Welcome to Issue 62 of the SHAPE Journal, entitled The Whole and the Part, a loose collection of recent papers aiming to develop a nascent Science of Holism, by looking closer at the crucial oppositions involved: Plurality and Holism, the Whole and the Part.

Let us start by confirming the differences between the two fundamental approaches.

Plurality - the study of parts?
This stance facilitates analysis by assuming the independence of contributing factors in any complex process. This results in a belief in collections of eternal Natural Laws, summing to result in merely ‘complicated’ results. Such a stance allows any modifications to a situation that will reveal one or another of the factors involved, because nothing can change those factors: they are seen as eternal.

Holism - the study of wholes?
This stance insists, that to some extent at least, “Everything affects everything else!”, making analysis intrinsically unreliable, for the usual pluralist simplifications will indeed modify whatever has been so revealed. It, of course, complicates the methods and interpretations involved in all investigations, and vastly multiplies what differences are possible in any complex situation.