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To me, and I guess I am not thinking this through, holism is a pretty decent example of what you describe as nonsense. Wikipedia: "Holism (from Greek ὅλος hol

To me, and I guess I am not thinking this through, holism is a pretty decent example of what you describe as nonsense. Wikipedia: "Holism (from Greek ὅλος holos "all, whole, entire") is the idea that systems (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic) and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of parts." [1] What kind of definition is that? Essentially you can draw the cutoff line anywhere at what constitutes a 'whole'. This then makes the entire concept meaningless because you can never credibly define what the parts are and what the whole is and what should therefore be viewed as whole. Example: Is one of my skin cells 'whole' because it is made of 'parts' such as a cell wall, the nucleus and the intracellular matrix? Or is it my skin that is the 'whole'? Or my entire body? Or is it the human race? Or is it Terran life in general because my cell is essentially a cooperating, codependent yet singular agent? Where is the line? The entire concept just reeks of some guy in his hammock after a round of LSD (which I do not judge about). Edit: I do think that it useful to artificially draw some lines and study systems in such a way - as seen in Complex Systems theory. I just don't think that you can classify the world like that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism

woodruffw 8y ago
As with so many other topics in philosophy, the question of "where do we draw the line?" exists separately from "does the line exist?". Holism amounts to the claim that certain things should be viewed primarily as wholes, rather than as their constituents. It is up to individual thinkers to propose and argue for which things should be viewed this way.
13415 8y ago
I agree that the Wikipedia definition is not very good, but Holism can sometimes make sense if its specified more precisely. Sometimes it means that a system is such that if you change one component, then all other (or many other) components of the system are changed as well. In other cases, holism may be taken to imply that some value of a whole can be described by a superadditive function of the values of its parts, i.e., v(a⊕b)≥ v(a)+v(b) where "⊕" is some form of concatenation, mereological "sum", or combination operation. What I'm saying is that some meanings of the vague term "holism" can be made precise and can be interesting. For example, the Choquet Integral in decision making allows for superadditive combination of attributes.

woodruffw 8y ago

As with so many other topics in philosophy, the question of "where do we draw the line?" exists separately from "does the line exist?". Holism amounts to the claim that certain things should be viewed primarily as wholes, rather than as their constituents. It is up to individual thinkers to propose and argue for which things should be viewed this way.

13415 8y ago

I agree that the Wikipedia definition is not very good, but Holism can sometimes make sense if its specified more precisely. Sometimes it means that a system is such that if you change one component, then all other (or many other) components of the system are changed as well. In other cases, holism may be taken to imply that some value of a whole can be described by a superadditive function of the values of its parts, i.e., v(a⊕b)≥ v(a)+v(b) where "⊕" is some form of concatenation, mereological "sum", or combination operation. What I'm saying is that some meanings of the vague term "holism" can be made precise and can be interesting. For example, the Choquet Integral in decision making allows for superadditive combination of attributes.