The Collaborative Dictionary

Whole \Whole\, n.

The entire thing; the entire assemblage of parts; totality; all of a thing, without defect or exception; a thing complete in itself. [1913 Webster] This not the whole of life to live, Nor all of death to die. --J. Montgomery. [1913 Webster]

A regular combination of parts; a system. [1913 Webster] Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole. --Pope. [1913 Webster] Committee of the whole. See under Committee. Upon the whole, considering all things; taking everything into account; in view of all the circumstances or conditions. [1913 Webster] Syn: Totality; total; amount; aggregate; gross. [1913 Webster]

Whole \Whole\, a. [OE. hole, hol, hal, hool, AS. h[=a]l well, sound, healthy; akin to OFries. & OS. h?l, D. heel, G. heil, Icel. heill, Sw. hel whole, Dan. heel, Goth. hails well, sound, OIr. c?l augury. Cf. Hale, Hail to greet, Heal to cure, Health, Holy.] [1913 Webster]

Containing the total amount, number, etc.; comprising all the parts; free from deficiency; all; total; entire; as, the whole earth; the whole solar system; the whole army; the whole nation. "On their whole host I flew unarmed." --Milton. [1913 Webster] The whole race of mankind. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

Complete; entire; not defective or imperfect; not broken or fractured; unimpaired; uninjured; integral; as, a whole orange; the egg is whole; the vessel is whole. [1913 Webster] My life is yet whole in me. --2 Sam. i.

[1913 Webster]

Possessing, or being in a state of, heath and soundness; healthy; sound; well. [1913 Webster] [She] findeth there her friends hole and sound. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] They that be whole need not a physician. --Matt. ix.

[1913 Webster] When Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole. --Tennyson. [1913 Webster] Whole blood. (Law of Descent) See under Blood, n.,

Whole note (Mus.), the note which represents a note of longest duration in common use; a semibreve. Whole number (Math.), a number which is not a fraction or mixed number; an integer. Whole snipe (Zool.), the common snipe, as distinguished from the smaller jacksnipe. [Prov. Eng.] [1913 Webster] Syn: All; total; complete; entire; integral; undivided; uninjured; unimpaired; unbroken; healthy. Usage: Whole, Total, Entire, Complete. When we use the word whole, we refer to a thing as made up of parts, none of which are wanting; as, a whole week; a whole year; the whole creation. When we use the word total, we have reference to all as taken together, and forming a single totality; as, the total amount; the total income. When we speak of a thing as entire, we have no reference to parts at all, but regard the thing as an integer, i. e., continuous or unbroken; as, an entire year; entire prosperity. When we speak of a thing as complete, there is reference to some progress which results in a filling out to some end or object, or a perfected state with no deficiency; as, complete success; a complete victory. [1913 Webster] All the whole army stood agazed on him. --Shak. [1913 Webster] One entire and perfect chrysolite. --Shak. [1913 Webster] Lest total darkness should by night regain Her old possession, and extinguish life. --Milton. [1913 Webster] So absolute she seems, And in herself complete. --Milton. [1913 Webster]

Word Net

whole adj

1 including all components without exception; being one unit or constituting the full amount or extent or duration; complete; "gave his whole attention"; "a whole wardrobe for the tropics"; "the whole hog"; "a whole week"; "the baby cried the whole trip home"; "a whole loaf of bread" [ant: fractional]

2 (of siblings) having the same parents; "whole brothers and sisters" [ant: half]

3 exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health; "hale and hearty"; "whole in mind and body"; "a whole person again" [syn: hale]

1 all of something including all its component elements or parts; "Europe considered as a whole"; "the whole of American literature"

2 an assemblage of parts that is regarded as a single entity; "how big is that part compared to the whole?"; "the team is a unit" [syn: whole thing, unit] adv : to a complete degree or to the full or entire extent (`whole' is often used informally for `wholly'); "he was wholly convinced"; "entirely satisfied with the meal"; "it was completely different from what we expected"; "was completely at fault"; "a totally new situation"; "the directions were all wrong"; "it was not altogether her fault"; "an altogether new approach"; "a whole new idea" [syn: wholly, entirely, completely, totally, all, altogether] [ant: partially]

Moby Thesaurus

a certain, absolute, account, across-the-board, admissibility, admission, admitting no exception, aggregate, all, all hands, all the world, all-comprehensive, all-embracing, all-inclusive, all-out, amount, amplitude, an, any, any one, assimilation, atomic, be-all and end-all, being, blanket, box score, bulk, bunkum, cast, categorical, census, clear, coherence, cohesion, compendious, complete, completeness, composition, comprehension, comprehensive, comprehensiveness, comprisal, concentrated, conclusive, constituents, content, contents, count, coverage, decided, decisive, definite, definitive, determinate, developed, difference, divisions, downright, either, elements, eligibility, embodiment, embracement, encompassment, encyclopedic, entire, entirety, entity, envisagement, every man Jack, everybody, everyone, exclusive, exhaustive, exhaustiveness, explicit, express, extent, final, fit, fixed, flat, flat-out, flawless, force, full, full-fledged, full-grown, full-scale, global, good, gross, guts, hale, healthy, holistic, implicit, inappealable, inclusion, inclusive, inclusiveness, incorporation, index, indisputable, individual, indivisible, ingredients, innards, insides, intact, integral, integrate, integrated, inventory, irreducible, items, linkage, list, lone, magnitude, mass, matter, mature, matured, measure, measurement, membership, monadic, monistic, number, numbers, omnibus, one, one and all, one and indivisible, openness, orbicular, organism, organization, out-and-out, outright, over-all, panoramic, part, participation, parts, peremptory, perfect, plenary, positive, product, quantity, quantum, reception, reckoning, result, resultant, right, ripe, round, rounded, sane, score, simple, single, singular, sole, solid, solitary, sound, straight, straight-out, strength, substance, sum, sum total, summation, supply, sweeping, synoptic, system, tale, tally, the bottom line, the story, the whole story, tolerance, toleration, total, totality, tote, tout le monde, unabbreviated, unanalyzable, unblemished, unbroken, uncircumscribed, unconditional, unconditioned, uncut, undamaged, undiminished, undistracted, undivided, undoubting, unequivocal, unexpurgated, unhampered, unhesitating, unhurt, uniform, unimpaired, uninjured, unique, unitary, unity, universal, unlimited, unmarred, unmistakable, unmitigated, unqualified, unquestioning, unreserved, unrestricted, unswerving, untouched, unwaivable, utter, well, well-rounded, wholesome, without exception, without omission, without reserve, x number

English

Etymology

hāl. Cognate with German heil, Dutch heel.

Pronunciation

• (UK) hōl, /həʊl/, /h@Ul/

• Homophones: hole,uwole

• (US) hōl, /hoʊl/, /hoUl/

  Rhymes: -əʊl

Adjective

1. entire.

   I ate a whole fish.

2. sound, uninjured, healthy.

   He is of whole mind, but the same cannot be said about his physical state.

Derived terms

• whole number
• on the whole
• the whole nine yards
• the whole shooting match
• whole ball of wax
• whole-wheat
• whole step
• go the whole hog
• goes the whole hog
• going the whole hog
• went the whole hog
• gone the whole hog
• out of whole cloth
• hole-whole merger

Translations

checktrans-top ]]

• ttbc [[Albanian: tërë
• ttbc Arabic: (kull), (kámil)
• ttbc Basque: oso
• ttbc Catalan: tot
• ttbc Chinese: 整個, 整个 (zhěnggè)
• ttbc Croatian: cio, cijel
• ttbc Dutch: heel
• ttbc French: entier
• ttbc German: ganz
• ttbc Hungarian: egész
• ttbc Icelandic: heill
• ttbc Italian: intero
• ttbc Korean: 전 (jeon)
• ttbc Portuguese: inteiro
• ttbc Slovak: celý
• ttbc Spanish: entero
• ttbc Cebuano: entero

Adverb

1. in entirety; entirely; wholly

   I ate a fish whole!

Translations

Noun

1. Something complete, without any parts missing.
2. An entirety.

Translations

Derived terms

• wholemeal
• wholesome

Distinguish from the suffix -holism, which describes addictions.

Holism (from 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 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 sometimes seen as the opposite of holism. Reductionism in science says that a complex system can be explained by reduction to its fundamental parts. Reductionism essentially claims that chemistry is reducible to physics, biology is reducible to chemistry and psychology and sociology are reducible to biology, etc. Some other proponents of reductionism, however, think that holism is the opposite only of greedy reductionism.

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. Smuts defined holism as "The tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution."cf. Henri Bergson.

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.

In science

In the latter half of the 20th century, holism led to systems thinking and its derivatives, like the sciences of chaos and complexity. 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.

Holism has thus been used as a catchword. This 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 efficient algorithms for prediction of system behavior in certain classes of systems.

Further resistance to holism has come from the association of the concept with quantum mysticism. Scientists were as a rule discouraged from doing any work which may perpetuate such deception. Recently, however, public understanding has grown over the realities of such concepts, and more scientists are beginning to accept serious research into the concept.

Scientific holism holds that the behavior of a system cannot be perfectly predicted, no matter how much data is available. Natural 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 a full simulation of all the events occurring in the system. Key properties of the higher level behavior of certain classes of systems may be mediated by rare "surprises" in the behavior of their elements due to the principal of interconnectivity, thus evading predictions except by brute force simulation. Stephen 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 both computational and holistic, relational approaches towards understanding complex adaptive systems and, especially in the latter, its methods can be seen as the polar opposite to reductive methods. General theories of complexity have been proposed, and numerous complexity institutes and departments have sprung up around the world. The Santa Fe Institute is arguably the most famous of them.

In anthropology

There is an ongoing dispute on the definition of anthropology as holistic and the "four-field" approach. Supporters of this definition, consider it holistic in two senses: it is concerned with all human beings across times and places, and with all dimensions of humanity (evolutionary, biophysical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, psychological, etc.); also many academic programs following this approach take a "four-field" approach to anthropology that encompasses physical anthropology, archeology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology or social anthropology. The definition of anthropology as holistic and the "four-field" approach are disputed by leading anthropologist, that consider those as artifacts from 19th century social evolutionary thought that inappropriately impose scientific positivism upon cultural anthropology. has contrasted "holism" to "individualism" as two different forms of societies. According to him, modern humans live 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.

In teleological 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.

Mel Levine, M.D., author of A Mind at a Time, and Co-Founder (with Charles R. Schwab) of the not-for-profit organization All Kinds of Minds, can be considered a holist based on his view of the 'whole child' as a product of many systems and his work supporting the educational needs of children through the management of a child's educational profile as a whole rather than isolated weaknesses in that profile.

In theological anthropology

In theological anthropology, which belongs to theology and not to anthropology, holism is the belief that the nature of humans consists of an indivisible union of components such as body, soul and spirit.

In theology

Holistic concepts are strongly represented within the thoughts expressed within Logos (per Heraclitus), Panentheism and Pantheism.

Applications

Architecture and industrial design

Architecture and industrial design are often seen as enterprises, which constitute a whole, or to put it another way, design is often argued to be an holistic enterprise. In architecture and industrial design holism tends to imply an all-inclusive design perspective, which is often regarded as somewhat exclusive to the two design professions. Holism is often considered as something that sets architects and industrial designers apart from other professions that participate in design projects. This view is supported and advocated by practising designers and design scholars alike, who often argue that architecture and/or industrial design have a distinct holistic character.

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. In projects such as the North Carolina 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 different scores from different scorers.

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. 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 emphasizes the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical elements of the patient, and claims to treat the whole person in its context. Some examples of holistic approaches include Ayurveda, Chiropractic medicine, Homoeopathy, Traditional Chinese medicine, Naturopathic medicine, Osteopathy, Unani medicine and Reflexology. Most of these schools do not originate from the medical-scientific tradition, and lack sufficient evidence to verify their claims.

See also

• Confirmation holism
• Emergence
• Buckminster Fuller
• Holistic health
• Holistic science
• Holon
• Holotes
• Gestalt
• Gestalt psychology
• Kurt Goldstein
• Howard T. Odum
• Logical holism
• Organicism
• Synergetics
• Synergy
• Systems theory
• Willard Van Orman Quine

Notes

References

• Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory. Foundations Development Applications. Allen Lane 1971 (1968)
• Lipowski, Z.J.: "Psychosomatic medicine in seventies". Am. J. Psych. 134:3:233-244
• Jan C. Smuts, 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

• Brief explanation of Koestler's derivation of "holon"
• 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"