Holism And The Understanding Of Science

INTRODUCTION Mustafa ÖZCAN's book on "HOLISM" With the beginning of the Renaissance in the 17th century, a new way of thinking was initiated in the world of philosophy and science. Although the holistic approach was a popular way of thinking among philosophers in ancient Greece, it cannot be said that there was an important theoretical recovery in these periods. This movement in Europe is primarily Rene Descartes, who wrote books on scientific methods and brought important rules. This groundbreaking philosopher was followed by the great physicist Isaac NEWTON. On the other hand, in Germany, Leibniz has taken important steps on theoreticality and holism with an approach similar to Descartes. In the 20th century, with the great journey Charles Darwin made with his holistic point of view, holisticization also took an important step. At the beginning of the 20th century, Albert EINSTEIN fundamentally established the Darwin's-like important point of view in physics and astrophysics in his perspective on the universe and atoms. This book, in my opinion, was an important step calling for holistic thought, which became increasingly impoverished at the beginning of the 20th century. I believe that this book, which tries to make a synthesis by reflecting in the views of many thinkers on both the history of philosophy, the history of science and holism, will try to fill an important deficiency in the literature. Prof. Dr. Erol Başar Beyond the blissful integration of classical, analytical, familiar science and philosophy, Mustafa Özcan, thinking about the design and use of holistic science, went beyond the holistic science, which is still in the embryo stage in Western science, and what he describes as "meta-theory". It aims to make HAK (Understanding Everything - (or Explainer) - Theory) understandable. You will try to grasp an extraordinary effort and an intellectual challenge with pleasure in this work. Ateşan Aybars Mustafa Özcan's Holistic Science book opens new horizons for those who think on these issues with a wide inclusive and integrative approach in the world intellectual environment where the debates about the end of science, philosophy and even history continue. Prof. Dr. Fuat İnce Holistic Science... It takes great courage to prepare a book on such a subject. Dear researcher and author, Mustafa Özcan, has made a great contribution to our society and our scientific world, as he has made such a subject into a book as a result of his research over the years. Prof. Dr. Murat Dinçmen

This title was first published in 2000: This book addresses issues which are central in the philosophy of science, exploring a large and relevant literature. It should be of broad interest in the philosophy of science community." Professor Peter Lipton, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, UK. How can the complexities of understanding science be dealt with as a whole? Is philosophical realism still a defensible philosophical position? Exploring such fundamental questions, this book claims that science ought to be understood in terms of universal practices and that such an understanding supports an attractive version of scientific realism. Holism is attracting renewed scholarly attention but is still loosely used in a range of different contexts, from semantics to medicine. This book presents a detailed philosophical analysis of holism, concentrating on two complementary aspects of holism - cognitive and social - to investigate its relevance to science studies. Bridging the gap between analytical, historical and sociological accounts of science, Caruana draws together results from recent research by Davidson, Dummett, Quine, Wright and others, on Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Demonstrating that holism, both cognitive and social, is not only essential for a full understanding of science but also compatible with a particular version of scientific realism, this book presents important new perspectives for the philosophers of science and scholars of the history of science in particular. Louis Caruana is Assistant Lecturer in Philosophy of Science and Nature at the Gregorian University, Rome, Italy.

The Scope of the Project The concept of holism is at the centre of far-reaching changes in various areas of philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century. Holism in epistemology and the philosophy of mind is widespread among analytic philosophers subsequent to the work of the later Wittgenstein and to Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". Roughly speaking, the claim is that (a) for a person to have beliefs, a social, linguistic community is required and that (b) single beliefs have a meaning only within a whole system of beliefs. Furthermore, holism is discussed in science, in particular in the interpretation of quantum physics. In fact, the term "holism" goes back to Smuts (1926), who introduces this term in a biological context. I Holism in any of these areas has considerable consequences for our philosophical view of the world and ourselves. Holism in quantum physics is said to refute atomism, which has been predominant in modem philosophy of nature. Holism in epistemology and the philosophy of mind is seen as an alternative to what is known as the Cartesian tradition, which dominated modem thought down to logical empiricism.

The holistic thesis developed by Pierre Duhem challenges the idea that our evidence can conclusively falsify a theory. Given that no scientific theory is tested in isolation, a negative experiment can always be attributed to components other than the theory we test – to the auxiliary hypotheses and background assumptions. How do scientists decide whether the experimental result undermines the theory or points at an error in the underlying assumptions? Duhem argues that we cannot offer a rule that directs when the scientist should employ a radical or conservative strategy in light of a negative result, and ultimately they will appeal to their intuition. More recently philosophers have offered a number of strategies of how to locate error and justify the abandonment of a theory or an auxiliary hypothesis. This Element analyses Duhem's response to holism and subsequent accounts of how the problem can be resolved.

This transdisciplinary volume outlines the development of public health paradigms across the ages in a global context and argues that public health has seemingly lost its raison d’être, that is, a population perspective. The older, philosophical approach in public health involved a holistic, population-based understanding that emphasized historicity and interrelatedness to study health and disease in their larger socio-economic and political moorings. A newer tradition, which developed in the late 19th century following the acceptance of the germ theory in medicine, created positivist transitions in epidemiology. In the form of risk factors, a reductionist model of health and disease became pervasive in clinical and molecular epidemiology. The author shows how positivism and the concept of individualism removed from public health thinking the consideration of historical, social and economic influences that shape disease occurrence and the interventions chosen for a population. He states that the neglect of the multifactorial approach in contemporary public health thought has led to growing health inequalities in both the developed and the developing world. He further suggests that the concept of ‘social capital’ in public health, which is being hailed as a resurgence of holism, is in reality a sophisticated and extended version of individualism. The author presents the negative public policy consequences and implications of adopting methodological individualism through a discussion on AIDS policies. The book strongly argues for a holistic understanding and the incorporation of a rights perspective in public health to bring elements of social justice and fairness in policy formulations.

Holism and reductionism are traditionally seen as incompatible views or approaches to nature. Here Looijen argues that they should rather be seen as mutually dependent and hence co-operating research programmes. He sheds some interesting new light on the emergence thesis, its relation to the reduction thesis, and on the role and status of functional explanations in biology. He discusses several examples of reduction in both biology and ecology, showing the mutual dependence of holistic and reductionist research programmes. Ecologists are offered separate chapters, clarifying some major, yet highly and controversial ecological concepts, such as `community', `habitat', and `niche'. The book is the first in-depth study of the philosophy of ecology. Readership: Specialists in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology, biologists and ecologists interested in the philosophy of their discipline. Also of interest to other scientists concerned with the holism-reductionism issue.

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The holistic approach to life and health was first introduced in this classic work (originally published in 1926). The main concept of holism is that things which are whole, with no parts damaged or missing, have a natural advantage in terms of actual survival and success. The roots of this holistic approach to life are traced back through the gradual stages of development in our world, embracing the sciences, the arts, and the human spirit. The interaction of mind, body and spirit in the human experience is acknowledged and explored. An excellent foundation for understanding holistic health.