Analytical vs synthetic interpretations

[Diana]

Now, I woke from a dream early this morning. I woke up with a sentence in my mind. It was sort of "loud". I was still between dreaming and waking actually.

The sentence was : "You can read Tarot synthetically or analytically".

Now I know that in linguistics there are what are called Synthetic languages and Analytical languages. Here's an explanation, a bit less convoluted than the wiki one : http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Morpho ... sSynthetic.

But I don't know what this means in relation to the Tarot. In my dream, it may have seemed obvious, but my mind draws a blank in my waking state. There's something that is just out of my grasp however. I feel I'm getting closer and then it slips away again. Just like in my dream.

Any suggestions ?

[_R_]

The Dutch Tarot author and collector, Piek Anéma, made this distinction - as well as the different modes of studying and reading the Tarot - in his work.

[Diana]

The Dutch Tarot author and collector, Piek Anéma, made this distinction - as well as the different modes of studying and reading the Tarot - in his work.

Oh my, now that is wonderful ! So I wasn't just imagining things. Funny how our dreams tell us things they wouldn't tell us in our waking state. I had never heard of Piek Anéma. Thanks so much.

[HOLMES]

I admit I do not understand what is meant by synthetic interpretatins ..

to the layman like me who doesn't understand university high language (I read it like 4 times that articles ) it sounds like analytical is how I started off reading the tarot,, position by position , which helped to defined the open the ended of each card..

and the synthetic interpretatins Is like taking a nine card reading without positions and approaching it as combos, like how they do in the lenormand ?

[Charlie Brown]

Well, I'm plenty comfortable with all the high-falutin talk and I, too, found the article a bit difficult to follow.

I"m not going to use the terms analytic reading or synthetic reading because I think that those are both potentially useful terms, but I don't think that those terms are analogous to analytic and synthetic language as used in the article.

If I understood correctly, reading based on the principles of analytic language would be like strict keyword interpretations and/or strict spread positions. The card means a single thing. I think then that, like you said, that the readings based on the principles of synthetic language would be more pairs based or things where the cards are inter-effecting each other.

It seems to me though that the type of reading where you're looking at the cards in context based on symbolic interrelations is closer to what people normally mean when they talk about an analytic style of tarot reading (like mine) vs more intuitive styles of reading. I guess that maybe we could reconcile analytic tarot reading with analytic language by saying that one is only using the definitions of the card, even though they're multifaceted, and not really basing things off of the pretty fairy and dragon pictures.

So what would synthetic reading be? If synthetic reading is NOT intuitive and/or picture reading then maybe it's reading that incorporates what I defined as analytic practice but also uses the graphical/visual information to a large extent. Since Marigold uses mostly TdM, lets start there. A synthetic TdM reading might be one that uses a lot of information based on which characters are looking at each other, what "job" a court card might have, etc.

Thinking about other things Marigold has said, it might also mean that she doesn't have to abandon her core TdM definitions if she wants to start reading other styles of deck.

[Diana]

I haven't had time to look into this matter. Have come down with one of worst bouts of flu I've ever had in my life and I'm just lying with my eyes closed in a darkened room doing nothing because every movement I make hurts and trying to read hurts my head so much. I'll also be away from the boards for a couple of days until I'm recovered. (We're at the start of heatwave and I've got a hot water bottle I'm so cold !!!).

But I look forward to coming back here and reading properly what has been written.

[katrinka]

Speedy recovery!

This analytical vs. synthetic business actually started with Kant:

The philosopher Immanuel Kant uses the terms "analytic" and "synthetic" to divide propositions into two types. Kant introduces the analytic–synthetic distinction in the Introduction to his Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1998, A6–7/B10–11). There, he restricts his attention to statements that are affirmative subject–predicate judgments and defines "analytic proposition" and "synthetic proposition" as follows:

analytic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept
synthetic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept but related

Examples of analytic propositions, on Kant's definition, include:

"All bachelors are unmarried."
"All triangles have three sides."

Kant's own example is:

"All bodies are extended," that is, occupy space. (A7/B11)

Each of these statements is an affirmative subject–predicate judgment, and, in each, the predicate concept is contained within the subject concept. The concept "bachelor" contains the concept "unmarried"; the concept "unmarried" is part of the definition of the concept "bachelor". Likewise, for "triangle" and "has three sides", and so on.

Examples of synthetic propositions, on Kant's definition, include:

"All bachelors are alone."
"All creatures with hearts have kidneys."

Kant's own example is:

"All bodies are heavy", that is, they experience a gravitational force. (A7/B11)

As with the previous examples classified as analytic propositions, each of these new statements is an affirmative subject–predicate judgment. However, in none of these cases does the subject concept contain the predicate concept. The concept "bachelor" does not contain the concept "alone"; "alone" is not a part of the definition of "bachelor". The same is true for "creatures with hearts" and "have kidneys"; even if every creature with a heart also has kidneys, the concept "creature with a heart" does not contain the concept "has kidneys".

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic% ... istinction

The analytical propositions just state the obvious ("water is wet" ) and the synthetic propositions just look like a convoluted explanation of a sweeping generalization-type logical fallacy. It all looks very academic and erudite, but there's not much substance there. I like Charlie Brown's explanation better, at least it's interesting.

Analytical Tarot: "All Cups are containers"
Synthetic Tarot: "All Cups contain wine"
Maybe the dream was just saying that sometimes people assume too much, or make too much of a jump.

[Charlie Brown]

Thanks for the philosophy lesson, Katrinka. That was interesting. As an aside, I once drank a bottle of wine called "The Critique of Pure Riesling." The label had the tagline "Kant? Or Won't?"

The one problem I see with brining Kant into this is that if Marigold wasn't aware of that usage and history then it couldn't have been what she was telling herself in the dream. Unless, of course, one thinks that dreams can be messages from the outside in which case it's depressing that the spirits have nothing more interesting to do than read Kant.

[katrinka]

Thanks for the philosophy lesson, Katrinka. That was interesting. As an aside, I once drank a bottle of wine called "The Critique of Pure Riesling." The label had the tagline "Kant? Or Won't?"

I hope the wine was more fun than Kant.
And I hope this one is even half as much fun as Iggy! http://www.vsimports.com/winery.php?id=52

The one problem I see with brining Kant into this is that if Marigold wasn't aware of that usage and history then it couldn't have been what she was telling herself in the dream. Unless, of course, one thinks that dreams can be messages from the outside in which case it's depressing that the spirits have nothing more interesting to do than read Kant.

Maybe it was a hell being...nah. Those would be reading Satre!

She was aware of the usage in linguistics, though, and so must have encountered mentions of Kant at some time, I would think.

But even if she didn't, I don't think where the idea came from would have any bearing on the dream language. She did state that she was aware of the use in linguistics. I posted the Kant bit because it was the simplest breakdown I could find.

[Diana]

Thanks for all the responses. I would really like to explore this topic more but it will take too much of my time now and it's not a priority. But it is wise I think not to ignore messages that one has in a dream state. I remember also another dream I had many years ago and I woke up with the phrase "The altar of the High Priestess is Temperance". Which was strange in itself, but even more strange as I never refer to the second major arcanum as the High Priestess, but always La Papesse.