holism vs reductionism

Holism Vs Reductionism

Holism

The argument between the holism and reductionism goes to a long range depending on the different investigative controls. According to Business Dictionary, holism is defined as

“systems worldview or methodology based on the observation that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts, displays properties neither possessed by its components not anticipated from their analysis, and that the nature of a thing or a complex system cannot be understood by breaking it apart but only by looking at in its totality.”

People have been using the holism methodology for long time which focuses on both structure and the process. Holism also provides a strong foundation for conducting assessments in a critical way, and also allows the managers or the management in relating their theoretical and practical knowledge in a learning process. This allows the managers to solve the problems irrespective of their size. Using this methodology also encourages and ensures the managers in completing the projects successfully (Jackson, 2006, p. 647-648).

It is the main spot where a person’s performance is analyzed based on the performance as a whole, i.e., based on the overall output rather than the assumption of reducing one’s capability to a narrow level in different areas (Busch, 2011). Holism considers the organization as a single entity and plays a vital role in measuring the development of the organization. As the society advanced and problems became more complex, it became difficult for the management to solve the problems with existing solutions or methodologies. So, new methodologies have been created and new approached have been followed to overcome the problems, individual or group, and attain success. Some of the methodologies that have been created are complexity theory, soft systems thinking, etc. These methodologies have helped the management in solving their problems which they could not using the traditional methods. Though these methodologies helped the management, a question also arouse concerning the advantages and disadvantages of different methodologies and how they could use them together to solve much more complex issues (Jackson, 2006, p. 648).

As the problems became more complex, change and diversity, the managers have to deal with even more complex problems. As a result of this a new methodology has been created called the “holism.” Holism has been introduced to help the individuals in gaining a clear understanding of the different existing technologies which have been created to solve the problems. However, the main point of holism is that it considers even the small problem of a single department in the organization as the problem of the entire organization and solves it considering it in the same level and scope (Jackson, 2006, p. 653).

To successfully overcome today’s problems and find the opportunities in them, the managers should think and act more creatively and address the problems by considering the problems at the higher level of the organization. This can be achieved by creative holism, which provides the managers with an advantage of solving the problems in different perspectives and also applying the suitable methodologies (Jackson, 2006, p. 654).

Finally, holism has been created with the main aim of understanding the existing methodologies and also considering the problems in the broadest way possible. Simultaneously, the focus should also be on those aspects of the organization which will result in the evolution and development of the organization (Jackson, 2006, p. 654).

Reductionism

Reductionism is considered as the inverse of holism. According to Williams (1998), “reductionism is a procedure by which wholes are disregarded for the investigation of their parts. It has similarly been one of the main quintessence of the present day science.” According to Piaget, “reductionism is the tendency to reduce the complex things into simple ones” (cited in Landry, 1995).

Reductionism mainly concentrates on breaking down the bigger thins into the smallest ones to gain better understanding and learning of it. It looks at different parts of a system and breaks it down into every individual part possible to have better picture, learning and understanding of how the entire system works. Though, this approach is extremely beneficial to gain internal functioning of a system, the problem is that it does not connect the individual parts as a single entity later. Reductions results in obtaining different forms of individual parts of a system that are developed because of the interaction amongst the small components obtained (Jackson, 2006).

Different people have different opinions on reductionism, especially the ones that follow it. They believe that to understand the overall functioning of any system, the internal behaviors of the system should be identified and understood. This will ensure that the individuals will have a better understanding of the system functions and also lessen the unpredictable behavior of the system as it allows the individuals to identify the possible reason for the issue and the impact it can cause on the system (McLeod, 2008).

Reductionism is further divided into two types inter and intra reductionism. The inter level reductionism focuses on the articulate mechanisms which explains the relationships at higher level whereas the intra level reductionism deals with the mathematical models and theories (Wimsatt, 2006).

Most of the organizations have combined the two reductionism techniques to have successful outputs for a project irrespective of the application. Irrespective of the type of reductionism applied, it has one noteworthy guideline that puts a stop to all ends – it works and this can be confirmed by admitting the fact that it has been in utilization for many years (Rafferty, n.d.).

Comparison between Holism and Reductionism

Holism is applied in different scenarios where the problem is considered as the problem of an entire organization instead of considering it as a problem of an individual department or individual and also solves it at the same level of consideration. Whereas, reductionism mainly concentrates in dividing the whole complex system into all the smallest parts possible, thereby allowing the user to have a clear understanding of those parts so that the user can have a clear explanation of the whole system. In reductionism, the different parts help in understanding the functionality of the system, which also contribute to making up of the whole system. In holism, the best understanding of the system is obtained by considering the whole system as a single unit (Esposito, 2013).

Holism follows an intuitive view in its investigation, whereas, reductionism offers a rational investigation model. The reductionism carries out the assessment in hierarchical manner in which every different component is analyzed to understand the functioning of the whole system. Reductionism follows a structured process in its investigations and holism follows a chaotic paradigm (Pigliucci, 2014).

In conclusion, both holism and reductionism have their own pros and cons depending on their applications and usage with respect to the perspective of the problem to be considered. Holism allows and provides better understanding of the whole organization as a single unit. Reductionism provides the better view in understanding the different parts that constitute the whole system. However, the result is best obtained based on the approach applied to the application.

References

Busch, J. (2011). Indispensability and Holism. Journal for General Philosophy Of Science, 42(1), 47-59. doi:10.1007/s10838-011-9142-4

Esposito, M. (2013). Between Holism and Reductionism: Organismic Inheritance and Neo-Kantian Biological Tradition in Britain and the USA, 1890-1940, University of Leeds, 2013.

Jackson, M. C. (n.d.). System thinking: Creative Holism for Managers. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Jackson, M. C. (2006). Creative holism: A critical systems approach to complex problem situations. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 23(5), 647-657.

Landry, M. (1995). A note on the concept of 'problem'. Organization studies, 16(2), 315-343.

McLeod, S. A. (2008). Reductionism and Holism. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/reductionism-holism.html

Pigliucci, M. (2014). Between holism and reductionism: a philosophical primer on an emergency. Biological Journal of Linnean Society, 112(2), 261-267.

Rafferty, M. (n.d.). Reductionism, Holism and System Dynamics. Retrieved from http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2007/proceed/papers/RAFFE116

Wimsatt, W. C. (2006). Reductionism and its heuristics: Making methodological reductionism honest. Synthese, 151(3), 445-475.