Tradition

Holism

Overview

Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts.

The aphorism "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts", is often given as a summary of this proposal. The concept of holism can inform the methodology for a broad array of scientific fields and lifestyle practices. When applications of holism are said to reveal properties of a whole system beyond those of its parts, these qualities are referred to as emergent properties of that system. Holism in all contexts is often placed in opposition to reductionism, a dominant notion in the philosophy of science that systems containing parts contain no unique properties beyond those parts. Proponents of holism consider the search for emergent properties within systems to be demonstrative of their perspective.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

In the third place, we shall limit ourselves to the particular consideration of the principle itself. Each principle has reigned for a certain time, and when the whole system of the world has been explained from this special form, it is called a philosophical system. Its whole theory has certainly to be learned, but as long as the principle is abstract it is not sufficient to embrace the forms belonging to our…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Holism is; the author is tied to Holism in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
1. First, the world is at least ONE SUBJECT OF DISCOURSE. If its manyness were so irremediable as to permit NO union whatever of it parts, not even our minds could 'mean' the whole of it at once: the would be like eyes trying to look in opposite directions. But in point of fact we mean to cover the whole of it by our abstract term 'world' or 'universe,' which expressly intends that no part shall be left out. Such…
William James, Pragmatism
The author is tied to Holism in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
(_αα_) Now self-subsistency is an equivocal expression to start with. In ordinary parlance that which is essentially substantial is called simply self-subsistent by virtue of the element of causation being implied within this substantiality; we are wont to use it in this sense when describing the intrinsically divine and absolute. But as retained in this universality of substance merely as such it is not declared as…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1
States what Holism is; the author is tied to Holism in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Holism

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Outline of philosophy.

Narrower topics:

Explore Holism in the interactive graph →