The Journey of the Holistic Idea in Philosophy of Science in the 19th and 20th Centuries

The article conducts a comparative analysis of holistic concepts in the philo­sophy of science of the 19th–20th centuries, as presented in the teachings of N.N. Strakhov and A.N. Whitehead. The study focuses on identifying common intentions and fundamental divergences in the understanding of the nature of wholeness. The methodological basis is formed by analysis of the key ontological and epistemological categories of both thinkers. It is established that both philosophers develop organicist models of reality. However, Strakhov substan­tiates a hierarchical holism, in which the world appears as a teleologically ordered organism with man as its semantic center. In contrast, Whitehead develops a processual-network ontology, in which reality is constituted through dynamic relationships among equal “actual entities”. The work traces how this ontological difference determines divergences in the thinkers’ principles of cognition and descriptive systems. While for Strakhov, cognition is aimed at revealing a pre-established harmony, and the divine is conceived as a transcendent guarantor of purposiveness, for Whitehead, cognition is presented as an act of “prehension”, and God is included in the process as its immanent condition. It is concluded that the comparison of Strakhov’s and Whitehead’s systems allowsto identify two fundamental paradigms in the development of holistic thought: the teleologically-centered and the processually-networked, thereby contributing to the historical-philosophical understanding of the evolution of organic philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Cognition · Holism · Key (lock) · Nature · Ontology · Philosophy of science · Process (computing) · Process philosophy · Digital Education and Society · Diverse Interdisciplinary Research Studies · Whitehead's Philosophy and Applications