16-11-02 -- Summary Of Essay Eleven Part Two -- Dialectical Wholism Full Of Holes

These are Introductory Essays, which have been written for those who find the main Essays either too long, or too difficult. They do not pretend to be comprehensive since they are simply summaries of the core ideas presented at this site. Most of the supporting evidence and argument found in each of the main Essays has been omitted. Anyone wanting more details, or who would like to examine my arguments and evidence in full, should consult the Essay for which each is a précis. [In this particular case, that can be found here.]

Abbreviations Used At This Site

Wholes Less Than The Sum Of The Parts?

As we will soon see, DM-holism has more holes in it than a New Labour Intelligence Dossier.

TAR depicts this doctrine as follows:

"In a dialectical system, the entire nature of the part is determined by its relationships with the other parts and so with the whole. The part makes the whole, and the whole makes the parts…. In this analysis, it is not just the case that the whole is more than the sum of the parts but also that the parts become more than they are individually by being part of a whole…. [F]or dialectical materialists the whole is more than the simple sum of its parts." [Rees (1998), pp.5, 77.]

DM-holism in fact rests on little more than a few trite and superficial maxims, such as the following:

G1: The entire nature of a part is determined by its relation with the other parts and with the whole.

G2: The part makes the whole and the whole makes the parts.

G3: The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

G4: Each part becomes more when it is part of a whole than it would otherwise have been (individually) apart from that whole.

In this case, therefore, profound truths about nature will now have been derived from a handful of catch phrases. [On this, see here.] Not only do these home-spun proverbs fall apart on examination, they are not even empirically true. [Many examples where they fail are listed in Essay Eleven Part Two.]

One or two instances of the above will suffice here (more will be given below):

(1) Consider a set of non-zero forces aligned in a couple so that their resultant at some point is zero. In this case, each part is greater than the whole (which is zero!), and the whole is equal to, but not greater than the sum of the parts.

(2) Consider a rope made from, say, 1000 strands of material, with each strand, say, 0.5 metres long. Let these strands overlap one another for approximately 90% of their length. Collectively, because of this overlap the fibres stretch (as part of the whole rope) for only 50 metres. However, the sum of the lengths of these strands taken individually is 500 metres -- which would be (and is!) their total length had they not been woven into that rope. But the rope is still only 50 metres long. Here the whole is considerably less than the sum of the parts.

Indeed, every item of clothing is a counter-example to this trite rule, for in each case the total length of all the strands of fibre constituting any garment is greater than the length of that garment as a whole. And what goes for garments goes for most manufactured goods, as well. Indeed, this applies to the parts of many organisms: hence, the total length of all the muscle fibres in a wombat is greater than the length of a whole wombat. And we need not stop at fury rodents: the total length of all the xylem tubes in a tree is greater than the length of that tree, and so on.

Finally, of course, the universe is equal to, but not greater than the sum of its parts.

To be sure, it is only the extremely vague nature of the terms used in dialectics that allows such counterexamples to count against it. Unfortunately, if the definitions of the jargon dialecticians use were to be tightened to exclude these and other examples, we would once again have a DM-thesis made true by yet more linguistic tinkering. As should seem obvious, nature id far too complex to squeeze into such an ill-designed dialectical boot.

More -- Before, Or After?

Furthermore, it is not too clear how the very same part can be "more" than it used to be before it was incorporated into the whole of which it is now a part -- if this were true, it could not be the same part. Of course, if "the entire nature of the part is determined by its relationships with the other parts and so with the whole", then it cannot be the same part anyway, or even remotely like it.

Moreover, it is also far from clear how anything could become "more" than it used to be before it was incorporated into the whole of which it is a part. This is because everything is always part of the "Totality". Since the "entire nature" of a part is "determined by its relationships with the other parts and so with the whole", its entire nature must determined by its relation to the "Totality" either side of incorporation into any sub-whole. If not, then it cannot be the case that "entire nature" of a part is "determined by its relationships with the other parts and so with the whole".

In addition, it is not easy to see how even a whole could be greater than the sum of its parts if that whole did not exist before the parts became its parts. It is not as if the whole was a certain size (or whatever) before it had any parts, but then grew larger (or whatever) when it gained them. But if not, what then is the force of words like "greater" or "more", here? Precisely what becomes "greater", or "more", and in what respect?

Alternative Medicine?

Of course, those committed to a belief in this sort of Holism often appeal to the existence of organic composites here, wherein the parts interconnect. So, for example, a heart in a living organism is "more" than it would have been had it not been part of that organism.

And yet, in nature, no actual heart is related to an organism in this way; all normal hearts are parts of their host animals from day one (or soon after). No one supposes that hearts somehow sneak into living bodies and thus become "more" as a result of this underhand invasion. So how can such hearts be "more" if they were never "less"?  Furthermore, when invasive surgery (etc.) is taken into account, must we say that a heart waiting transplantation into a new body, for instance, is less of a heart? Why transplant it then? Or that blood waiting transfusion is not really blood? But, where do we stop? Is a coat not a coat until it is worn? Is a book not a book until it is read?

Worse still: if the entire nature of each part were dependent on the whole, and vice versa, human beings would experience significant changes every time they had their hair cut, teeth drilled or nails trimmed.

Universal Inter-Connections?

Even worse still, mundane events like these would have profound effects on distant stars and galaxies (if, as we are constantly told, everything in the universe is interconnected, and if the entire nature of each part is dependent on the whole, and vice versa). Does anyone believe this? If not, what is the point of asserting the trite maxims beloved of DM-holists? Are they merely being whimsical?

It could also be argued that even if the entire nature of each part in the "Totality" is determined by its relation to other parts and the whole, that does not mean that all such influences are of equal significance. In that case, those parts that are separated from one another by billions of light years, say, would have vanishingly small effects on each other, which could safely be ignored because of their negligible impact.

This response would be effective if it were made by anyone other than a dialectician. This is because DM-fans hold that these 'influences' are not external and/or causal, but "internal" and dialectical-logical. This means that remoteness has no effect on the inter-linkages imagined to exist part on part, whole on part or whole on whole.

To see this, compare the above with legitimate logical connections: are husbands and wives less married if one of them goes off on a world cruise, or into outer space? Is a mile on Jupiter shorter than one on Earth?

Dialectical Biology And Flights Of Fancy

[DB = The Dialectical Biologist, i.e., Levins and Lewontin (1985).]

More specifically, John Rees and other dialecticians provide us with few concrete examples to illustrate and/or explicate the rule they claim operates throughout the universe between parts and wholes, and which suggests they are dialectically-linked in the intended manner. One that Rees does mention was in fact lifted from DB, and even this turns out to be a rather unhappy choice.

The authors of DB argued:

"The fact is that the parts have properties that are characteristic of them only as they are parts of wholes; the properties come into existence in the interactions that makes the whole. A person cannot fly by flapping her arms simultaneously. But people do fly, as a consequence of the social organisation that has created airplanes, pilots and fuel. It is not that society flies, however, but individuals in society, who have acquired a property they do not have outside society. The limitations of individual physical beings are negated by social interactions. The whole, thus, is not simply the object of interaction of the parts but is the subject of action of the parts." [Levins and Lewontin (1985), p.273.]

The general idea appears to be that novel properties "emerge" (out of nowhere, it seems; they certainly cannot be reduced to the microstructures of each part, according to Rees: TAR, pp.5-8) because of the new relationships that parts enter into as they become parts of wholes. [This will be examined presently.]

The above passage seems to be claiming that when human beings act as individuals (or, is it in less developed social wholes?) they lack certain properties --, in this case, that of flight. Nevertheless, as a result of their social organization, human beings apparently gain this new 'property' collectively -- even though as individuals they still cannot fly. The conclusion (if there is one) seems to be that because of economic and social development (etc.) people acquire characteristics that they would not have had without it --, which appears to indicate that when they are appropriately socially-organised, human beings become "more" than they would have been otherwise.

But, in what sense are human beings "more" than they were before flight became possible? Manifestly, they still cannot fly. They do not sprout wings, develop engines or grow sophisticated landing gear.

The only way that human beings would be "more" than they used to be would seem to be as a group. Hence, it could be maintained that as a group, humanity now has a property that it once lacked -- that of flight. Of course, human beings as a group or as individuals still cannot fly; clearly it is the machines they build that do this for them!

So, humanity itself still lacks this 'property'.

If it is argued in response that humans can now do something they could not do before (namely, fly through space), even this is not entirely correct. Since we now know that the earth moves on its axis, as it does round the Sun, too, humanity has in fact been travelling/flying through space for hundreds of thousands of years.

Again, it could be argued that it is only since the invention of balloons and aeroplanes that human beings can do things at will that earlier generations could not: i.e., leave the surface of the earth, and move about the place, sometimes at great speed, flying to destinations that would have been unimaginable, say, 250 years ago.

Once more, it is only in aeroplanes (etc.) that they can do this. And if that is so, it still seems that it isn't humanity that has this new property, but these new artefacts that have.

Moreover, the properties of these machines are reducible to their parts; try taking off without engines made of heat resistant materials -- a chocolate jet will not get you very far, and neither will wings made of ordinary tissue paper. In this instance, human beings just hitch a ride, as it were. So, what exactly is the new property they have gained? The ability to hitch new sorts of rides? Or, perhaps the capacity to form queues at check-in desks?

Furthermore, whatever meaning can be given to the "more" that human beings become, this can't be that which supposedly resulted from the part/whole relation. This is because immediately before or after flight finally became possible no new wholes or parts actually came into existence -- nor did these new parts and allegedly novel wholes become newly related. Did anyone notice anything new about humanity as a whole just as the Wright Brothers took off on the 17^th of December 1903? To be sure, there was the new 'whole' comprising the Kitty Hawk (the name of the first flying machine) and its pilot, but it would be difficult to see how the entire nature of Orville Wright, say, was determined by this new Orville/Kitty Hawk 'whole', or that the entire nature of the Kitty Hawk was determined by its "internal relation" to Orville.

Hence, even if these hackneyed sayings (i.e., G3 and G4) were true, flight would not be one of their exemplars.

G3: The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

G4: Each part becomes more when it is part of a whole than it would otherwise have been (individually) apart from that whole.

It could be objected here that the above is incorrect. The point is that as the forces and relations of production develop, human beings enter into new and more complex social and material links with one another, which generate novel capacities and possibilities that were unavailable in earlier modes of production.

[HM = Historical Materialism.]

Now, this way of putting things will not be controverted here, but it is worth pointing out that this HM-style re-formulation of the picture only works because the part/whole metaphysic has been dropped. This can be seen by the way that the language used in the above rejoinder only becomes available (and begins to make sense) when the unhelpful metaphysical 'concepts' under review here have been discarded. There is no mystery about the details of the social organisation of production and the new capacities it makes available to human beings. But, this has nothing to do with the alleged DM-connections between parts and wholes (for reasons given in previous paragraphs).

Despite this, it is worth wondering how the above aeronautical scenario could be made consistent with G1. Are we really meant to believe that the entire nature of passenger NN, say, is determined by her relationship with the aeroplane she has just boarded? [Or is it with some other whole that we must compare/link her?] Conversely, is the nature of this new aeroplane/passenger ensemble determined by passenger NN? What if she missed the flight and passenger MM took her place? Would the entire nature of that plane, and all on board, have changed as a result?

G1: The entire nature of a part is determined by its relation with the other parts and with the whole.

G2: The part makes the whole and the whole makes the parts.

Furthermore, in all this, which is part and which is whole? Is the entire nature of airline passenger MM determined by his/her relation with one or more of the following 'wholes': the aeroplane, the Airline, the Airport, the flight controller, the factory that built the aeroplane, the other passengers, the man at the check-in desk (and his sick grandmother), MM's whole life up to that point, the entire earth and its history, the cluster of galaxies of which ours is a part…?

Which one of these is the 'whole' that makes MM "more"?

Moreover, what do we count as part here? Passenger MM's hand luggage, her glasses, her clothes, her unborn foetus, the skin now sloughing off her surface, the air coming out of her lungs, the 'material' she just flushed down the loo?

So, which parts and which wholes are in the end entirely constitutive of, say, passenger NM in seat 26 -- minus his toupee, sun glasses and copy of The Da Vinci Code? What if he hadn't forgotten any of these items?

And, would an aeroplane be more of an aeroplane if there were 100 people board it as opposed to 99? Is the airport itself greater than it would otherwise have been had passenger MN not checked in last Sunday at 19:02?

But, all these would have to be the case if the entire nature of each is determined by all, as G1 and G2 allege. In that case, passenger MN is indeed greater than he would have been had he not flown last Sunday; and the same would be true of the airport. But is anything else? Is the entire nature of the universe enhanced as a result? If everything is interconnected (in order for it to be true that the nature of the whole is determined by its relation to the parts), and inter-linked  by these mysterious "internal relations", then the universe must be more of a universe than it used to be because MN checked in last Sunday. To be sure, had MN's cosmic significance not escaped her on the day in question, she would surely have been much better insured.

Of course, such questions are obviously crazy -- but, this is only because they arise from a consideration of the use of concepts drawn from DM. The obscure nature of the example given in DB is a direct consequence of the unworkable, Metaphysical-Wholist ideas expressed in G1-G4.

Property Relations

In the above passage, the authors of DB referred to the ability to fly as a "property" that humans acquired as a result of social organisation, one they lacked earlier. But, is it correct to call this a "property"? Should we not rather want to call it a "facility", or perhaps a realisable "opportunity"? This is because no human beings can actually fly, and they cannot do so collectively, either. Once more, it's the machines we build that do the flying!

In any case, in what sense is flying a property? What if someone carried a parrot onto a plane? Would that bird now have a double property? Or, what if, say, an eagle carried off a rabbit? Would that hapless rodent thereby have acquired the new property of flight -- or, perhaps, the property of being 'kidnapped' by winged assailants? Indeed, would the new eagle/rabbit-whole be symmetrically unified (as far as part/whole determination is concerned, and as G1-G4 seem to suggest)? Do eagles, therefore, acquire anything from rabbits when they enter into such predatory part/whole ensembles? Does, for example, the eagle part of this airborne duo acquire the rabbit part's ability to wriggle excessively when carried off by predatory birds?

DM Sooth-Sayers?

Again, many of the above arguments are unlikely to impress convinced DM-theorists, let alone persuade them that their neat formula is unreliable. This is perhaps because the reasoning presented here uses analytic techniques uncongenial to DM's 'wholistic' approach.

Fortunately, however, we do not have to appeal to such analytic tactics to demonstrate the weaknesses of DM-style Wholism.

Consider a passage written by Sean Sayers:

"Of course, a living organism is composed of physical and chemical constituents, and nothing more. Nevertheless, it is not a mere collection of such constituents, nor even of anatomical parts. It is these parts unified, organized and acting as a whole. This unity and organization are not only features of our description: they are properties of the thing itself; they are constitutive of it as a biological organism." [Sayers (1996), p.162.]

Now, this argument only looks plausible because it is based on a consideration of biological systems, hence, it fails to explain how a generalised sort of Wholism operates throughout non-organic nature, or indeed the rest of the universe.

So, even if Sayers were correct, what he says would be of little use in trying to understand the vast bulk of the material world in Wholist terms. For example, what sense could be made of the idea that a mountain was only a mountain because of its relation to the whole (which whole)? Or that, the Sun was only the Sun because of its relation to…, well, what?

When a wider selection of examples is considered, further fundamental weaknesses in DM-Holism soon emerge. Consider, for instance, a car. Do its parts cease to be what they once were if they are removed from that vehicle? Does a wheel, for example, cease to be a wheel if it comes off its axle? Is it any less of a wheel? Why replace it then? Indeed, does the axle cease to be an axle when it loses a wheel? Is it, too, any less of an axle? What happens in the case of a lorry with four doubled-up rear wheels if it loses one while the other three remain on the axle? Would they still be wheels, and would they still be on an axle if the entire nature of a part is determined by its relation others, and to the whole?

In a similar vein, consider the following unlikely conversation in the Parts Department of garage:

A: "Can I have a fan belt?"

B: "Sorry, mate, you can't because fan belts are only fan belts when they are attached to the cooling system of an engine."

Or, another in a café:

C: "Can I have a slice of cake?"

D: "No, but you can have a slice of non-cake, which used to be cake when it was attached to the whole cake before we sliced it up for you."

If a part is only a part -- and its nature is fully determined in the said manner when it is incorporated in a whole --, the Parts Department in the above example is surely mis-named. It should be called the "Non-Parts Department" -- or, perhaps:

Or, maybe even:

Interested readers can join in this game and dream up their own 'Dialectical Menu' for the 'Wholist-café' mentioned earlier.

It could be objected that fan belts and the like are what they are because they have been designed to fit cars, and that it is this intended role that makes them parts of the wholes they later join. But, this would make the part/whole relation impossibly vague, for in that case we would not know what was part and what was whole -- or how they were connected -- until some intention or other had been ascertained. And that difficulty would apply to the designers, too. How could they form an intention to design this or that part if they could not independently identify it first?

Worse still, this new twist might have untoward teleological implications for the parts of plants and animals, to say nothing of the rest of the Universe.

In addition, consider cases where objects retain their identity (designed or not) even though they feature in a temporary/semi-permanent whole for which they were not actually 'designed'. Examples here would include instances where, say, ordinary tools (such as hammers) are used in non-standard ways -- to prop open doors, deter a rioting Policeman, or smash the windows on buses carrying scabs. Or, where a house brick might be used to weigh some papers down, frighten some more scabs, or 're-configure' a group of Nazis. In the latter case, the brick clearly remains a brick throughout; the fact that it won't lose any of its usual properties if it enters into, say, a new brick/damaged Nazi whole will be one of the reasons why it would be recommended to that end. Are Nazis any more scum-like (or brick-like) when they are in a new Nazi/brick whole than they were before? Would this brick be more of a brick when lobbed at a scab than it would be if it were thrown at the BNP? Does the said scab get a similar 'wholistic promotion' because the brick knocks him out? If parts and wholes are entirely determined (by means of "internal relations") in the way specified, all or most of these would be the case.

It could be argued once more that the above are not good counterexamples since the items in question were not designed to feature in such systematic wholes, nor do they assume wider functional roles as working units in their old or new guises. But, we have been here already. A response like this would rule out one or more of the few positive examples that Rees and other DM-fans themselves use. Moreover, it would still fail to account for the altered roles that systematically-functioning items often undergo as a result of inter-systemic exchange -- even while they retain their 'identity'.

Consider, for instance, a seat from an old car: it could still be used when separated from that car as a seat in a house, or as an ornament (but only because it is a seat), or as a display in a museum, or as part of a barricade, still serving as a seat for the barricaders to use. If the properties of parts actually changed as a result of their separation from the wholes they were 'meant' to fit (as this 'theory' implies they should) a seat would no longer be of any use in such new surroundings.

And, we do not have to think up weird and wonderful counter-examples taken from human interaction; consider those cases where animals commandeer parts taken from other animals and use them in the same or nearly the same way that their former owners once did. For example, Hermit Crabs use the shells of other sea creatures as protection. Is such a shell more or less of a shell in this new ensemble?

What about holes in the ground or in trees used as 'homes' (but successively occupied by rabbits, foxes, moles, badgers, and assorted birds)? Does a hole, therefore, become "more" of a hole whole when it is part of, say, a new mole hole whole than when it was part of a former vole hole whole? Indeed, does a mole or a vole become more or less of a mole or a vole whole in a new mole or vole hole whole?

Think, too, of wool and feathers gathered by birds to line their nests, used for warmth and padding, and so on. Again, consider the way that human beings use animal skins to keep warm, employing the latter in the same way their former owners used them. Does wool, for example, become more of an insulator when it forms part of a new child/pullover whole than when it was on the original sheep? Does it become more woollen when used as part of a scarf/worker ensemble?

What about the medical use of animal parts in human bodies? Xenotransplantation (as it is called) would be a non-starter if parts and wholes were "internally related" as DM-theorists would have us believe.

Finally, consider a Big Mac being eaten by Little Mick: does the Big Mac become an even Bigger Big Mac because of this new Mick Mac Whole -- or does Little Mick become a Bigger Little Mick Mac Whole because of his fondness for cramming Big Macs down his throat?

Or is this theory just so much junk, like the guff Little Mick stuffs down his cake hole?

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