PHILOSOPHICAL LEXICOGRAPHY
The Synkratic Principle.
How Differences are United Through Language.
Synkrasism /sing·kra·si·zm/: the practice of merging disparate beliefs and fields of thought.
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The world is full of mortals who’s lives are crowded with codified signals —with words — which follow inner and outer rules like pawns of some eternal game.
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“The interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.”
— Noam Chomsky, Essay presented at Lecture at the Loyola University Freedom and the Human Sciences Symposium, Chicago, 8–9 January 1970
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“Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations 1946–1949
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Philosophers are lexicographers of ideas: making up new terms every second, trying to sculpt something new out of old concepts.
The deeper one dives into the source of ideas — into the pond of things which we can’t physically sense — the more their language becomes clay, ready to be shaped….
The meaning of words has everything to do with their connotation and association, things which can go severely wrong, as with the word “syncretism”.
Syncretism is supposed to mean “the practice of merging disparate beliefs, cultures, and systems of thought”, but academics now erroneously define it as “the practice of uniting forces against enemies”.
The error is in tracing the word itself to the essayist Plutarch (c. 46 CE), when its contextual usage is at least 300 years older (c. 350 BCE) .
Plutarch’s adaptation of the word sunkrētismós was only in reference to ancient Cretan communities (sun-‘together’ + krēs-‘Cretan’):
συνκρητισμός = sunkrētismós = “Cretan federation” which represents “union against enemies”.
“… in this point, at least, is the practice of Cretans, who, though they often quarreled with and warred against each other, made up their differences and united when outside enemies attacked; and this it was which they called Cretan federation (sunkrētismós).”
“… αὐτὸ γοῦν τοῦτο τὸ Κρητῶν, οἳ πολλάκις στασιάζοντες ἀλλήλοις καὶ πολεμοῦντες, ἔξωθεν ἐπιόντων πολεμίων διελύοντο καὶ συνίσταντο· καὶ τοῦτ’ ἦν ὁ καλούμενος ὑπ’ αὐτῶν συνκρητισμός (sunkrētismós).”
- Plutarch’s ‘Moralia’, c. 46 CE
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Sýnkrasis was used in ancient Greek metaphysics over 300 years earlier:
σύγκρισις = sýnkrasis = “comparison (of unlike ideas)”
“… virtue or utility: comparisons (sýnkrasis) of otherwise homogenous things, but of differing mechanics.”
“… ἀρετὴν ἢ χρῆσιν: τῶν μὲν οὖν ὁμογενῶν ῥᾴων ἡ σύγκρισις (sýnkrasis), τῶν δὲ διαφερόντων ἐργωδεστέρα.”
- Aristotle’s ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, c. 340 BCE
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Sýnkrasis was used by Aristotle (↑) and Plato (↓).
“…these relative or original movements, the secondary movements of bodies which therefore receive movements, always lead to increase and decrease, distinction and comparison (sýnkrasis), and these follow heat and cold, gravity and levity, hard and soft, white and black, austere and sweet…”
“…τούτων συγγενεῖς ἢ πρωτουργοὶ κινήσεις τὰς δευτερουργοὺς αὖ παραλαμβάνουσαι κινήσεις σωμάτων ἄγουσι πάντα εἰς αὔξησιν καὶ φθίσιν, διάκρισιν καὶ σύγκρισιν (sýnkrasis) καὶ τούτοις ἑπομένας θερμότητας ψύξεις, βαρύτητας κουφότητας, σκληρὸν καὶ μαλακόν, λευκὸν καὶ μέλαν, αὐστηρὸν καὶ γλυκύ…”
- Plato’s ‘Laws’, c. 360 BCE
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So, syncretism should be seen not as argumentation, nor sophistry — not as “federal unification against enemies” — but as an effective conversation through culture and time….
The true meaning of the word aligns with the grammatical anatomy of:
- σῠν = sýn = “together”
- κρᾶσῐς = krasis = “mixture”
- κρῐ́σῐς = krísis = “decision”
- κεράννυμι = keránnumi = “multiply”
Therefore, instead of syncretism/syncretic (from “Cretan federation”), we could establish a new spelling/inflection like synkrasism/synkratic (from “unlike comparison”).
Synkrasism /sing·kra·si·zm/: the practice of merging disparate beliefs and fields of thought.
