Abstract

This article is about reductionism; as a tendency of thought, reductionism tells us that the hole can be explained as the sum of its parts. From this principle, one can deduce that the properties and laws of complex systems can be explained by the laws and properties of simple systems. On the other hand, anti-reductionism says that this is impossible, that there is no way to explain the properties and laws of a complex system just by knowing those of a simple system: the hole cannot be reduced to the mere sum of its parts