Rosa Lichtenstein
8th March 2006, 22:36
This is from the second half of the summary to Essay Eleven posted at my site (the first half was posted a few days ago as 'DM - A Total Screw-up'):
Swiss Cheese
Furthermore, 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.]
[TAR = The Algebra of Revolution.]
However, DM-holism rests on little more than a few trite and superficial maxims (such as "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts", etc.); in this case, therefore, profound truths about nature have been derived from a handful of catch phrases.
Not only do these home-spun proverbs fall apart on examination, they are not even empirically true -- many examples are given in Essay Eleven where material parts are greater than wholes.
One or two instances will suffice here:
(1) If a set of non-zero forces is aligned in a couple so that their resultant is zero, then each part is greater than the whole (which is zero), and on one view the whole is equal to, but not greater than the sum of the parts. On another, it is less than the sum of the parts (the whole being zero).
(2) Imagine a rope that is made from, say, 1000 strands of material and each strand is, say, 0.5 metres long. Assume that 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 their total length had they not been woven into that rope. Here the whole is considerably less than the sum of the parts (even if the strength of the rope is equal to but not greater than the sum of the individual strengths 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, just as it applies to the parts of organisms: hence, the total length of all the muscle fibres in a wombat, say, 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, the universe is equal to, but not greater than the sum of its parts.
In fact it is only the extremely vague use of terms in dialectics that allows these counterexamples to stand. Of course, if the definitions dialecticians use were tightened to exclude these and other examples, we would once again have a DM-thesis made true (in a thoroughly traditional way) by yet more linguistic tinkering.
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 a part -- if this were true, it would not be the same part (since the 'more' would change it). 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, since everything is always part of the Totality, and since its "entire nature" 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.
In addition, it is not easy to see how 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, then what is the force of words like "greater" or "more", here? What exactly becomes "greater", or "more", and in what respect?
Of course, those committed to a belief in this sort of Holism often appeal to the existence of organic composites wherein the parts interconnect, so that, for example, a heart in a living organism is "more" than it would have been had it not been part of that organism.
But, in nature, no actual heart is related to organisms in this way; all normal hearts are parts of such animals from day one. No one supposes that hearts somehow sneak into living bodies while no one is looking and thus become "more" as a result of this underhand invasion.
So how can such hearts be "more" if they were never "less"?
And, when invasive surgery (etc.) is taken into account, are we to 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? Where do we stop? Are artificial legs not legs until they are attached? Is a coat not a coat until it is worn?
The few examples DM-Holists produce in support of their theory are also shown (in Essay Eleven) to fail (as we saw with respect to the heart example, above). Indeed, 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.
Worse still, mundane events like these would have profound effects on distant stars and galaxies (if everything is interconnected and if the entire nature of each part is dependent on the whole, and vice versa). Does anyone not suffereing form DM believe this? If not, what is the point of asserting the trite maxims beloved of DM-holists? Are they merely being whimsical?
[DB = The Dialectical Biologist.]
More specifically, Rees and other DM-theorists provide few concrete examples to illustrate the rule they claim operates between parts and wholes throughout the universe, instances that would suggest they are indeed dialectically linked in the intended manner. However, one example that Rees does mention was in fact lifted from DB, and even this turns out to be a rather unhappy choice. As we saw above, this particular explication of the part/whole relation is itself connected to the following (hackneyed) formula that Holists incant from generation to generation:
"For dialectical materialists the whole is more than the simple sum of its parts." [Rees (1998), p.77.]
To this the authors of DB added:
"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 are then said to gain this new 'property' -- even though as individuals they still cannot fly. The conclusion (if there is one) seems to be that as a result 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 be as a group. Hence, as a group, humanity would now have a 'property' that they did not used to have, that of flight. Of course, human beings as a group still cannot fly; clearly it is the machines they build that take off! So, humanity itself still lacks this 'property'. So where is this 'more'?
If it is now argued that humans can 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, humanity has in fact been travelling through space for hundreds of thousands of years.
Again, it could be countered that since the invention of balloons and aeroplanes, human beings can do things earlier generations could not: i.e., leave the surface of the earth at will, and move about the place at great speed, flying to destinations that would have been unimaginable over 100 years ago.
Once more, it is only in aeroplanes (etc.) that they can do this.
If this is so, it still seems that it isn't humanity which has this new 'property', but the new artefacts (i.e., these aeroplanes, whose properties are reducible to their parts –- try taking off without engines made of heat resistant materials, for example, if you disagree) that they have built which do. Human beings just hitch a ride, as it were.
So what exactly is the new 'property' they have gained? Is it the ability to hitch new sorts of rides? Or, perhaps: being able to queue at check-in desks?
Moreover, whatever meaning can be given to the "more" that these passengers supposedly become, it can't have 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 (did anyone notice humanity change significantly (forming new groups perhaps) when the Wright brothers took off?) -- nor did these parts and allegedly novel wholes become newly related.
Hence, even if the hackneyed saying above were true, this would not be one of its exemplars.
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 relations with one another, ones that generate novel capacities and possibilities that were unavailable to them in earlier modes of production.
Now, this way of putting things will not be controverted here (nor anywhere else, for that matter), but it is worth pointing out that this HM-style re-formulation 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 when the unhelpful metaphysical notions under review in this Essay had 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. This has nothing to do with 'parts' and 'wholes', for reasons given in previous paragraphs.
[HM = Historical Materialism.]
Summarising the above DM-claims, we have:
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.
Despite this, it is worth wondering how the above aeronautical scenario (from DB) 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 the intended whole some other whole? The airport perhaps? The travel company that booked the flight? The part of the continent she is in? The Solar System?]
Conversely, is the nature of this or any other new aeroplane/passenger ensemble determined in return by passenger NN? Is it now meore of an aeroplane? What if she missed the flight and passenger MM had taken her place? Would the aeroplane itself be any different? Would the other passengers?
If DM-Holism were true, they should be.
And, in all this, where is the part and where the whole? Is the entire nature of an airline passenger determined by his/her relation with 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), the entire earth and its history, the cluster of galaxies of which ours is a part…?
Which parts and which wholes are in the end entirely constitutive of, say, passenger NM in seat 26 -- minus his toupee and copy of The Da Vinci Code? What if he hadn't have forgotten either? And, is the aeroplane more of an aeroplane because there are 100 people on board 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, say?
[Richard Lewontin is a great scientist, so it is rather dismaying to see him accept the validity of such ill-defined concepts. He would never accept such sloppy work from one of his PhD students.]
But, all these would have to be so if the nature of each is determined by all, as G1 and G2 allege. In that case, passenger MN is greater than she would have been had she not flown last Sunday; and so is 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), then the universe must be more of a universe that 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 better insured.
Indeed, it is worth asking again: What exactly are the parts and wholes in this example? For instance, is the carpet on a plane one of the parts? Is it now "more" of a carpet than it was before it was laid on the plane? Is it more of a carpet if NN misses the flight? What about the drink dispensers? Is a drinks dispenser "more" of a drinks dispenser on a plane than one in the airport? Have both the carpet and the dispenser also acquired this new property of flight, as it were, parasitically? Is an aeroplane "more" of an aeroplane with a pencil on board than one without? Again, where do we stop? Is a passenger on a 'plane "more" of a passenger if the 'plane she is on has two such dispensers, as opposed to when she is on a 'plane with only one? Does quantity affect property here?
Of course, such questions are obviously crazy -– but, this is not because of the use of any concepts drawn from HM, only because of ones derived 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.
In the above passage, the authors of DB referred to the ability to fly as a "property" that humans acquire as a result of social organisation, one that they had not possessed 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"?
But even so, 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, in an entirely different example, what if an eagle carried off a rabbit? Would that hapless rodent thereby have acquired a new property of flight -- or even of being eaten? Indeed, would the new eagle/rabbit-whole be symmetrically unified (as far as part/whole determination was 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 novel duo acquire the rabbit part's ability to wriggle excessively when carried off by predatory birds?
It seems it should if we were desperate enough to be dialecticians.
Again, many of the above arguments are unlikely to impress convinced DM-theorists, or persuade them that their neat formula is unreliable. This is perhaps because the reasoning given 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.]
This argument only looks plausible because it is based on a consideration of biological systems, but, it fails to explain how a generalised sort of holism operates throughout non-organic nature, or the rest of the universe. So, even if Sayers were correct, what he says would be of little assistance 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 instance, cease to be a wheel if it comes off its axle? Is it any less of a wheel? Indeed, does the axle cease to be an axle when it loses a wheel? Is it, too, any less of an axle? What happens if, in the case of a lorry with four doubled-up rear wheels, 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? It seems not.
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 'dialectical' 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 --, then the Parts Department in the above example is mis-named. It should be called the "Non-parts Department" -- or, perhaps even:
P1: "The-Less-Than-Parts-Until-They-Are-Attached-To-The-Rest-Of-The-Vehicle Department."
Or, maybe even:
P2: "The-Unknown-Objects-Whose-Real-Natures-Remain-Obscure-Until-They-Are-Later-Determined-By-Their-Attachment-To-Another-Something-Or-Other-That-Is-Itself-Indeterminate-This-Side-Of-The-Aforementioned-Union-Into-A-Whole Department."
Interested readers can join in this game and dream up their own 'Dialectical Menu', for example, for the 'Wholist-café' mentioned earlier.
[The Parts Department example has probably reached the end of the dialectical road, though.]
It could be objected that things like fan belts 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. 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. [The Andromeda Galaxy was intended by whom?]
In addition, consider cases wherein 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) were 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 few Nazis.
In the latter instance, 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 was used, if it was. But, are Nazis any more scum-like (or brick-like?) when they are in a new Nazi/brick whole? Would this brick be more of a brick when lobbed at a scab than when it was when thrown at the BNP? Does the said scab get a similar 'Wholistic promotion' because the lobbed brick knocks him out?
If parts and wholes are entirely determined in the way specified, all or most of these would be true.
It could be objected 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 before. A response like this would rule out one of the few positive examples that TAR quoted (from DB) -- i.e., those that related to flight (are passengers designed to fit planes?). 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'.
Take, for instance, a seat from an old car: it could still be used apart 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 new surroundings like these.
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 way that their former owners once did. Here, one is thinking of the following: hermit crabs who use the shells of other sea creatures as protection; holes in the ground (successively occupied by rabbits, foxes and badgers) used as 'homes' -- does a hole become "more" of a hole whole when part of, say, a new fox hole whole, or maybe even a mole 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? Does it become more wool-like when used as part of a scarf/worker composite?
Finally, consider a Big Mac being eaten by Little Mick: does the Big Mac become an even Bigger Big Mac or a Smaller Big Mac because of this new Mick Mac Whole -- or does Little Mick become a Bigger Little Mick because of his fondness for cramming Big Macs down his cake hole?
Which part alters which Whole?
Or is this theory so much junk, like the guff Little Mick stuffs down his gullet?"
More anti-dialectic medicine at:
http://www.anti-dialectics.org
Swiss Cheese
Furthermore, 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.]
[TAR = The Algebra of Revolution.]
However, DM-holism rests on little more than a few trite and superficial maxims (such as "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts", etc.); in this case, therefore, profound truths about nature have been derived from a handful of catch phrases.
Not only do these home-spun proverbs fall apart on examination, they are not even empirically true -- many examples are given in Essay Eleven where material parts are greater than wholes.
One or two instances will suffice here:
(1) If a set of non-zero forces is aligned in a couple so that their resultant is zero, then each part is greater than the whole (which is zero), and on one view the whole is equal to, but not greater than the sum of the parts. On another, it is less than the sum of the parts (the whole being zero).
(2) Imagine a rope that is made from, say, 1000 strands of material and each strand is, say, 0.5 metres long. Assume that 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 their total length had they not been woven into that rope. Here the whole is considerably less than the sum of the parts (even if the strength of the rope is equal to but not greater than the sum of the individual strengths 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, just as it applies to the parts of organisms: hence, the total length of all the muscle fibres in a wombat, say, 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, the universe is equal to, but not greater than the sum of its parts.
In fact it is only the extremely vague use of terms in dialectics that allows these counterexamples to stand. Of course, if the definitions dialecticians use were tightened to exclude these and other examples, we would once again have a DM-thesis made true (in a thoroughly traditional way) by yet more linguistic tinkering.
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 a part -- if this were true, it would not be the same part (since the 'more' would change it). 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, since everything is always part of the Totality, and since its "entire nature" 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.
In addition, it is not easy to see how 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, then what is the force of words like "greater" or "more", here? What exactly becomes "greater", or "more", and in what respect?
Of course, those committed to a belief in this sort of Holism often appeal to the existence of organic composites wherein the parts interconnect, so that, for example, a heart in a living organism is "more" than it would have been had it not been part of that organism.
But, in nature, no actual heart is related to organisms in this way; all normal hearts are parts of such animals from day one. No one supposes that hearts somehow sneak into living bodies while no one is looking and thus become "more" as a result of this underhand invasion.
So how can such hearts be "more" if they were never "less"?
And, when invasive surgery (etc.) is taken into account, are we to 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? Where do we stop? Are artificial legs not legs until they are attached? Is a coat not a coat until it is worn?
The few examples DM-Holists produce in support of their theory are also shown (in Essay Eleven) to fail (as we saw with respect to the heart example, above). Indeed, 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.
Worse still, mundane events like these would have profound effects on distant stars and galaxies (if everything is interconnected and if the entire nature of each part is dependent on the whole, and vice versa). Does anyone not suffereing form DM believe this? If not, what is the point of asserting the trite maxims beloved of DM-holists? Are they merely being whimsical?
[DB = The Dialectical Biologist.]
More specifically, Rees and other DM-theorists provide few concrete examples to illustrate the rule they claim operates between parts and wholes throughout the universe, instances that would suggest they are indeed dialectically linked in the intended manner. However, one example that Rees does mention was in fact lifted from DB, and even this turns out to be a rather unhappy choice. As we saw above, this particular explication of the part/whole relation is itself connected to the following (hackneyed) formula that Holists incant from generation to generation:
"For dialectical materialists the whole is more than the simple sum of its parts." [Rees (1998), p.77.]
To this the authors of DB added:
"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 are then said to gain this new 'property' -- even though as individuals they still cannot fly. The conclusion (if there is one) seems to be that as a result 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 be as a group. Hence, as a group, humanity would now have a 'property' that they did not used to have, that of flight. Of course, human beings as a group still cannot fly; clearly it is the machines they build that take off! So, humanity itself still lacks this 'property'. So where is this 'more'?
If it is now argued that humans can 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, humanity has in fact been travelling through space for hundreds of thousands of years.
Again, it could be countered that since the invention of balloons and aeroplanes, human beings can do things earlier generations could not: i.e., leave the surface of the earth at will, and move about the place at great speed, flying to destinations that would have been unimaginable over 100 years ago.
Once more, it is only in aeroplanes (etc.) that they can do this.
If this is so, it still seems that it isn't humanity which has this new 'property', but the new artefacts (i.e., these aeroplanes, whose properties are reducible to their parts –- try taking off without engines made of heat resistant materials, for example, if you disagree) that they have built which do. Human beings just hitch a ride, as it were.
So what exactly is the new 'property' they have gained? Is it the ability to hitch new sorts of rides? Or, perhaps: being able to queue at check-in desks?
Moreover, whatever meaning can be given to the "more" that these passengers supposedly become, it can't have 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 (did anyone notice humanity change significantly (forming new groups perhaps) when the Wright brothers took off?) -- nor did these parts and allegedly novel wholes become newly related.
Hence, even if the hackneyed saying above were true, this would not be one of its exemplars.
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 relations with one another, ones that generate novel capacities and possibilities that were unavailable to them in earlier modes of production.
Now, this way of putting things will not be controverted here (nor anywhere else, for that matter), but it is worth pointing out that this HM-style re-formulation 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 when the unhelpful metaphysical notions under review in this Essay had 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. This has nothing to do with 'parts' and 'wholes', for reasons given in previous paragraphs.
[HM = Historical Materialism.]
Summarising the above DM-claims, we have:
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.
Despite this, it is worth wondering how the above aeronautical scenario (from DB) 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 the intended whole some other whole? The airport perhaps? The travel company that booked the flight? The part of the continent she is in? The Solar System?]
Conversely, is the nature of this or any other new aeroplane/passenger ensemble determined in return by passenger NN? Is it now meore of an aeroplane? What if she missed the flight and passenger MM had taken her place? Would the aeroplane itself be any different? Would the other passengers?
If DM-Holism were true, they should be.
And, in all this, where is the part and where the whole? Is the entire nature of an airline passenger determined by his/her relation with 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), the entire earth and its history, the cluster of galaxies of which ours is a part…?
Which parts and which wholes are in the end entirely constitutive of, say, passenger NM in seat 26 -- minus his toupee and copy of The Da Vinci Code? What if he hadn't have forgotten either? And, is the aeroplane more of an aeroplane because there are 100 people on board 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, say?
[Richard Lewontin is a great scientist, so it is rather dismaying to see him accept the validity of such ill-defined concepts. He would never accept such sloppy work from one of his PhD students.]
But, all these would have to be so if the nature of each is determined by all, as G1 and G2 allege. In that case, passenger MN is greater than she would have been had she not flown last Sunday; and so is 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), then the universe must be more of a universe that 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 better insured.
Indeed, it is worth asking again: What exactly are the parts and wholes in this example? For instance, is the carpet on a plane one of the parts? Is it now "more" of a carpet than it was before it was laid on the plane? Is it more of a carpet if NN misses the flight? What about the drink dispensers? Is a drinks dispenser "more" of a drinks dispenser on a plane than one in the airport? Have both the carpet and the dispenser also acquired this new property of flight, as it were, parasitically? Is an aeroplane "more" of an aeroplane with a pencil on board than one without? Again, where do we stop? Is a passenger on a 'plane "more" of a passenger if the 'plane she is on has two such dispensers, as opposed to when she is on a 'plane with only one? Does quantity affect property here?
Of course, such questions are obviously crazy -– but, this is not because of the use of any concepts drawn from HM, only because of ones derived 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.
In the above passage, the authors of DB referred to the ability to fly as a "property" that humans acquire as a result of social organisation, one that they had not possessed 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"?
But even so, 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, in an entirely different example, what if an eagle carried off a rabbit? Would that hapless rodent thereby have acquired a new property of flight -- or even of being eaten? Indeed, would the new eagle/rabbit-whole be symmetrically unified (as far as part/whole determination was 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 novel duo acquire the rabbit part's ability to wriggle excessively when carried off by predatory birds?
It seems it should if we were desperate enough to be dialecticians.
Again, many of the above arguments are unlikely to impress convinced DM-theorists, or persuade them that their neat formula is unreliable. This is perhaps because the reasoning given 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.]
This argument only looks plausible because it is based on a consideration of biological systems, but, it fails to explain how a generalised sort of holism operates throughout non-organic nature, or the rest of the universe. So, even if Sayers were correct, what he says would be of little assistance 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 instance, cease to be a wheel if it comes off its axle? Is it any less of a wheel? Indeed, does the axle cease to be an axle when it loses a wheel? Is it, too, any less of an axle? What happens if, in the case of a lorry with four doubled-up rear wheels, 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? It seems not.
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 'dialectical' 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 --, then the Parts Department in the above example is mis-named. It should be called the "Non-parts Department" -- or, perhaps even:
P1: "The-Less-Than-Parts-Until-They-Are-Attached-To-The-Rest-Of-The-Vehicle Department."
Or, maybe even:
P2: "The-Unknown-Objects-Whose-Real-Natures-Remain-Obscure-Until-They-Are-Later-Determined-By-Their-Attachment-To-Another-Something-Or-Other-That-Is-Itself-Indeterminate-This-Side-Of-The-Aforementioned-Union-Into-A-Whole Department."
Interested readers can join in this game and dream up their own 'Dialectical Menu', for example, for the 'Wholist-café' mentioned earlier.
[The Parts Department example has probably reached the end of the dialectical road, though.]
It could be objected that things like fan belts 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. 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. [The Andromeda Galaxy was intended by whom?]
In addition, consider cases wherein 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) were 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 few Nazis.
In the latter instance, 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 was used, if it was. But, are Nazis any more scum-like (or brick-like?) when they are in a new Nazi/brick whole? Would this brick be more of a brick when lobbed at a scab than when it was when thrown at the BNP? Does the said scab get a similar 'Wholistic promotion' because the lobbed brick knocks him out?
If parts and wholes are entirely determined in the way specified, all or most of these would be true.
It could be objected 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 before. A response like this would rule out one of the few positive examples that TAR quoted (from DB) -- i.e., those that related to flight (are passengers designed to fit planes?). 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'.
Take, for instance, a seat from an old car: it could still be used apart 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 new surroundings like these.
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 way that their former owners once did. Here, one is thinking of the following: hermit crabs who use the shells of other sea creatures as protection; holes in the ground (successively occupied by rabbits, foxes and badgers) used as 'homes' -- does a hole become "more" of a hole whole when part of, say, a new fox hole whole, or maybe even a mole 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? Does it become more wool-like when used as part of a scarf/worker composite?
Finally, consider a Big Mac being eaten by Little Mick: does the Big Mac become an even Bigger Big Mac or a Smaller Big Mac because of this new Mick Mac Whole -- or does Little Mick become a Bigger Little Mick because of his fondness for cramming Big Macs down his cake hole?
Which part alters which Whole?
Or is this theory so much junk, like the guff Little Mick stuffs down his gullet?"
More anti-dialectic medicine at:
http://www.anti-dialectics.org