Unsuccessful support of holism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.57.4928Abstract
D. Navon’s article “Forest before the trees” (1977) presented the theory of global precedence in support of philosophy of holism, the “primacy of the whole” principle. In this paper it will be shown that
1) the global precedence theory is built up from undefined notions (globality, locality, feature, element, and global structure),
2) each notions is assigned to many meanings,
3) the mathematical expressions are wrong,
4) the transformations of the mathematical formulas are illegal,
5) the logic of argumentation is broken.
Despite all this Narvon’s article recruited dozens of followers, inspired hundred publications in top psychological journals, and is included in many textbooks and reviews. It is mentioned at 42,000 web sites. This paper also shows why Narvon’s article was widely accepted as proof of the wrong principle “The whole before the parts”. This phenomenon indicates that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.