HOLISM (Law of Requisite)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1561 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Methodology or model |
M. MULEJ and S. KAJZER introduced the Law of Requisite Holism in 1998 (see T. ECIMOVIC et al., 2002)
The Law “demands the author/s of the definition of a system representing the object under their consideration and/or control to clearly state what part of attributes of the object is included into his/her/their system, being the mental picture of the object under consideration and/or control”(2002, sect. 4.1)
The authors add: “He/she/they must do his/her/their best to fight oversimplification as well as too much complexity and complication, by using all available knowledge and skills as well as by ethics of interdependence ”(Ibid)
This means that the holistic model must not leave anything significant outside, nor overburden the model with irrelevant elements .
Of course, the crux of the matter are the criteria to be used to focus the holistic model in this way. Moreover, a very serious problem is that the modeller may easily be unaware of the insufficiency of his/her knowledge or may hold a prejudiced view. The authors explains possible ways to produce a holistic model that be satisfactorily focused, covering the issue as a whole and including all significant relationships .
Other authors, as for example J. WARFIELD and R. CARDENAS, or H. LINSTONE and I. MITROFF, and J. GHARAJEDAGHI have contributed interesting methodologies that should be used to construct models in accordance with the Law of Requisite Holism.
See also
Generic design, Unbounded Systems Thinking, Underconceptualization