ORGANISMIC BIOLOGY
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2402 ▶ |
| Object type | Discipline oriented, General information, Methodology or model |
A set of new concepts about the nature of living organisms that was introduced between 1920 and 1940 by a number of biologists as an alternative theory of life, as opposed to reductionnist mechanistic concepts as well as vitalists ones
The basic tenet of organismic biology is that life cannot be understood without a general integrative view of the internal organization of the organism, i.e. the existence of functional and structural interrelations between its constitutive elements . Thus “the whole is more than the sum of its parts ”
F. CAPRA writes: “Since these organizing relations are patterns of relationships immanent in the physical structure of the organism, organismic biologists assert that no separate, nonphysical entity is required for the understanding of life…”…the concept of organization has been refined to that of self-organization in contemporary theories of living systems“(196, p. 25)
See also
Autopoiesis