“Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs.”

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 68 (Vintage 2003)

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José Saramago138

Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in … 1922–2010

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“Each of the parts of philosophy is a philosophical whole, a circle rounded and complete in itself. In each of these parts, however, the philosophical Idea is found in a particular specificality or medium. The single circle, because it is a real totality, bursts through the limits imposed by its special medium, and gives rise to a wider circle. The whole of philosophy in this way resembles a circle of circles. The Idea appears in each single circle, but, at the same time, the whole Idea is constituted by the system of these peculiar phases, and each is a necessary member of the organisation.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1816)

“To apply the category of cause and effect means to find out which parts of nature stand in this relation. Similarly, to apply the gestalt category means to find out which parts of nature belong as parts to functional wholes, to discover their position in these wholes, their degree of relative independence, and the articulation of larger wholes into sub-wholes.”

Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) German psychologist

Kurt Koffka (1931), self-cited in: Kurt Koffka. Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 22

“A point has no existence by itself. It exists only as a part of the pattern of relationships which constitute the geometry of Euclid.”

Freeman Dyson book Infinite in All Directions

Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 2 : Butterflies and Superstrings, p. 17
Context: Euclid... gave his famous definition of a point: "A point is that which has no parts, or which has no magnitude." …A point has no existence by itself. It exists only as a part of the pattern of relationships which constitute the geometry of Euclid. This is what one means when one says that a point is a mathematical abstraction. The question, What is a point? has no satisfactory answer. Euclid's definition certainly does not answer it. The right way to ask the question is: How does the concept of a point fit into the logical structure of Euclid's geometry?... It cannot be answered by a definition.

“Every organism represents a system, by which term we mean a complex of elements in mutual interaction. From this obvious statement the limitations of the analytical and summative conceptions must follow. First, it is impossible to resolve the phenomena of life completely into elementary units; for each individual part and each individual event depends not only on conditions within itself, but also to a greater or lesser extent on the conditions within the whole, or within superordinate units of which it is a part. Hence the behavior of an isolated part is, in general, different from its behavior within the context of the whole… Secondly, the actual whole shows properties that are absent from its isolated parts.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

As cited in: D.C. (1969) "Systems Theory — A Discredited Philosophy". in: Abacus V. p. 4
1950s, Problems of Life (1952, 1960)

“Systems at each level of integration function as wholes with respect to their parts and parts with respect to higher level wholes.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 67.

“[I]t's gravity is the cause; and that which is heavy abides in the middle, and the earth is in the middle: in like manner also, the infinite will abide in itself, through some other cause… and will itself support itself. …[T]he places of the whole and the part are of the same species; as of the whole earth and a clod, the place is downward; and of the whole of fire, and a spark, the place is upward. So that if the place of the infinite is in itself, there will be the same place also of a part of the infinite.”

Aristotle book Physics

Book III, Ch. VII, p. 162.
Physics

“The Augustan constitution remains one of the major products of the human intelligence. It was a whole into which the parts fitted smoothly, but both whole and parts were elastic and capable of swift adaptation to unforeseen conditions. It was elaborate, but that was necessary, both because of its origin and its purpose.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Augustus (1937)

“When a mess, which is a system of problems, is taken apart, it loses its essential properties and so does each of its parts. The behavior of a mess depends more on how the treatment of its parts interact than how they act independently of each other. A partial solution to a whole system of problems is better than whole solutions of each of its parts taken separately.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Cited in: Can Alpaslan, Ian Mitroff (2011) Swans, Swine, and Swindlers: Coping with the Growing Threat of Mega-Crises and Mega-Messes. p. 16.
1970s, The future of operational research is past, 1979

“Parts and wholes evolve in consequence of their relationship, and the relationship itself evolves.”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

The Dialectical Biologist (1985), co-written with Richard Levins, Introduction, p. 3.
Context: Parts and wholes evolve in consequence of their relationship, and the relationship itself evolves. These are the properties of things that we call dialectical: that one thing cannot exist without the other, that one acquires its properties from its relation to the other, that the properties of both evolve as a consequence of their interpenetration.

“A cabinet is a combining committee,—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other.”

Walter Bagehot book The English Constitution

No. I, "The Cabinet", p. 14
The English Constitution (1867)

“Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs.”

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José Saramago138

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