Holism (from Template:Polytonic holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by the sum of 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 in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".
Reductionism is seen as the opposite of holism. Reductionism in science says that a complex system can be explained by reduction to its fundamental parts. Essentially, chemistry is reducible to physics, biology is reducible to chemistry and physics, and psychology and sociology are reducible to biology, etc.
Holism is sometimes described as the opposite of reductionism (see also scientific reductionism). Some proponents of reductionism think rather that it is the opposite of greedy reductionism. Holism may also be contrasted with atomism.
On the other hand, holism and reductionism can also be regarded as complementary viewpoints, in which case they both would be needed to get a proper account of a given system.
History
The term holism was introduced by the South-African statesman Jan Smuts in his 1926 book, Holism and Evolution. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Smuts defined holism as "The tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution."
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 studies. The French Protestant missionary, Maurice Leenhardt coined the term cosmomorphism to indicate the state of perfect symbiosis with the surrounding environment which characterized the culture of the Melanesians of New Caledonia. 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.
Holism in science
In the latter half of the 20th century, the main line of holistic thinking in science is systems thinking and its derivatives, like the sciences of chaos and complexity. A simplistic (mis)interpretation of holism is that knowing elements is not enough; relations between such elements also need to be known.
Such a reductive approach serves ill to the holism trademark. The systems in biology, psychology, or sociology are frequently so complex that their behavior appears "new" or "emergent". It cannot be deduced from the properties of the elements alone. (Bertalanffy 1968, 54.) But scientists who find themselves unable to explain the behavior of their systems from the properties of elements may falsely call upon holism even if the system in question happens to behave completely in accord with a conceivable (but unseen) statistical explanation. Holism is thus used as a source of catchwords conveniently saying "we can't explain it". This all contributed to the resistance encountered by the scientific interpretation of holism, which insists that there are ontological reasons that prevent reductive models in principle from providing any efficient algorithms for prediction of system behavior in certain classes of systems.
Contrary to the popular belief, scientific holism does not object that the behavior of a system, whose all elements and all their interactions are exactly described, can be predicted, no matter how many millions elements we have. Instead, it is observed that surprisingly simple 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 going through full detail simulation of the actual exchanges occurring in the system. Connected to this is a suspicion that key properties of the higher level behavior of certain classes of systems are mediated by the rare occurrences of "surprises" in the behavior of their elements, thus evading predictions by any theory except brute force simulation. Steven Wolfram has provided such examples with simple cellular automata, whose behavior is in most cases equally simple, but on rare occasions highly unpredictable.
Complexity theory (also called "science of complexity"), is a contemporary heir of systems thinking. It comprises a holistic, 'bottom-up' approach towards understanding complex adaptive systems and as such its methods can be seen as the polar opposite to reductive methods. A general theory of complexity has been realized, and numerous complexity institutes and departments have sprung up around the world. The Santa Fe Institute is arguably the most famous of them.
Holism in philosophy
In philosophy, any doctrine that emphasizes the priority of a whole over its parts is holism. In the philosophy of language this becomes the claim, called semantic holism, 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, 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 and confirmation holism are mainstream ideas in contemporary philosophy.
Holism in medicine
Holism appears in psychosomatic medicine. In the 1970s the holistic approach was considered one possible way to conceptualize psychosomatic phenomena. Instead of charting one-way causal links from psyche to soma, or vice-versa, it aimed at a systemic model, where multiple biological, psychological and social factors were seen as interlinked. Other, alternative approaches at that time were psychosomatic and somatopsychic approaches, which concentrated on causal links only from psyche to soma, or from soma to psyche, respectively. (Lipowski 1977) At present it is commonplace in psychosomatic medicine to state that psyche and soma cannot really be separated for practical or theoretical purposes. A disturbance on any level - somatic, psychic, or social - will radiate to all the other levels, too. In this sense, psychosomatic thinking is similar to the biopsychosocial model of medicine.
In alternative medicine, a holistic approach to healing recognizes that the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical elements of each person comprise a system, and attempts to treat the whole person, concentrating on the cause of the illness as well as symptoms. Examples of such holistic therapies include Acupuncture, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, Homeopathy, Indian Head Massage, Naturopathic medicine, Qi Gong, Reiki, IRECA method, and Reflexology. They usually do not originate from the western medical-scientific tradition.
Nursing schools in the US typically use a holistic approach, focusing on the all aspects of the patient instead of just treating an injury or illness.
Holism in sociology
Emile Durkheim developed a concept of holism which he opposed to the notion that a society was nothing more than a simple collection of individuals. In more recent times, Louis Dumont (1984) has contrasted "holism" to "individualism" as two different forms of societies. According to him, modern humans lives 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.
Teleological holism in psychology
Alfred Adler believed that the individual (an integrated whole expressed through a self-consistent unity of thinking, feeling, and action, moving toward an unconscious, fictional final goal), must be understood within the larger wholes of society, from the groups to which he belongs (starting with his face-to-face relationships), to the larger whole of mankind. The recognition of our social embeddedness and the need for developing an interest in the welfare of others, as well as a respect for nature, is at the heart of Adler's philosophy of living and principles of psychotherapy.
Edgar Morin, the French philosopher and sociobiologist, can be considered a holist based on the transdisciplinary nature of his work.Amit K.Saiya could also be considered a holist based therapist as he has combined fourteen different complementary medicine disiplines to evolve Harmonie therapy
Holism in education reform
The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives identifies many levels of cognitive functioning, which can be used to create a more holistic education. In authentic assessment, rather than using computers to score multiple choice test, a standards based assessment uses trained scorers to score open-response items using holistic scoring methods.[1] In projects such as the North Carolia Writing Project, scorers are instructed not to count errors, or count numbers of points or supporting statements. The scorer is instead, instruct to judge holistically whether "as a whole" is it more a "2" or a "3". Critics question whether such a process can be as objective as computer scoring, and the degree to which such scoring methods can result in differnet scores from different scorers.
See also
Notes
References
- Bertalanffy, Ludvig von: General System Theory. Foundations Development Applications. Allen Lane 1971 (1968)
- Lipowski, Z.J.: "Psychosomatic medicine in seventies". Am. J. Psych. 134:3:233-244
- Smuts, Jan C.: Holism and Evolution, 1926 MacMillan, Compass/Viking Press 1961 reprint: ISBN 0-598-63750-8, Greenwood Press 1973 reprint: ISBN 0-8371-6556-3, Sierra Sunrise 1999 (mildly edited): ISBN 1-887263-14-4
- Leenhardt, M. Do Kamo. La personne et le mythe dans le monde mélanésien. Gallimard. Paris. 1947.
Further reading
- Hayek, F.A. von. The Counter-revolution of Science. Studies on the abuse of reason. Free Press. New York. 1957.
- Mandelbaum, M. Societal Facts in Gardner 1959.
- Phillips, D.C. Holistic Thought in Social Science. Stanford University Press. Stanford. 1976.
- Dreyfus, H.L. Holism and Hermeneutics in The Review of Metaphysics. 34. pp. 3-23.
- James, S. The Content of Social Explanation. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 1984.
- Harrington, A. Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler. Princeton University Press. 1996.
External links
- Tibetan Singing bowls and other Buddhist items
- Brief explanation of Koestler's derivation of "holon"
- Holism in Ayurveda
- Holism in nature – and coevolution in ecosystems
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article: "Holism and Nonseparability in Physics"
- James Schombert of University of Oregon Physics Dept on quantum holism
- Theory of sociological holism from "World of Wholeness"