El artículo describe el paradigma mecanicista que ha orientado la investigación de la naturaleza y el comportamiento técnico del hombre hacia ella en la cultura occidental, el cual ha entrado actualmente en una crisis. La filosofía intenta contraponer un paradigma holístico-organológico para corregir la relación dominante del hombre sobre la naturaleza, de modo que se logre una relación de igualdad. El artículo plantea las implicaciones éticas y las modificaciones de la mentalidad que dicha corrección de paradigma exige.

The so-called .Karlsschulrede. (1793) of the German naturalist Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer can be considered as a keystone to the understanding of"Naturphilosophie" both in German idealism (Schelling) and the romantic period.Kielmeyer's work considers life as the result of specific forces in the organic realm and thereby searches to explain the harmony of organic existence anddevelopment. Taking into account Kant.s outlines for a lifescience in the "Kritik der Urteilskraft" (1790), Kielmeyer's notion of teleological processes in nature is sketched. The historical and epistemological (...) relevance of this "vital-materialistic" (Lenoir) theory of life can be characterized by three major transformations in the understanding of nature in the "Karlsschulrede": First, the development of a holistic, organological view on the world, second, the emphasis on phenomena of life as historical processes and third the analogy between organism and mind. These issues found the strong influence of Kielmeyer's text on philosophy and science in the early 19th-century. (shrink)

This book raises and examines the philosophical problem of how it is possible that the social world is constituted as a unified totality. A novel theory of social i holism is put forward on the basis of what is specified as formal ontology. The first part of the book discloses the non-extensional constitution of the social world and proposes that the individual is to be understood as a 'Leibnizian entelechial monad' in conceptual communication with the others. it is (...) further established that the categories of social holism must be placed within a transcendental locus. in the second part, this conceptual communication is analysed as the possession and application of social concepts, meaningful linguistic behaviour, and the intentionality of mental acts. Finally, in the last part, the event-structure to the social world is described. Social states of affairs as constituents of an event-dense social world are shown to be complex wholes irreducible to their subjects and instantiating an intensional nexus of relations of social properties. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.1 (2005) 31-47 [Access article in PDF] Holistic Integrated Design Education: Art Education in a Complex and Uncertain World Christopher Nokes Egosystem All art is the solution to an initiating design problem that must be articulated, even if the problem is this: to create something without meaning. As such, all art is a literary process, whereby the idea is articulated before that (...) idea is re-presented as an art form. And this is precisely what I attempt to do in the classroom when I assign highly challenging, universal, socio-cultural based and interpretive design problems. Both intent and solutions are implicit in the design assignments given to students. In each case the design process is emphasised, and students define the problem, research (often collaboratively), brainstorm (diving deeply into the problem for potential solutions), develop alternative solutions, use free-hand sketches and storyboarding to track the design and decision-making process, and (finally) select the best design for development and evaluation. Definition of key terms, research and storyboarding are the initial steps in the process to solving each of the design problems. Some examples of problem solving performance tasks are provided below (Table 1).Regarding the last example, in my first year of teaching I accepted a position on agreement that I teach Grade 10 (sophomore) mathematics. Even though my teaching background favored art and history, this was not a hardship because my original degree was in architecture (University of Toronto, 1978). I realized quickly that my personal romance with D.N. Perkins's Knowledge as Design demanded that I attempt to teach mathematics as a design process (much to the dismay of the department head).1 Nevertheless, imaginative mathematical works of mind were explored, based on original "design problems." As well, collaborative math tests were developed (and structured as design problems), where students divided into groups or design teams, each team having a "competent mathematician" on [End Page 31] Click for larger viewTable 1 Works of Mind; Visual Arts as a Problem-Solving Design Process [End Page 32]board. Each team worked together to solve one challenging mathematical problem, or a series of challenging mathematical design problems, under a time limit. This ensured that each student had a role to play. A key group dynamic here is that students speak to each other as peers, in a way teachers cannot: "No! You don't do it that way, silly. It's like this!" says A. "Ok! Ok! Don't yell at me," says B tenderly. "It's like this?" "Yes!" says A. "See! You really are good at math!" It was a beautiful thing to watch. The so-called "stupid-at-math" students saw how the "brainy" math students interpreted and approached mathematics, while the "brainy" students pulled those students who always believed they were "stupid at math" up to their level. In the end (to say the least), it greatly increased the weaker students' comfort level entering the classroom, and (at best) it gave weaker math students confidence by dispelling some of the mystical mystery which mathematics seems to possess — mathematics is not a mystery, it is a problem waiting to be solved as any other design problem once you know the process. Click for larger viewTable 2 Components of the Egosystem This is holistic integrated design education (or HIDE). Transforming students from the traditional, isolated receiver of information to the holistic child requires a fundamental transformation of the associative-cognitive paradigm of learning behavior and psychology, based on the child's ego development in a kind of object-filled, symbolical, self-contained world.2 In actuality, the world is complex, multi-faceted, hyper-sensitive, with many people of different socio-cultural and intellectual frames of mind interacting; and it is (thus) hardly self-contained. The world has indeed evolved that far. Somehow, like all paradigms, the ego must undergo a similar evolution, a similar transformation.3 A new version of ego must be invented, one that takes into account all the stuff of objective reality — the... (shrink)

For Heidegger, world is constitutively bound up with human being’s way of being. Yet after Being and Time he criticizes an excessively one-sided pragmatic reading of his concept of world, insisting that world is more than a referential totality of use involvements, tools, or existential projections. This article examines how Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis should be understood to promote both a practical orientation as well as a more transcendental dimension. The centrality of praxis in Heidegger’s work will not (...) be contested. What will be explored is whether what Heidegger calls “worldliness” or the “phenomenon of world” can be reduced to contexts of use relations or social practices and projects. The argument is made that world, for Heidegger, should be understood as an open space of meaning emergence through which diverse activities, some of which are practical, first become accessible to the human being. The claim will be advanced that world is more than the human being’s disclosive understanding and that an overly pragmatic interpretation circumvents the surpassive dimension of world. (shrink)

The topic of this book is a comparison between holism in the philosophy and language and social holism on the one hand and holism about space-time and quantum systems on the other hand. The main claim is that holism in the humanities and holism in fundamental physics come under the same substantial, general conception of holism. That is to say: arguments to the effect that the holism of the mental is unscientific or that the mental is separated from the physical (...) owing to holism are not sound. The holism of the mental fits into a world-view that bases itself on scientific realism. The addressees of this book are all those who care about our view of the world and ourselves in the spirit of an argumentative examination of different positions. No familiarity with physics is presupposed. (shrink)

One issue of dispute between methodological individualists and methodological holists is whether holist explanations are dispensable in the sense that individualist explanations are able to do their explanatory job. Methodological individualists say they are, whereas methodological holists deny this. In the first part of the paper, I discuss Elder-Vass’ version of an influential argument in support of methodological holism, the argument from emergence. I argue that methodological individualists should reject it: The argument relies on a distinction between individualist and holist (...) explanations that they find unacceptable and Elder-Vass’ reasons in support of his way of drawing this distinction are not good ones. In the second part, I examine what, if anything, would be good reasons in support of a particular way of differentiating between individualist and holist explanations. I propose that a good reason is one which shows, in an acceptable manner, that the distinction, drawn in the same way in all contexts, is useful from the perspective of offering explanations of the social world. I show that if this criterion is adopted, it will result in a fruitful reorientation of the whole debate between methodological individualists and methodological holists. (shrink)

Mental (or semantic) holism is the doctrine that the identity of a belief content (or the meaning of a sentence that expresses it) is determined by its place in the web of beliefs or sentences comprising a whole theory or group of theories. It can be contrasted with two other views: atomism and molecularism. Molecularism characterizes meaning and content in terms of relatively small parts of the web in a way that allows many different theories to share those parts. For (...) example, the meaning of 'chase' might be said by a molecularist to be try to catch. Atomism characterizes meaning and content in terms of none of the web; it says that sentences and beliefs have meaning or content independently of their relations to other sentences or beliefs. One major motivation for holism has come from reflections on the natures of confirmation and learning. As Quine (1953) observed, claims about the world are confirmed not individually, but only in conjunction with theories of which they are a part. And typically, one cannot come to understand scientific claims without understanding a significant chunk of the theory of which they are a part. For example, in learning the Newtonian concepts of 'force', 'mass', kinetic energy' and 'momentum', one doesn't learn any definitions of these terms in terms that are understood beforehand, for there are no such definitions. Rather, these theoretical terms were all learned together in conjunction with procedures for solving problems. The major problem with holism is that it threatens to make generalization in psychology virtually impossible. If the content of any state depends on all others, it would be extremely unlikely that any two believers would ever share a state with the same content. Moreover, holism would appear to conflict with our ordinary conception of reasoning. What sentences one accepts influence what one infers. if i accept a sentence and then later reject it, i thereby change the inferential role of that sentence, so the meaning of what i accept wouldn't be the same as what i later reject. but then it would be difficult to understand on this view how one could rationally --or even irrationally!-- change one's mind. and agreement and translation are also problematic for much the same reason. holists have responded (1) by proposing that we should think not in terms of "same/different" meaning but in terms of a gradient of similarity of meaning, (2) by proposing "two factor" theories or (3) by simply accepting the consequence that there is no real difference between changing meanings and changing beliefs. (shrink)

Environmental thinkers sympathetic to Buddhism sometimes reason as follows: (1) A holistic view of the world, according to which humans are regarded as being ‘one’ with nature, will necessarily engender environmental concern; (2) the Buddhist teaching of ‘emptiness’ represents such a view; therefore (3) Buddhism is an environmentally-friendly religion. In this paper, I argue that the first premise of this argument is false (a holistic view of the world can be reconciled with a markedly eco-unfriendly attitude) (...) as is the second (in speaking of emptiness, Buddhist thinkers are not proposing an ‘ecological’ conception of the world). Yet the conclusion is, I suggest, true: Buddhism is in certain respects environmentally-friendly, not for the reasons cited above, but because of the view, encapsulated in its teachings and practices, that certain dispositions to treat the natural environment well are an integral part of human well-being. (shrink)

Historian, city planner, international lecturer, and early advocate of interdisciplinary study, Corinne LathropGIlb draws on disciplines beyond the conventional study of history to explore such diverse topics as symbolismin city planning, biorhythms as determinants of creativity, the intertwined histories of liberalism andcorporatism, and the role of beauty in public policy. Woven as a subtext throughout this collection ofarticles, speeches, and other short writings is Dr. Gilb's inquiry into the dynamic between inner history ("thearchitecture of self-space") and outer history. Thought-provoking and (...) entertaining, Toward Holistic History istimely in its call for an historiography that recognizes the "great honeycomb" of pluralisms that defines our world. (shrink)

Robert Brandom’s inferentialism notoriously entails meaning holism, which has often been seen as unacceptable because it seems to make communication impossible. This paper aims to improve Brandom’s conception of communication as “navigation-across-perspectives” to reconcile meaning holism and the possibility of communication. The conception proposed here entails keeping track of speakers’ own and the other’s scores of commitments and entitlements. I argue that the whole of commonly endorsed inferences in each practice should determine the contents of utterances and those of the (...) commitments of the participants. The local norm defined by such inferences is holistic and can make sense of each other’s commitments. Contents or meaning can be primarily determined at the level of each practice, not that of an individual, the whole community, or the objective world. (shrink)

The contrast between the strategies of research employed in reductionism and holism masks a radical contradiction between two different scientific philosophies. We concentrate in particular on an analysis of the key philosophical issues which give structure to holistic thought. A first (non-exhaustive) analysis of the philosophical tradition will dwell upon: a) the theory of emergence: each level of organisation is characterised by properties whose laws cannot be deduced from the laws of the inferior levels of organisation (Engels, Morgan); b) (...) clarification of the relations between the “whole” and the “parts” (Woodger, Needham); c) the ontological or epistemological nature of the emergent properties; are they a phenomenological reality or solely an artefact of the state of our knowledge? (Pepper, Henle, Hempel and Oppenheim); d) the proposition of the holistic theoretical and methodological model ( Novikoff, Feibleman). I then go on to examine the differences that exist between the reductionist and the holistic approaches at various levels of analysis: that is to say, the differences which affect their ontologies, methodologies and epistemologies respectively. I attempt to understand the spirit of a holistic approach to ecology by analyzing the major work of E.P. Odum Fundamentals of ecology (1953, 1959, 1971). I set forward what might be meant by the “holistic approach”, which is implicated in all the different levels of organisation at which the problem of “complexity” is debated. Ecology presents itself as an “holistic science” and Odum’s book offers a vision of the world which dates far back in the history of philosophy. By looking at the three different editions of this fundamental text on ecology, we may become aware of the evolution of Odum’s thought. In fact, only in the third and last edition is there a conscious appropriation of the holistic approach (by using the theoretical models of Feibleman who, for his part, refers to Novikoff). However, even when formally referring to the theory of emergence (that is to say the ontological nucleus of every holistic approach), Odum’s systemic analysis presents the same logical errors, which push him back into the reductionist domain. Above all, in his examination of the main concepts of “population”, “community” and “ecosystem”, there is a misunderstanding of the profound difference between “collective properties” and “emergent properties”. Moreover, the cybernetic models of Odum’s systemic analysis (introduced into ecology by Margalef), allowed him to vastly oversimplify his methodological task: in fact, neither how many levels nor which levels of organization are fundamental for the study of each individual level is clearly marked. Finally, Odum analyses the ecosystem as composed of energetic flux and cycles of matter, referring to the trophic-dynamic vision of Lindeman. That is to say, in my opinion, he juxtaposes a reductionistic methodology and epistemology to an holistic ontology. (shrink)

Between 1899 and 1906, Alexander Bogdanov developed a scientific philosophy intended to substantiate the basic principle of historical materialism—the idea that existence determines consciousness—in terms of the most advanced science and empiricist epistemology/ontology of his day. At the same time, however, he strove ‘to answer the broad needs of our workers for an overall worldview’, and in the process of doing so he elaborated a complete philosophical system and a holistic worldview. Although his intention was to serve the proletariat (...) and advance socialist revolution, Bogdanov also provided the sort of integral vision of the interconnectedness of the individual, society, and the cosmos that the Russian intelligentsia had traditionally pursued. Bogdanov adopted a number of the principles of nineteenth-century German and Russian idealism, including the concept of the unity of the subject and the object and the ideas that the laws of thought are the same as the laws of being, that there is no qualitative difference between humans and nature, and that humanity is central in the progressive development of the cosmos. Bogdanov, however, provided a materialist mirror image of the idealist worldview. While Russian idealists celebrated spirituality, individual personhood, freedom, and religion, Bogdanov advocated materialism, collectivism, determinism, and naturalism. (shrink)

Taking the view that understanding the meaning behind the complex formulas of science is more important than ever, this work attempts to explain the systems view of the world as the paradigm of the latest scientific developments.

Holistic service for youth and youth is the basic thing today because youth and youth are the present generation for the future of the church. By using descriptive qualitative methods, it can be concluded that the holistic ministry for youth and youth carried out by church leaders is able to build today's generation that continues to have an impact on the world and is also expected to bring Christian education that has one clear and definite goal/direction, namely (...) knowing, loving, believe in, obey and serve God according to His will and plan and for His glory. (shrink)

Gila Sher interviewed by Chen Bo: -/- I. Academic Background and Earlier Research: 1. Sher’s early years. 2. Intellectual influence: Kant, Quine, and Tarski. 3. Origin and main Ideas of The Bounds of Logic. 4. Branching quantifiers and IF logic. 5. Preparation for the next step. -/- II. Foundational Holism and a Post-Quinean Model of Knowledge: 1. General characterization of foundational holism. 2. Circularity, infinite regress, and philosophical arguments. 3. Comparing foundational holism and foundherentism. 4. A post-Quinean model of knowledge. (...) 5. Intellect and figuring out. 6. Comparing foundational holism with Quine’s holism. 7. Evaluation of Quine’s Philosophy -/- III. Substantive Theory of Truth and Relevant Issues: 1. Outline of Sher’s substantive theory of truth. 2. Criticism of deflationism and treatment of the Liar. 3. Comparing Sher’s substantive theory of truth with Tarski’s theory of truth. -/- IV. A New Philosophy of Logic and Comparison with Other Theories: 1. Foundational account of logic. 2. Standard of logicality, set theory and logic. 3. Psychologism, Hanna’s and Maddy’s conceptions of logic. 4. Quine’s theses about the revisability of logic. -/- V. Epilogue. (shrink)

Holism in environmental ethics is concerned with a harmonious relationship between man and nature. Hinduism seeks to identify and evaluate the distinctive ecological attitudes, values and practices of human beings by making clear their relations with the intellectual and ethical thought within scripture, ritual, myth,symbols, cosmology, and sacrament. In Hinduism the relation between man and nature is like the relationship between the microcosm (Pindānda) and the macrocosm (Brahmānda). The Panċamahābhuta in the Hindu tradition emphasizes that God is assigned to every (...) bhutas, and human beings have no specialauthority over the other nonhuman. Even the Yoga system of Pātanjali also tries to integrate environmental policies with the daily needs of human beings. Hindu philosophy believes that an animal killer is considered as a murderer and goes directly to the hell. This justifies the intrinsic value of the nonhuman species, which entail them to come under the purview of morality. On the basis of the various attitudes in Hinduism we can develop an ecological paradigm and strategy which is based on the concept of Vasudheiva Kutumbakam: every entity and organism is a part of one large extended family which is presided over by the eternal mother Earth. This position will help us to formulate a global environmental ethics by individuals, theologians, environmental philosophers and groups, scientists, politicians, economists, industrialists, and different government and non-governmental social organizations. (shrink)

This essay lays out a reformational research program on the idea of truth. First it describes challenges to the idea of truth in contemporary philosophy and gives reasons why a robust conception of truth is needed. Next it presents two overriding concerns – ontological and axiological – that such a conception should address. In addressing these concerns, a contemporary reformational approach will take up three sets of issues: relations between propositional truth and the discursive justification of truth claims; distinctions and (...) connections between propositional and nonpropositional truth; and the sorts of cultural practices and social institutions within which truth occurs. My detailed response to these issues, as sketched in the last section of the essay, is to propose a holistic, normative, and structurally pluralist conception of truth, one that I call holistic alethic pluralism. Propositional truth is important but not all-important, and reformational philosophy needs to show why that is so. (shrink)

Holism about thought content – especially coupled with a measure of semantic externalism – can provide us with an attractive account of how thinking relates to the world. It can help us to tell a neat story that starts out with the inseparable entanglement of truth and intelligibility: in order to understand thought, to confront it to the world and to give verdicts about that confrontation, we need to grasp a considerable amount of truths. A variety of positions (...) that emerge under the influence of Davidson’s arguments (see, for instance, his 1974) deny the possibility of severing the connection between thought and facts of the world. However, this holisticunderstanding of thought seems less attractive when it is forced to account for our capacities to engage with singularities. A (roughly) Davidsonian conception of thought faces serious problems when it tries to answer questions regarding singular thoughts, de re attitudes and beliefs, and the nature of items of the world that cannot be described or referred to without the aid of demonstratives. This tension between thought and singularity is a well-known one and shows up in different traditions of philosophy. We aim at easing the tension without giving up the intuitions behind holism. (shrink)

We are living in and beyond two massive changes in the world, both of which must be addressed by education, the caretaker of memory. First is the geological era of the Anthropocene—a crisis...

(1997). Holistic healing as fresh evidence for collective consciousness. World Futures: Vol. 48, The Concept of Collective Consiousness: Research Perspectives, pp. 151-160.

The claim of this paper is that we should envisage physicalism as an ontological holism. Our current basic physics, quantum theory, suggests that, ontologically speaking, we have to assume one global quantum state of the world; many of the properties that are often taken to be intrinsic properties of physical systems are in fact relations, which are determined by that global quantum state. The paper elaborates on this conception of physicalism as an ontological holism and considers issues such as (...) supervenience, realization of higher-order properties by basic physical properties, and reduction. Keywords: physicalism, holism, relations, space-time, quantum physics, Humean supervenience. (shrink)

Mental (or semantic) holism is the doctrine that the identity of a belief content (or the meaning of a sentence that expresses it) is determined by its place in the web of beliefs or sentences comprising a whole theory or group of theories. It can be contrasted with two other views: atomism and molecularism. Molecularism characterizes meaning and content in terms of relatively small parts of the web in a way that allows many different theories to share those parts. For (...) example, the meaning of 'chase' might be said by a molecularist to be try to catch. Atomism characterizes meaning and content in terms of none of the web; it says that sentences and beliefs have meaning or content independently of their relations to other sentences or beliefs. One major motivation for holism has come from reflections on the natures of confirmation and learning. As Quine (1953) observed, claims about the world are confirmed not individually, but only in conjunction with theories of which they are a part. And typically, one cannot come to understand scientific claims without understanding a significant chunk of the theory of which they are a part. For example, in learning the Newtonian concepts of 'force', 'mass', kinetic energy' and 'momentum', one doesn't learn any definitions of these terms in terms that are understood beforehand, for there are no such definitions. Rather, these theoretical terms were all learned together in conjunction with procedures for solving problems. The major problem with holism is that it threatens to make generalization in psychology virtually impossible. If the content of any state depends on all others, it would be extremely unlikely that any two believers would ever share a state with the same content. Moreover, holism would appear to conflict with our ordinary conception of reasoning. What sentences one accepts influence what one infers. if i accept a sentence and then later reject it, i thereby change the inferential role of that sentence, so the meaning of what i accept wouldn't be the same as what i later reject. but then it would be difficult to understand on this view how one could rationally --or even irrationally!-- change one's mind. and agreement and translation are also problematic for much the same reason. holists have responded (1) by proposing that we should think not in terms of "same/different" meaning but in terms of a gradient of similarity of meaning, (2) by proposing "two factor" theories or (3) by simply accepting the consequence that there is no real difference between changing meanings and changing beliefs. (shrink)

Designing a virtual environment within a digital game occupies a large part of the design procedure, requiring holistic attention and a broad arrangement of the game constituents. Considering other design disciplines, they occupy a unified design methodology; however, a comprehensive literature review reveals the lack of the intended design methodology in the digital game domain's virtual environment development, despite a currently proposed theoretical methodology trying to dissolve the issue. Hence, this research aims to determine the industry's requirements and provide (...) a set of assets included in current digital games as an initial step of providing such a design methodology for the domain. In this regard, the researchers reverse-engineered ten selected digital games, understanding the current condition of digital games via adopting the mentioned currently available design methodology. This dataset reveals a lack in the assets of the story layer in the recent digital games, despite their focus on being story-based. This dilemma leads to long text or speech conversations between game characters, disrupting the players while following the game. The current design focuses on environmental resources only, however, as a virtual landscape, the story needs to be reinforced to be a balanced and well-designed game. Hence, increasing the ratio of the assets in this layer will advance the games' interactivity. Also, as future work, this data set could pave the way for a digital game industry design tool regarding the virtual environment. (shrink)

(1997). An historical holistic thread in the dynamical fabric of psychology. World Futures: Vol. 49, The Dialatic of Evolution: Essays in Honor of David Loye, pp. 159-201.

S.R.L. Clark is a prominent defender of environmental holism and an advocate of the better treatment of other species. Not coincidentally, he is also a defender of a Neoplatonic Theism which holds that the presuppositions of reason have theistic implications and the point of the world is to exemplify beauty, or all the forms of beauty. Here I examine certain aspects of his view. I do so because I’m drawn to his main holist conclusion: we should live according to (...) those rules that will allow as many creatures as possible, of as many kinds, their best chance of living a satisfactory life according to their kind. However, I express doubts about his general route to the principle. (shrink)

My objective here is to motivate certain distinctive forms of dynamic normativity at some level deeper than that of our ordinary usage of ‘norm’ or ‘rule’ in the prescriptive sense of ‘ought’-forms of normativity not only bound by evolution but ultimately, via the same dynamic process, giving rise to our prescriptive-normative practices. As a theoretical backdrop for this motivation, I give a review of the familiar frog case in the studies of representational content from a new perspective: i.e., try to (...) reveal the diachronic holism embedded in Millikan’s teleo-semantic functions via a thought experiment called ‘the frog prince’. Then I will show how such a version of diachronic holism relates to my proposed notions of dynamic normativity. (shrink)

Presented is a discourse on the contextual nature of physical qualities. The realistic and observational contexts in which a system exists are demonstrated as equally involved in defining its qualities. Each quality could be consequently considered as natural and experiential at the same time. The subsequently proposed thesis of the contextual co-definition of natural/experiential qualities in the relationship between the human mind and Nature is shown to possess numerous favorable ethical and aesthetical implications. The contextual nature of experiential qualities is (...) further correlated with the holistic character of natural systems and events, which is illustrated by several real-life examples. A systemic approach to knowledge is shown to naturally emanate from the acceptance of the contextual definition of physical qualities and the holistic nature of experiences. Methodological problems of the standard, reductionist explanatory frameworks are additionally discussed with an emphasis on the major descriptive flaws of quantificational approaches and in respect to cybernetic and autopoietic organization of physical and biological systems. (shrink)

The reductionist/holist debate seems an impoverished one, with many participants appearing to adopt a position first and constructing rationalisations second. Here I propose an intermediate position of pragmatic holism, that irrespective of whether all natural systems are theoretically reducible, for many systems it is completely impractical to attempt such a reduction, also that regardless if whether irreducible `wholes' exist, it is vain to try and prove this in absolute terms. This position thus illuminates the debate along new pragmatic lines, and (...) refocusses attention on the underlying heuristics of learning about the natural world. (shrink)

This paper proposes a holistic approach to the model-world relationship, suggesting that the model-world relationship be viewed as an overall structural fit where one organized whole fits another organized whole. This approach is largely motivated by the implausibility of Michael Weisberg’s weighted feature-matching account of the model-world relationship, where a set-theoretic conception of the structures of models is assumed. To show the failure of Weisberg’s account and the plausibility of my approach, a concrete model, i.e. the (...) San Francisco Bay model, is discussed. (shrink)

It was seventy five years ago that the book, Holism and Evolution by Jan Christiaan Smuts was published. Although the book was very popular at the time, it has not been accepted by either the scientific or the philosophical community. Its complex message was truncated to the truism "the whole is more than the sum of its parts," which became the definition of holism, but ensured its rejection by the skeptic as a too general statement to be of practical value. (...) It is very unlikely that there was a sinister plot to sideline this important work. The simplest explanation is that Smuts' concepts, which suggest many of the later ideas of systems thinkers, were simply too far ahead of their time. Now however, at the dawn of the new millennium, the time is perfect to rediscover Smuts and to apply his ideas with a "holos consciousness" to the many burning issues that humanity faces. In this paper the main principles of Holism are explained. (shrink)

While women in Turkey and around the world are commonly engaged in civic activism for peace and violence reduction, they are seriously underrepresented in formal politics; thus, not much has been written about their potential to affect decisions made to reduce violence in their societies. This study aims to understand how women politicians view violence in general and their solutions for two specific types of violence in Turkey: the increasing levels of violence against women, and violence created through the (...) Kurdish issue in Turkey. Turkish politicians have become increasingly concerned about both of these issues in recent years and have designed many policies and strategies to address them. This study argues that studying the women parliamentarians’ linkage between the two types of violence will help understand what accounts for the differences among women MPs in their understanding of different types of violence and their solutions to them. (shrink)

In reflective explorations of the nature of truth in the philosophical concern with truth (as conceived in people’s pre-theoretic understanding of truth), there are two seemingly opposed strategic directions of explaining the relationship between the two closely related but distinct basic semantic notions, truth (with sentential truth bearers) and reference (with referring terms at the subject position): by virtue of which to hook up to the world in the fundamental relationship between language, thought and the world; eventually which (...) one is more fundamental in this connection, explaining truth by virtue of reference or explaining reference by virtue of truth. In this essay, through elaborating a holistic double-reference explanatory basis of truth, I explain how our pre-theoretic “way-things-are-capturing” understanding of truth fundamentally plays its normative-basis role for a unifying pluralist account of truth through the complementary interplay of its vertical “double-reference-based” dimension and horizontal “sentential-predication-based” dimension. For illustration and for a relatively complete understanding, in Appendix, I present a sample version of the suggested unifying pluralist account of truth which consists of the referentially enhanced base account, as explained in this essay, and sample accounts of some distinct types of perspective elaborations. (shrink)

James B. Ashbrook's "new natural theology in an empirical mode" pursued an integrated understanding of the spiritual, psychological, and neurological dimensions of spiritual life. Knowledge of neuroscience and personality theory was central to his quest, and his understandings were necessarily revised and amplified as scientific findings emerged. As a result, Ashbrook's legacy may serve as a case example of how to do religion-and-science in a milieu of scientific change. The constant in the quest was Ashbrook's core belief in the basic (...) holism of brain, mind, personality, the nature of reality, and the underlying reality of God. (shrink)

Critics have challenged agricultural scientists to address concerns for environmental quality, farm size and structure, international justice, and the health and welfare of consumers and farm labor in research planning. The goal of this research was to determine what is and what could be done to consider value-laden knowledge relevant to these concerns in research planning. Descriptions of a state agricultural experiment station and of a hierarchy of inquiry that included applied systems analysis and reductionist approaches to science revealed the (...) goal-seeking and expert-centered nature of agricultural research. Value-laden and value-free knowledge of agricultural scientists and administrators were heavily represented in broad research goals such as increased productivity and efficiency. In addition, these goals were not evaluated at the levels of inquiry typically practiced by agricultural scientists. A soft systems methodology provided a more holistic level of inquiry that could facilitate consideration of value-laden and value-free knowledge of world views more diverse than those of agricultural scientists and administrators. Scientists could function as co-learners with other participants to identify issues and to conceptualize systems that are relevant to improving research planning. Moreover, researching the practice of soft systems offers opportunities for exploring systems ideas and holistic value theory in relation to agricultural research. (shrink)

This article presents and analyses a social-practice contextualist version of meaning holism, whose main root lies in American pragmatism. Proposing that beliefs depend on systems of language-use in social practices, which involve communities of people and worldly objects, such meaning holism effectively breaks down the Enlightenment tradition’s philosophical subject–object dualism (and scepticism). It also opens the human mind up for empirical research – in a ‘sociologizing’, ‘anthropologizing’ and ‘historicizing’ vein. The article discusses the implications of this approach for the human (...) sciences, for instance certain parallel developments in anthropology and archaeology. (shrink)

The term “race,” and the concept it refers to, namely genetically different human populations in the world, is one of the most intellectually and emotionally charged in society, and in science as well. This article focuses on how human beings recognize individual faces of their own versus another “racial group,” and the term “face race” is used in the context of visual recognition, as traditionally done in the scientific literature. The article reviews the well-known phenomenon that people have greater (...) difficulty distinguishing and recognizing individual faces from a different human population, or “race,” than their own. Experience-based holistic accounts encompass and extend most other proposals, such as a more densely clustered organization of other-race faces in an internal face-space centered on a “norm,” and it leads to a number of interesting predictions about the processing of same race and other-race faces. (shrink)

Taking the problem of perception and illusion as a leading clue, this article presents a new phenomenological approach to perception and the world: holism of experience. It challenges not only Husserl’s transcendentalism, but also what remains of it in Heidegger’s early thought, on the grounds that it is committed to the skeptical inference: Since we can always doubt any perception, we can always doubt perception as a whole. The rejection of such an implicit inference leads to a relational paradigm (...) of Being-in-the-World that differs from Heidegger’s on many points. (shrink)

For the first time, David Katz's classic monograph _The World of Touch_ has been translated into English. Regarded as one of the premiere experimental psychologists, Katz vigorously opposed the atomism and "tachistoscopic" mentality typical of the sensory psychology of his day. In _The World of Touch_, Katz sought to dispel the invidious distinction between the supposedly higher and lower senses. To help touch regain its original prominence in the field, Katz demonstrated, through very simple, yet creative experiments, how (...) fascinating the abilities of touch are, and how valuable the tactual stimulus can be in specifying objects, surfaces, substances, and events. In addition, Katz emphasized the importance of higher-order invariants in the perception of objects, and the holistic quality of perception in time as well as space. (shrink)

Skillful Striving investigates the nature of the cultivation of excellence, the conditions that render it possible, and its potential for inspiration from the perspective of enactive wisdom—one that by enacting lays down a way or path. Performative endeavors whose telos centrally involves physical performance—sports, martial and performing arts, crafts–—are the focus of this inquiry. These are privileged ways for a holistic cultivation of our talents and limitations. The main philosophical thrust can be summarized as a “thick holism” where naturalism (...) and normativity combine. Skillful Striving is concerned with an integrative bodymind and its ways of knowing and experiencing that issue forth from active engagements with the world, and whose goal is defined by certain standards of qualitative performance that ultimately aim at excellence. The process of cultivation relies on a rich epistemic landscape where skills are coupled to virtues in pragmatic contexts. These contexts are ecologically broad in the sen. (shrink)

We use recent developments within philosophy of science and within certain strands of linguistic research to throw light on each other. According to Ronald Giere's perspectivist philosophy of science, the scientific understanding of reality must proceed along different, mutually irreducible lines of approach. Giere's proposal, however, leaves unresolved the problem of how to integrate the ever‐growing multitude of highly diverse scientific accounts of what is, after all, one and the same world. We propose a technique for the alignment of (...) different perspectives that will permit cross‐perspectival explanation, and thus allow for a more holistic picture of reality to emerge. With respect to modern linguistics, however, Giere's perspectivism merely legalises a de facto state of affairs, as this discipline displays the peaceful coexistence of a multitude of different theoretical perspectives. Still, this makes it all the more important to show how the different aspects of language picked out by these different perspectives combine to form one single complex reality. During our investigation, a largely overlooked type of reduction within linguistics comes to light, prevalent in classical as well as current work within speech act theory and politeness theory. We suggest how a more holistic understanding of language can be attained through our technique for integrating different perspectives. (shrink)