The Structure of Wholeness :: Ontology Atoms Papers

The Structure of Wholeness Using a part-whole-calculus the vague concept of wholeness is rendered precisely as the structure of an atomic boolean lattice. The so-defined prototypical structure of wholeness has the status of a category, since every element of our experience may be considered as an intended application of it. This will be illustrated using examples from different ontological spheres. The hypothetical and therefore fallible character of the structure is shown in its inadequacy in grasping quantum logical facts. This demands a differentiation of wholeness. The defined structure may be seen as circular in two respects: On the one hand it is the precondition for the understanding of its own syntactic and semantic basics, on the other hand there exists a mutual defineability between its atoms, which leads us to the thesis that wholeness cannot be defined in a non-circular manner. Introduction In this paper I attempt both to explicate the popular, but vague notion of wholeness and to point out its meaning for ontology. To begin with, I’ll give a brief survey of the essentials: In accord with an elementary intuition of ‘wholeness’ I introduce an implicit axiomatic definition of its structure, which proves to be a familiar Boolean-lattice. This internal view of the concept of wholeness is followed by a more philosophical external view, which looks at the structure in its context. It will be shown that the structure corresponds to the criteria of an ontological category, namely consistence, adequacy, content and coherence, so that we are justified in speaking of the ‘category of wholeness’. This feature leads to some interesting results: As a consequence of the adequacy of a category the structure turns out to be a model on its own. The self-application leads on the level of the axioms to the boolean lattice of all substructures and on the lev el of the terms of axioms to semantical boolean lattices, which may seen as basic units for the whole language. Thus the understanding of the structure of ‘wholeness’ takes for granted that there is a pre-understanding of the very same. Furthermore, there is another kind of circular understanding on the level of the atoms of the structure, because there exists a mutual defineability between the atoms, which cannot be eliminated without leaving the wholeness. But even if we try to leave it, we enter another wholeness, so that circularity is inevitable in the end. A. Intuition First of all, let me describe the leading intuition of ‘wholeness’.