Ecology’s holistic presuppositions long predate the modern science of ecology

Evidence

Although ecology is a relatively new science, its philosophy of nature, holism, is not. Historically, holistic presuppositions about nature have been assumed by communities of people who have succeeded in living in equilibrium with their environments. The idea of cyclical processes, of the interconnectedness of all things, and the assumption that nature is active and alive are fundamental to the history of human thought. No element of an interlocking cycle can be removed without the collapse of the cycle. The parts themselves thus take their meaning from the whole. Each particular part is defined by and dependent on the total context. The cycle itself is a dynamic interactive relationship of all its parts, and process is a dialectical relation between part and whole. Ecology necessarily must consider the complexities and the totality. It cannot isolate the parts into simplified systems that can be studied in a laboratory, because such isolation distorts the whole. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 1078

Categorization

• XREF: Directly proves the book-so-far claim that historical equilibrium-living communities held organic assumptions, and feeds the polyad’s land/place and listening-as-method threads. — connects to: Eighteenth-century naturalists credited a designing creator for ecological balance — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 927; The organic worldview persists underlying 20th-century ecology and process philosophy. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 1065; A scientific framework’s presuppositions are culturally and historically conditioned — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 148 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• A scientific framework’s presuppositions are culturally and historically conditioned #corroborates (0.85) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 148
• Deep ecology understands beings as constituted by their relations, not as separate from environments #exemplifies (0.72) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 327