The notion of thesis, antithesis, synthesis was developed by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (although he never used the terms himself).

 It is part of an analysis of historical and philosophical progress called the Hegelian dialectic.

Hegel proposed that progress takes the following form:

• The thesis. This is an intellectual proposition.
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• The antithesis. This is simply the negation of the thesis.
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• The synthesis. This solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.