Holism (from ὅλος holos, a Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (& word meaning all, whole, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system System is a set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an integrated whole (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave.
The general principle of holism was concisely summarized by Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most in the Metaphysics Metaphysics is one of the principal works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is "being qua being", or being understood as being. It examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence and not because of any special qualities it has: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" (1045a10).
Reductionism Reductionism can either mean an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual is sometimes seen as the opposite of holism. Reductionism in science says that a complex system can be explained by reduction to its fundamental parts. For example, the processes of biology are reducible to chemistry and the laws of chemistry are explained by physics.
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History
The term holism was introduced by the South African The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unity of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Following the First World War, the Union of South Africa was granted the administration of the German South- statesman A statesperson is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term. When politicians retire, they are often referred to as elder statesmen Jan Smuts Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts OM CH ED KC FRS PC was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948. He served in the First World War and as a in his 1926 book, Holism and Evolution.[1] Smuts defined holism as "The tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution."[2]
The idea has ancient roots. Examples of holism can be found throughout human history and in the most diverse socio-cultural contexts, as has been confirmed by many ethnological Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity studies. The French Protestant missionary, Maurice Leenhardt coined the term cosmomorphism to indicate the state of perfect symbiosis The term symbiosis commonly describes close and often long-term interactions between different biological species. The term was first used in 1879 by the German mycologist Heinrich Anton de Bary, who defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms." The definition of symbiosis is in flux, and the term has been applied to a wide with the surrounding environment which characterized the culture of the Melanesians Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia. The name Melanesia was first used by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands of New Caledonia New Caledonia (French: officially: Nouvelle-Calédonie; colloquially: Calédonie; popular nickname: (le) Caillou), has a special status of sui generis collectivity of France. It is located in the subregion of Melanesia in the southwest Pacific. It comprises a main island (Grande Terre), the Loyalty Islands, and several smaller islands. For these people, an isolated individual is totally indeterminate, indistinct and featureless until he can find his position within the natural and social world in which he is inserted. The confines between the self and the world are annulled to the point that the material body itself is no guarantee of the sort of recognition of identity which is typical of our own culture.
In science
Main article: Holism in science Holism in science, or Holistic science, is an approach to research that emphasizes the study of complex systems. This practice is in contrast to a purely analytic tradition which purports to understand systems by dividing them into their smallest possible or discernible elements and understanding their elemental properties alone. The holism/In the latter half of the 20th century, holism led to systems thinking Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work and its derivatives, like the sciences of chaos Chaos typically means a state lacking order or predictability. In ancient Greece, it first meant the initial state of the universe, and, by extension, space, darkness, or an abyss (the antithetical, or possibly complementary, concept was cosmos), but later uses of the term by philosophers varied over time. In modern English, the word is used in and complexity In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of network theory and network science. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are reflected in this article. In a. Systems in biology, psychology, or sociology are frequently so complex that their behavior is, or appears, "new" or "emergent In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems": it cannot be deduced from the properties of the elements alone.[3]
Holism has thus been used as a catchword. This contributed to the resistance encountered by the scientific interpretation of holism, which insists that there are ontological Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: "of being" and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as reasons that prevent reductive models in principle from providing efficient algorithms for prediction of system behavior in certain classes of systems.
Further resistance to holism has come from the association of the concept with quantum mysticism Quantum mysticism refers to a set of metaphysical ideas and associated practices that supposes a consciousness, intelligence, or otherwise mystical component to the experience of existence or reality at the quantum scale. The term originally emerged from the debates between the founders of quantum theory in the early twentieth century as they. Recently, however, public understanding has grown over the realities of such concepts, and more scientists are beginning to accept serious research into the concept such as cell biologist Bruce Lipton Dr. Bruce Lipton is an American developmental biologist, who is best known for promoting the idea that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person's beliefs. He teaches at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic [4].
Scientific holism holds that the behavior of a system cannot be perfectly predicted, no matter how much data is available. Natural systems can produce surprisingly unexpected behavior, and it is suspected that behavior of such systems might be computationally irreducible, which means it would not be possible to even approximate the system state without a full simulation of all the events occurring in the system. Key properties of the higher level behavior of certain classes of systems may be mediated by rare "surprises" in the behavior of their elements due to the principle of interconnectivity Interconnectivity is a concept that is used in numerous fields such as cybernetics, biology, ecology, network theory, and non-linear dynamics. The concept can be summarized as that all parts of a system interact with and rely on one another simply by the fact that they occupy the same system, and that a system is difficult or sometimes impossible, thus evading predictions except by brute force simulation. Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram is a British physicist, software developer, mathematician, author and businessman, known for his work in theoretical particle physics, cosmology, cellular automata, computational complexity theory, computer algebra and the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine has provided such examples with simple cellular automata A cellular automaton is a discrete model studied in computability theory, mathematics, physics, theoretical biology and microstructure modeling. It consists of a regular grid of cells, each in one of a finite number of states, such as "On" and "Off". The grid can be in any finite number of dimensions. For each cell, a set of, whose behavior is in most cases equally simple, but on rare occasions highly unpredictable.[5]
Complexity theory (also called "science of complexity"), is a contemporary heir of systems thinking. It comprises both computational and holistic, relational approaches towards understanding complex adaptive systems Complex adaptive systems are special cases of complex systems. They are complex in that they are diverse and made up of multiple interconnected elements and adaptive in that they have the capacity to change and learn from experience. The term complex adaptive systems (CAS) was coined at the interdisciplinary Santa Fe Institute (SFI), by John H and, especially in the latter, its methods can be seen as the polar opposite to reductive methods. General theories of complexity have been proposed, and numerous complexity institutes and departments have sprung up around the world. The Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute is a non-profit research institute located in Santa Fe (New Mexico, United States) and dedicated to the study of complex systems is arguably the most famous of them.
In anthropology
There is an ongoing dispute as to whether anthropology is intrinsically holistic. Supporters of this concept consider anthropology holistic in two senses. First, it is concerned with all human beings across times and places, and with all dimensions of humanity (evolutionary, biophysical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, psychological, etc.). Further, many academic programs following this approach take a "four-field" approach to anthropology that encompasses physical anthropology Biological anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies, in the context of other primates, the development of the human species. Biological anthropology incorporates bio-cultural studies of human diversity, in time and space; the ancestry of the human species; and the comparative anatomy, behavior, history, and ecology, of historic and, archeology Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of past human societies, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data which they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes. Due to the fact that archaeology employs a wide range of different procedures, it can be, linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words, and cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is one of four or five fields of anthropology . It is the branch of anthropology that examines culture as a meaningful scientific concept or social anthropology Social anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies how contemporary living human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs, economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution,.[6]
Some leading anthropologists disagree, and consider anthropological holism to be an artifact from 19th century social evolutionary Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time. Note that "sociocultural evolution" is not an equivalent of "sociocultural development" (unified processes of differentiation and integration involving increases in thought that inappropriately imposes scientific positivism Positivism refers to a set of epistemological perspectives and philosophies of science which hold that the scientific method is the best approach to uncovering the processes by which both physical and human events occur. Though the positivist approach has been a 'recurrent theme in the history of western thought from the Ancient Greeks to the upon cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is one of four or five fields of anthropology . It is the branch of anthropology that examines culture as a meaningful scientific concept.[7]
The term "holism" is additionally used within social and cultural anthropology to refer to an analysis of a society as a whole which refuses to break society into component parts. One definition says: "as a methodological ideal, holism implies ... that one does not permit oneself to believe that our own established institutional boundaries (e.g. between politics, sexuality, religion, economics) necessarily may be found also in foreign societies."[8]
In business
A holistic brand, Or holistic branding is considering the entire brand, or image of the company. For example a universal brand image across all countries, including everything from advertising styles to the stationery the company has made, to the company colours.
In ecology
Ecology is the leading and most important approach to holism, as it tries to include biological, chemical, physical and economic views in a given area. The complexity grows with the area, so that it is necessary to reduce the characteristic of the view in other ways, for example to a specific time of duration.
John Muir John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National, Scots born early conservationist[9], wrote "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe"
More information is to be found in the field of systems ecology Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, taking a holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general systems theory to ecology. Central to the systems ecology approach is the idea that an ecosystem is a complex system exhibiting emergent properties, a cross-disciplinary field influenced by general systems theory In systems science, systems theory is an interdisciplinary theory about the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science, and is a framework by which one can investigate and/or describe any group of objects that work together to produce some result. This could be a single organism, any organization or society, or any electro-. see Holistic Community.
In economics
With roots in Schumpeter Joseph Alois Schumpeter was an Austrian economist and political scientist. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics, the evolutionary approach might be considered the holist theory in economics. They share certain language from the biological evolutionary approach. They take into account how the innovation system evolves over time. Knowledge and know-how, know-who, know-what and know-why are part of the whole business economics. Knowledge can also be tacit, as described by Michael Polanyi Michael Polanyi, FRS (March 11, 1891, Budapest – February 22, 1976, Northampton, England) was a Hungarian–British polymath whose thought and work extended across physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. These models are open, and consider that it is hard to predict exactly the impact of a policy measure. They are also less mathematical.
In philosophy
Main articles: Semantic holism Semantic holism is a doctrine in the philosophy of language to the effect that a certain part of language, be it a term or a complete sentence, can only be understood through its relations to a larger segment of language. There is substantial controversy, however, as to exactly what the larger segment of language in question consists of. In recent and confirmation holism Confirmation holism, also called epistemological holism is the claim that a single scientific theory cannot be tested in isolation; a test of one theory always depends on other theories and hypothesesIn philosophy, any doctrine that emphasizes the priority of a whole over its parts is holism. Some suggest that such a definition owes its origins to a non-holistic view of language and places it in the reductivist camp. Alternately, a 'holistic' definition of holism denies the necessity of a division between the function of separate parts and the workings of the 'whole'. It suggests that the key recognisable characteristic of a concept of holism is a sense of the fundamental truth of any particular experience. This exists in contradistinction to what is perceived as the reductivist reliance on inductive method as the key to verification of its concept of how the parts function within the whole. In the philosophy of language Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language and reality. For continental philosophers, however, this becomes the claim, called semantic holism Semantic holism is a doctrine in the philosophy of language to the effect that a certain part of language, be it a term or a complete sentence, can only be understood through its relations to a larger segment of language. There is substantial controversy, however, as to exactly what the larger segment of language in question consists of. In recent, that the meaning of an individual word or sentence can only be understood in terms of its relations to a larger body of language, even a whole theory or a whole language. In the philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of modern analytic philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as the central issue in, a mental state may be identified only in terms of its relations with others. This is often referred to as content holism or holism of the mental.
Epistemological Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions: and confirmation holism Confirmation holism, also called epistemological holism is the claim that a single scientific theory cannot be tested in isolation; a test of one theory always depends on other theories and hypotheses are mainstream ideas in contemporary philosophy. Ontological holism was espoused by David Bohm David Joseph Bohm was a American-born British quantum physicist who made contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project in his theory on The Implicate Order Bohm’s paradigm is inherently antithetical to reductionism, in most forms, and accordingly can be regarded as a form of ontological holism. On this, Bohm noted of prevailing views among physicists: "the world is assumed to be constituted of a set of separately existent, indivisible and unchangeable 'elementary particles', which are the.
In sociology
Main article: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Tönnies' concepts of both terms “Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft” were published first 1887. Seven more German editions came out during his life time, the last 1935. The second edition of 1912 turned out to be an unexpected but lasting success, and the antagonism of these two terms belonged to the general stock of concepts German pre-1933Émile Durkheim developed a concept of holism which he set as opposite to the notion that a society A society or a human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of was nothing more than a simple collection of individuals. In more recent times, Louis Dumont [10] has contrasted "holism" to "individualism" as two different forms of societies. According to him, modern humans live in an individualist society, whereas ancient Greek society, for example, could be qualified as "holistic", because the individual found identity in the whole society. Thus, the individual was ready to sacrifice himself or herself for his or her community, as his or her life without the polis had no sense whatsoever.
Martin Luther King Jr had a holistic view of social justice. In Letter from Birmingham Jail he famously said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".
Scholars such as David Bohm [11] and M. I. Sanduk [12] consider the society through the Plasma Physics. From physics point of view, the interaction of individuals within a group may lead a continuous model. Therefore for M. I. Sanduk “The nature of fluidity of plasma (ionized gas) arises from the interaction of its free interactive charges, so the society may behave as a fluid owing to the free interactive individuals. This fluid model may explain many social phenomena like social instability, diffusion, flow, viscosity...So the society behaves as a sort of intellectual fluid”.
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