the intelligence of a child and an adult, since it is obvious that in childhood all thought processes have not yet been formed, and the functions of logic have not been mastered.

Parents need to know that at each age stage, one or another psychological cognitive process is formed in the child, and new opportunities and abilities are actively used in real life.

Psychologists and teachers call this period sensitive – that is, optimally adapted for the development of a particular psychological function. As an example, consider the following situations:

A child’s speech develops between the ages of 1 and 3 years.

In other words, everyone understands that it is at this age that a person’s speech apparatus begins to develop.

Between 4 and 6 years of age, a child has an ideal period for the development of voluntary memory.

Photo by cottonbro: Pexels
Of course, many of these processes go unnoticed by parents, but if during this period you provide help and support for the development of this function, then the next stages of memory formation will be more successful and effective.

From 3 to 7 years, a child develops self-awareness.

Most mothers and fathers have heard about the crises of 3 and 7 years old, since it is at this age that you can hear: “I myself,” “I will do it my way,” etc. Stubbornness at this age is pronounced, as the child begins to separate himself from others and tries to find his own boundaries.

The stages of development of thinking in a child are constantly in transition from one type of thinking to another, from visual-effective thinking to visual-figurative, and ultimately to verbal thinking.

This topic of the sensitive period is raised for a reason: parents should know that syncretism occurs from early childhood to adolescence. In this case, there is no point in indicating the exact age, since for each person the development of mental functions can take place in a certain age interval.

As long as a child’s thinking is in the form of a visual-figurative one, syncretism will manifest itself in full, since otherwise his mental processes are not capable of processing information.

A child, in fact, like an adult, has his own specific patterns of action, it is they that allow a person to solve the tasks assigned to him. It is worth understanding that the pattern of action in a baby and a child already 3 years old is significantly different, which means that thinking has already acquired new functions.

Photo by Artem Podrez: Pexels

While the child’s cognition is actively developing, he will carry out various manipulations with objects and establish the simplest connections, and there will be syncretism in his thinking.

Religious syncretism

Main article: Religious syncretism

Further information: Hellenistic religion, Hellenistic Judaism, Christian influences in Islam, and Iranian religions § Medieval period

Further information: New religious movements

Religious syncretism is the mixing of two or more religious belief systems into a new system or the incorporation of beliefs from unrelated traditions into a religious tradition. This can happen for many reasons, and the latter scenario happens quite often in areas where multiple religious traditions exist in close proximity and are active in the culture, or where a culture is conquered and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them but do not succeed in completely eradicating old beliefs or (especially) practices.

Religions may have syncretic elements in their beliefs or history, but adherents of so-called systems often discourage the application of this label, especially adherents belonging to "revealed" religious systems such as the Abrahamic religions, or any system that exhibits an exclusivist approach. Such adherents sometimes see syncretism as a betrayal of their pure truth. For this reason, adding an incompatible belief distorts the original religion, making it false. Indeed, critics of the syncretistic tendency may use the word or its variants as a pejorative epithet, as an accusation implying that those who seek to incorporate a new view, belief, or practice into a religious system are perverting the original faith. On the other hand, non-exclusivist belief systems may feel quite free to incorporate other traditions into their own. Keith Ferdinando notes that the term "syncretism" is elusive,[4] and can refer to the replacement or modification of central elements of a religion with beliefs or practices imported from elsewhere. The consequences of such a definition, according to Ferdinando, could lead to a fatal "compromise" of the "integrity" of the original religion.[5]

In modern secular society, religious innovators sometimes syncretically construct new beliefs or core tenets with the added benefit or goal of reducing interreligious strife. Such chapters often have the side effect of causing envy and suspicion among the authorities and ardent adherents of the pre-existing religion. Such religions tend to attract a wide and diverse audience. Sometimes the state sponsored such new movements as the Living Church founded in Soviet Russia and the German Evangelical Church in Nazi Germany, mainly to stop all outside influences.

The god Hermanubis, an example of syncretism between Ancient Greek religion and Ancient Egyptian religion

Syncretism in philosophy

Many philosophers at different times have identified the concept as a theory that allows one to combine several movements and concepts, but does not combine them into one whole. More precisely, between several concepts of philosophy a system can be distinguished in which each assumption or hypothesis will take its rightful place in the form of a list or classification. This is what distinguishes syncretism from eclecticism, although many believe that these are the same concepts. Eclecticism basically not only creates a system, but also combines several trends of philosophy into a single whole.

Unlike eclecticism, syncretism allows you to combine theories into one system, but not connect them, because this is not necessary. It is the heterogeneity of the principles that allows us to consider each of the topics separately, even when they are in the same system.

The first clear manifestation of this phenomenon can be seen in Alexandrian philosophy. This mainly concerns Philo of Judaea and other bright philosophers of that time who tried to unite the Eastern and Greek directions of philosophy into a single system. The same idea was held by supporters of Gnosticism.

At this time, there is research in the field of religious movements, or more precisely, the unification of scientific and religious knowledge, which includes mystical, spiritualistic, occult and other directions. The unification of many religious and scientific movements into one system allowed the emergence of hundreds of new esoteric movements in religion.

In some religions and philosophical movements, syncretism is used as a principle that determines a person’s relationship to nature or the world around him . The most interesting thing is that this principle excludes differences in the world or any logic in the division of nature and the environment into good and evil. This may seem strange, but it is precisely because of this that many religions have beliefs about werewolf phenomena. That is, evil can turn out to be good, a stone can be a totem, while a bear can be a sibling.

The environment can be understood in this way only if you think according to inverse logic and religiously believe in the interpretations of some religions.

Philosophical thinking allows people to believe that some objects or parts of the world around them can be something else. It is this kind of thinking that allows a person to remain reasonable. In fact, every day a person changes the principle of the phenomena he encounters depending on his experience, culture or components of the surrounding world. In simple language, this property is called rethinking, but in philosophy it is syncretism, which forces us to combine several meanings into one system and thereby change the concept of a certain phenomenon.

Syncretism is a characteristic for an individual to integrate with the environment, social, cultural and philosophical life. Without this, a state of discomfort may occur, when it seems that there is nothing to do, there is no tone, desire and desire for further life. Psychologists consider this condition as apathy, but it is quite possible to fight it.

Religious syncretism

The current of syncretism in philosophy is very different from the religious one. Religion is a mixture of diverse beliefs from every corner of the world. As a result, you can get a cultural creed that will calmly enter the human world around you. One such religion that was created using this meaning is Shintoism.

In fact, Shintoism is a link that connects not only norms and rules from different religious teachings, but also adds characteristics of an anthropological and cosmological nature.

It is worth noting that syncretism in religion is one of the most discussed topics. There are two reasons for this.

Disputes about syncretism in religion do not subside primarily due to the fact that all faiths contain rules and laws from other religions. This gives rise to many disputes that are associated with the search for the first and main religion.
The second reason for the dispute is “dual faith”. Can a religion built from two creeds be considered true or is it a simple synonymous concept?

Cultures and societies

Main article: Moral syncretism

According to some authors, “syncretism is often used to describe the product of the large-scale imposition of one alien culture, religion, or set of practices on another already existing.”[6] Others, such as Jerry H. Bentley, however, have argued that syncretism also helped create cultural compromise. This provides an opportunity to experience the beliefs, values and practices of one cultural tradition and to engage with different cultural traditions. This transfer of ideas is usually only successful when there is resonance between both traditions. Although, as Bentley argues, there are numerous cases where extensive traditions have won popular support in foreign countries, this is not always the case.[7]

Mughal Empire

In the 16th century, a new religion emerged called Din-i Ilahi (literally "Religion of God")[8][9] was proposed by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1582 AD, intending to unite some elements of the religions of his empire and thereby reconcile the differences that divided his subjects.[10] The elements were mainly taken from Islam and Hinduism, but some others were also taken from Christianity, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism.

Akbar the Great holds court, discussing theology.

More like a cult of personality than a religion, it had no scriptures, no priestly hierarchy and had fewer than 20 disciples, all of whom were handpicked by Akbar himself. It is also accepted that the sul-i-kul

, which formed the essence of Din-i Ilahi, were accepted by Akbar as part of the general imperial administrative policy.
Sulh-i-Kul
means "universal peace".[11][12]

During the Age of Enlightenment

The modern, rational, non-pejorative connotations of syncretism perhaps go back to Denis Didros Encyclopedia

articles:
Eclecticism
and
Syncrétistes, Hénotiques, ou Conciliateurs.
Diderot portrayed syncretism as a harmonization of eclectic sources.
Scientific or legal approaches to addressing all claims of critical thinking generated much literature at this time in Europe and America studying non-European religions, such as Edward Moore. The Hindu Pantheon
of 1810,[13] much of it was almost evangelical gratitude, embracing spirituality and creating space and tolerance, in particular the abolition of religion (or its stronger form, official secularization, as in France), whereby believers of spiritualism, agnosticism, atheists, and in many cases more innovative or pre-Abrachemical religions could promote and spread their belief system both within and outside the family.

The main feature of syncretism

The main feature of this psychological function is its subjectivity. A child sometimes gives conclusions that are incredible and funny for adults, which always come exclusively from his own point of view.

This function loses its strength only in the process of mental transition from subjectivity to objectivity. So, for example, a child has the idea that large objects and things are heavy, and small ones, on the contrary, are light. A small pebble in the hands of a child seems very light, but when he throws it into the water, he drowns, since it is heavy for water.

It is almost impossible to explain the objectivity of this phenomenon to a child of early and preschool age. He, of course, can learn this from a specific example and remember it, perhaps he will repeat and share his impressions with interest, but he will not be able to understand that there is a certain pattern, connection and true meaning of this process. Just as he will not be able to apply this knowledge to the example of other things and objects.

Photo by Liliana Drew: Pexels

Notes

The Oxford English Dictionary
first confirms the word
syncretism
in English in 1618.
Kendall and Ahmed Mohamed 2016, pp. 34 and 94. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKendallAhmed_Mohamed2016 (help)
Torok 2002, paragraph 158. sfn error: no target: CITEREFTörök2002 (help)
Ferdinando, C. (1995). "Illness and Syncretism in the African Context" (PDF). In Anthony Billington; Tony Lane; Max Turner (ed.). Mission and Meaning: Essays Presented to Peter Cotterell
. Paternoster Press. ISBN 978-0853646761.
Ferdinando, Keith (1995). "Illness and Syncretism in the African Context". In Billington, Anthony; Turner, Max (ed.). Mission and Meaning: Essays Presented to Peter Cotterell
(PDF). Paternoster Press. item 272. ISBN 978-0853646761. Received 2018-06-30. The Christian faith inevitably assimilates into the existing structures of thought of its adherents, regardless of their culture. However, there are points in which the worldview of any people is found to be incompatible with the central elements of the gospel; if conversion to Christianity is anything more than purely nominal, it will necessarily entail a significant change in the traditional worldview in such cases. Where this does not happen, it is the Christian faith that is modified and thus relativized by the worldview, and the consequence of this is syncretism. […] The term “syncretism” […] is used here to replace or modify central elements of Christianity with beliefs or practices introduced from other sources. The consequence of such a process is a fatal threat to its integrity.
Peter J. Klaus and Margaret A. Mills, Folklore of South Asia: An Encyclopedia
: (Garland Publishing, Inc., 2003).
Jerry Bentley, Encounters in the Old World: Intercultural Contact and Exchange in the Pre-Modern Era
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), viii.
Din-i Ilahi - Britannica Online Encyclopedia[ verification required
]
Roy Chowdhury, Makhan Lal (1997) [First published 1941], Din-i-Ilahi, or the Religion of Akbar
(4th ed.), New Delhi: Oriental Reprint, ISBN 978-81-215-0777-6 [
verification required
]
Roy Chowdhury, Makhan Lal (1997) [First published 1941], Din-i-Ilahi, or the Religion of Akbar
(4th ed.), New Delhi: Oriental Reprint, ISBN 978-81-215-0777-6 [
verification required
]
“Why we should include less Mughal history in school textbooks.”[ verification required
]
"Finding Tolerance in Akbar, the Philosopher King."[ verification required
]
Blurton, T. Richard. Hindu art
. Harvard University Press. paragraph 94.

What is syncretism

Photo by Artem Podrez: Pexels
Syncretism is a mental function of a child’s thinking, which appears in a generalized connection of objects and objects without common signs and grounds. Surely parents could observe how their child thought about this or that question, and his judgments were based only on the knowledge that he possessed due to his age.

In fact, at an early age, namely in preschool and primary school age, the child is not yet subject to some mental operations, and he uses what has already been mastered. Syncretism manifests itself as a certain intermediate moment in the process of formation and development of intelligence.

Egocentrism and syncretism

Both of these concepts can be safely called general characteristics of children's thinking. The child is in a special position when all his conclusions and the thought process itself are built exclusively from his point of view, which is the only and absolute one.

The syncretic thinking of a child is precisely characterized by the fact that all his ideas are based on subjective patterns of action. This means that thinking is still devoid of logic, the ability to analyze and synthesize objective connections between things and objects.

While egocentrism is fully manifested, the child does not have the ability to resort to objective connections between objects; his thinking will work exclusively on his subjective patterns of action. Egocentricity in thinking and practical activities will persist until 7-8 years.

Gradually, the child acquires the ability to select and analyze syncretic connections that will allow him to understand and accept the truth of a judgment. Only in adolescence does a child acquire freedom of thought and abandon attachment to objects; he begins to build his judgments based on hypotheses.

Syncretism (art)

This term has other meanings, see Syncretism.
Syncretism (lat. syncretismus - connection of societies) is a concept in art history used to describe the combination or fusion of “incomparable” ways of thinking and views, forming a conditional unity. In addition to the general field of art, the term is also used in relation to the historical development of music, dance, drama and poetry. Literary critic A. N. Veselovsky defined syncretism as “a combination of rhythmic, orchestral movements with song-music and elements of words.”

The concept of “syncretism” was put forward in science in the mid-19th century, in contrast to abstract theoretical solutions to the problem of the origin of poetic genera (lyrics, epic and drama), supposedly presupposing their sequential emergence.

The theory of syncretism rejects both Hegel’s ideas about the sequence “epic - lyric - drama” and the assumptions according to which lyricism was considered the original form. By the middle of the second half of the 19th century, the idea of syncretism was considered by a number of authors and was finally formulated by Wilhelm Scherer, who nevertheless applied it to poetry in a limited way.

A. N. Veselovsky, one of the supporters of the theory, set himself the task of fully studying the characteristic phenomena of syncretism and identifying options for delimiting poetic genera. In his works (mainly in “Three Chapters from Historical Poetics”) he expressed his understanding of the theory of syncretism, based on significant factual material. G.V. Plekhanov also developed the theory of syncretism in the aspect of primitive art, relying on the work of Karl Bucher “Work and Rhythm”, while polemicizing on certain issues with the author of this study.

Academician N. Ya. Marra, the founder of the Japhetic theory, examined syncretism from a different angle. Pointing to the language of movements and gestures as the oldest form of human speech, Marr suggests a connection between the origin of sound speech and the origin of the three arts - dancing, singing and music - with magical actions. He also pointed out that syncretism included the word (“epic”). From Marr’s position, syncretism loses its aesthetic orientation and is associated with certain periods in the development of human society, forms of production and primitive thinking.

Syncretism today

Contemporary art is characterized by a tendency towards synthesis, the unification of various types of art, as well as the emergence on this basis of a qualitatively new product. In theatrical productions, vocal parts alternate with recitatives, stage actions are combined with video demonstrations, and installations are shown at exhibitions. The dance movements are again given a magical meaning, and the dance itself is a theatrical performance.

Television and advertising are syncretic in nature. Modern syncretism is the blurring of the boundaries between high art and everyday life, author and consumer, performer on stage and spectators in the hall.

Probably, a person’s desire for integration is due to the awareness of himself as a member of a certain community, a representative of a clan. Also, in the conditions of a post-industrial society, syncretism in art is due to the need to comprehend the new reality (economic and political crises, the spread of information technology, changing views of man and society) and adapt to it.

§ 5. Syncretism

Syncretism is associated with almost every one of the phenomena we just talked about. At first, as already said, it appears to be the opposite, but it is also a complement to the juxtaposition (connective structure). Indeed, if a child’s perception considers objects in their immediate and fragmentary form, and they are not connected by any objective relationships with each other, and if these objects in language and drawing are simply located one next to the other, instead of being dependent on subordination (being hierarchized) , then this may be because these objects, before being fragmented due to verbal (discursive or graphic) necessity, were in too close a connection, were too mixed in the schemes of the whole and too mutually penetrated each other to be separated with impunity. If the connection of objects given by primary perception offered such weak resistance to fragmentation caused by the needs of speech or drawing, it was probably because it was exaggerated, and therefore subjective.

But to say that a child’s thought is syncretic means that children’s ideas appear in the form of global schemes and subjective schemes, that is, not corresponding to analogies or causal relationships that everyone can check. So, if a child’s thinking does not possess either the logic of relationships or the ability to synthesize, which would allow one to understand objects as objectively connected with each other, then perhaps because this thinking is syncretic: indeed, for a child everything depends on everything, everything is proven thanks to unforeseen connections and connections, but we do not suspect the richness of these connections precisely because this syncretism does not know the means of expression that could make it accessible to others.

This last remark leads to the assumption that syncretism is not only related to juxtaposition, but is also a direct result of childhood egocentrism. Egocentric thought is thus syncretic. To think egocentrically means, on the one hand, that the thinker does not adapt to the speeches and point of view of others, but reduces everything to himself, on the other hand, that he always takes his immediate perception as absolute, precisely insofar as he does not adapt to the perceptions of others. In the above two aspects, the egocentric tendency leads to the same result: to the neglect of objective connections in favor of subjective connections, to the attribution of arbitrary schemes to things, to the constant assimilation of new experiences by old schemes - in short, to the fact that adaptation to the external world is replaced by its assimilation by one’s own. "I". Syncretism is the expression of this constant assimilation of everything by subjective schemes and global schemes, which are therefore global because they are not adapted.

Syncretism thus permeates the child’s entire thought. Claparède emphasized this when talking about perception. Cousinet described under the name of “direct analogy” a process in which children’s ideas immediately, without reflection, identify new objects with old schemes, then we also found in the understanding and reasoning of a child from 7 to 8 years old and in the understanding of verbal thought between 8 and by 11-12 years there is a general tendency towards syncretism. On the one hand, the child's understanding obeys a process in which there is nothing analytical: the phrase heard is not retold in clear terms, but gives birth to a vague and indivisible scheme of the whole. On the other hand, the child does not reason with the help of obvious conclusions, but projects these schemes of understanding one onto another, fusing them according to the laws of “condensation”, forming as many of them, and often more, than according to the laws of logic.

Let us briefly recall how syncretism appears until the age of 7-8, and then how it becomes in the verbal plane between 7-8 and 11-12 years. Until the age of 7-8, syncretism is associated, one might say, with almost all ideas and almost all judgments: two phenomena, perceived simultaneously, are immediately included in a scheme, which the idea no longer fragments and which the judgment calls for help as soon as any one is put into place. some problem regarding one or another of these phenomena. Thus, when 5-6 year old children are asked the question: “Why doesn’t the Moon (or why the Sun) fall?”, the answer is often limited to reference to other signs of the moon and sun, because there are enough such signs, perceived together with the sign to be explained. for the child to explain this last one. Such answers would be meaningless if they did not precisely indicate the mutual connection of the traits perceived together - a connection much stronger than in the non-syncretic mind. Here are examples: The sun doesn’t fall “ because it’s hot.” It holds.

- How?
“ Because it’s yellow
” (Leo, 6 years old);
“And Luna? How is she holding up? “ The same as the Sun, because it lies in the sky
” (Leo);
“ Because it is very high, because there is no
[no more]
Sun, because it is very high
” (Bea, 5 l.), etc. Or when, in the presence of a child, they put a pebble in a glass so that the water level rises, and when they ask why the water rose, it often happens that instead of an explanation, a child is content with a simple description of the phenomenon, but this description for him has the value of explanation precisely because of syncretism. For Thor (7 l. 6 m.), the water rises because the pebble is heavy. If it is a piece of wood, then the water rises because the wood is light, etc. Analysis of these answers, however, showed that for the child the concept of weight was a much more dynamic idea than for us; but this is not what interests us here: it is remarkable that two contradictory arguments can be given by the same subject. These facts depend either on the “somethingness” (“n'importequisme”), which Binet and Simon spoke about (but this explanation does not apply to those cases where the child is interested in an experience in which he himself takes part), or on the fact that for the child the description has an explanatory value greater than for us, because the signs associated in the primary observation appear to the child as interconnected by causal relationships. This direct connection is syncretism.

In short, in all these cases - and they are countless - the line described by syncretism seems to be this: first, two objects appear simultaneously in the child's perception, or two characteristics are given together in one representation. From here the child perceives them or understands them as something connected, or better yet, welded together, in one scheme. Finally, this scheme receives the meaning of mutual connection: when one of the signs of the whole is isolated and the child is asked about the reasons for the manifestation of this sign, he simply points to the existence of other signs, which serves as an explanation or proof for him

This ease of connecting everything with everything, or, more precisely, this difficulty in highlighting the elements of the schemes of the whole created by children's perception and understanding, occurs after 7-8 years in the plane of verbal thought. After this age, perception becomes more analytical, a causal explanation, which until then was pre-causal, begins to appear in the child’s mind (see § 8); in short, syncretism decreases in representations of the external world. On the contrary, in the verbal plane, where the child learns to reason more and more, as the exchange of thoughts between children and between children and adults increases, these difficulties remain and even appear in new forms. Namely: phrases and statements heard from the lips of others give rise to many cases of discovery of verbal syncretism, which owe their origin, as before, to the inability to analyze and the accompanying tendency to connect everything with everything.

We have already published some facts of syncretism in children's reasoning,118 which clearly show the difficulty for the child to isolate the elements of a schema. Here, for example, is Bert's test, which poses insurmountable difficulties: “If I have more than a franc, I will go by car or by train. If it rains, I will go by train or bus. So: it’s raining and I have 10 francs. How do you think I’ll go?” The child is unable to isolate two conditions from one another. If they travel by train or bus when it rains, then they travel by car or train when it is not raining. This is the belief. Hence, for most subjects, the one who asks the question will go by bus, since the train is in both terms of the alternative and is associated with the condition of “fine weather”. So syncretism interferes with analysis and deductive reasoning. In this case, it is also clear that syncretism explains the child’s inability to perform logical multiplication and his tendency to replace synthesis with juxtaposition.

118 cm. Piaget J. Essai sur la multiplication logique… Op. cit. — P. 222-261.

We have found another case of syncretism, very different from the others, but also indicative of the inability to analyze, which is revealed in the child whenever it is necessary to connect sentences with each other or simply understand the meaning of words, regardless of the schemes in which they are included (Part I , chapter IV). The child is offered several proverbs that are accessible to his understanding, and several corresponding phrases, grouped interspersed, each of which has the same meaning as one of these proverbs. Ask the child to find a match. And until the age of 11-12, the child chooses the appropriate phrase by chance or, at least, on the basis of a very superficial analogy. But the remarkable thing is that just at the moment of choosing this phrase, the child simply makes a fusion of the phrase and the proverb, connecting them into one scheme that summarizes them and justifies the correspondence. At first glance, the capacity for syncretism appears to be due to simple invention, but on analysis it is clear that it is the result of an inability to disunite global perception and to fight the tendency that pushes schematism to simplify everything and condense everything. For example, a 9-year-old child assimilates the proverb “No white dust flies from a coal sack” with the phrase “Those who waste their time on trifles do bad business.” In his opinion, both sentences mean “the same thing”, for coal is black and cannot be cleaned, just as those who waste time do not take good care of their children, who become black and cannot become clean.

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The identity of the answers, which we will not dwell on here, excludes the possibility of invention. This identity shows how common to all children is the tendency of their mental imagination to create global schemes and condense images among themselves.

So, this is what syncretism is: the direct fusion of heterogeneous elements and the belief in the objective connection of the elements thus condensed. Syncretism is ultimately inevitably accompanied by a tendency to prove at all costs. This is what the facts show us: a child finds a reason for everything, no matter what the question. What is downright disconcerting is his fecundity in creating hypotheses, which in certain respects resembles more the intellectual imagination of translators than the imagination of normal adults. This confirms the experiment with proverbs that was just mentioned. In the representations of natural phenomena, this tendency is revealed quite clearly: it partly explains the absence of the idea of chance in the thinking of a child under 7-8 years of age and, thus, constitutes one of the main reasons for “precausality.”