Alliance for Mystical Pragmatics

Alliance for Mystical Pragmatics

Harmonizing Evolutionary Convergence

Glossary Menus

holism

Jan Christiaan Smuts coined the term holism in Holism and Evolution in 1926 to highlight a factor in the physical and biological sciences that he felt had been neglected. As he said in the Preface:

This factor, called Holism in the sequel, underlies the synthetic tendency in the universe, and is the principle which makes for the origin and progress of wholes in the universe. An attempt is made to show that this whole-making or holistic tendency is fundamental in nature, that it has a well-marked ascertainable character, and that Evolution is nothing but the gradual development and stratification of progressive series of wholes, stretching from the inorganic beginnings to the highest levels of spiritual creation.

In summary, “The whole-making, holistic tendency, or Holism, operating in and through particular wholes, is seen in all stages of existence, and is by no means confined to the biological domain to which science has hitherto restricted it. … Wholeness is the most characteristic expression of the nature of the universe in its forward movement in time. It marks the line of evolutionary progress. And Holism is the inner driving force behind that progress.”

As Smuts indicated, holism applies just as much to noogenesis, to the evolution of the mind, which we call learning, as to hylogenesis and biogenesis, taking place on the surface of things in the physical universe. With this evolutionary meaning, holism is synonymous with hologenesis, which is a preferable word to distinguish the evolutionary sense of holism from its more popular meaning today, as holistic.

For instance, since 1960, the term holistic medicine has come to mean ‘a form of medical treatment that attempts to deal with the whole person and not merely with his or her physical condition’ (OED). As such, holism has come to act as an antidote to reductionism in mechanistic science, not necessarily evolutionary.

See also: 

Etymology

Greek olos ‘all, whole, entire’, where one is safe, as the PIE base *sol- indicates, also root of Latin salvus ‘whole, safe, healthy, uninjured’.

Common ancestor(s):