The 18-page text of this name was written in 1949 and not published until 1963. It is reprinted in the Reader (p.310). This dense, often highly abstract text is, while not a summary, at least representative of the range and depth of Fuller's thinking.
It is about "comprehensive-intuitive, i.e. total subjective-objective thinking", and explores the importance of fundamental principles operative in universe, and the nature of periodicities, cyclic processes, and the synchronized experiences thereof.
Relativity is incorporated into the world-view of the designer, and synergy is discussed. Biological forms are analyzed and Fuller remarks that "humans have abstract 'tree-rings' of experience". A consideration of the scientific viewpoint concludes the text with the statement: "Bias precludes synergetic advantage."
The language Fuller uses is an issue in itself, but readers may find Total Thinking a useful place to begin before going on to explore his ideas about Universe, Design Science, Humanity, Navigation, or the Geometry Of Thinking.
Total Thinking can be taken to subsume heuristics and teleology, and the text includes a distinctly unromantic conception of creativity.
© Paul Taylor 2001