Systems Practice, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1988

Guest Editorial

The Case for "Holon"

P e t e r C h e e k l a n d 1

Long years ago as a physical chemist I used to use quantum theory and the mathematics of symmetry to analyze the high-resolution infrared spectra of small gaseous molecules, a process which enables their dimensions to be determined. In carrying out such investigations natural scientists cannot fail to be aware of two fundamental considerations: first, that in the professional talk concerning the work, words are used as carefully defined technical terms with precise meanings ("Q-branch," "energy level," etc); and second, that the words so carefully defined refer to models, to intellectual constructs rather than to supposed physical reality. The natural scientist is well aware that he or she is playing a game against Nature in which the intellectual constructions are used to predict physical happenings, and it is those happenings which can be checked experimentally. The intellectual constructions survive only for as long as they survive the tests; and it is easy for natural scientists to remember that they are only constructions, even when they are casually used as if they were accurately describing (rather than in fact being relevant to describing) physical reality.

What a tight little world this is compared with the one I now work in, namely, the world of applied social science! Here would-be scientists ("would-be" because the very idea of social science is problematical) struggle to use as technical terms words which are all too casually used in everyday language, words such as "role," "norm," and "value." Such words are so shop-soiled from use in casual everyday talk that they probably cannot now be purchased as technical terms. The language of professional applied social science is a mess. If the social scientist resorts to making up new words, then severe accusations of using "jargon" will be made, accusations intended to cripple. This means that the sense that such concepts are in the end only

~Department of Systems, Bailrigg, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YX, England.

235 0894-9859/88/0900~)235506.00/0 �9 1988 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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intellectual constructs, made to try to make sense of our experience of the world, is easily lost. After all, in casual conversation (as opposed to reflective professional discourse) we all speak as if roles, norms, etc., were real things. It is especially difficult for the would-be social scientist to make the distinc- tion which is made with relative ease in natural science, the distinction between professional discourse and everyday language. So the would-be applied social scientist has to struggle with two big problems: trying to use everyday language for serious professional discourse and, in doing so, trying to remember that we ought not to treat models as if they were perceived reality.

A particularly acute version of these problems faces those interested in finding out if the concept "system" can help our understanding of the social world. Where ecologists can use the word as a technical term without causing too much confusion, people trying to study human situations are in extreme difficulty because of the casual way the word system is used in everyday chat. "The education system," we say casually, or "the legal system" or "health-care systems," using system as a label for a recognizable bit of the world's complexity. What the aspiring social scientist might actually be wanting to say is that if the abstract notion of a system is carefully formulated (an entity having properties as a whole, a certain kind of layered structure and processes which enable it to adapt in the face of environmental pressures), then that concept might be useful in trying to understand the problems of coherently providing health care, or education, or the application of the law. It is too easy to say "the health-care system" and, in so doing, both mix up everyday language and the language of professional discourse and confuse a possibly plausible description of perceived reality with perceived reality itself.

The systems literature, like that of social science in general, is riddled with confusion which stems from these two errors. In fact the confusion is so prevalent that even now, 40 years after Bertalanffy first suggested that ideas about organisms as wholes (which he and other organismic biologists had developed) could, in principle, be applied to wholes of any kind, thus initiat- ing the work of the systems movement, it might be worthwhile trying con- sciously to change our language in order to reduce the confusion.

This is not something to suggest lightly. There is much understandable resistance to the coining of new words. And (happily) there are no Thought Police who can insist that neologisms be adopted. Nevertheless, the effort may be worth making. Just imagine the clarity which would have charac- terized systems work if Bertalanffy had said, in effect "We have developed the abstract concept of a whole entity Which may adapt and survive in a changing environment. We believe this will be a useful concept, since intuitively the world seems to contain lots of wholes. We propose to call such wholes 'telons.' We believe, for example, that if we enrich the concept in an internally

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self-consistent way, then we could, for example, develop models of an edu- cational telon or a health-care telon and learn things by mapping those concepts on to real-world education systems or health-care systems and noting the differences." Alas, Bertalanffy used "system" as the name for the abstract concept of a whole and immediately began to refer to things in the world as systems.

Now in fact we can forget my suggestion here for the word telon to represent the concept of a purposeful whole. The systems literature already contains several suggestions of neologisms which could be used to replace system as a technical term, conceding that word to everyday language - - f r o m which we would never be able to prise it, anyway. Gerard suggested the word "org," Jacob suggested "integron," and Koestler developed the concept of the "holon." It is this last word which has come closest to catching on.

Arthur Koestler was one of those polyglot Continental intellectuals of a kind the U K rarely produces. A richly talented journalist, he aspired to being taken seriously as a scientist, his best-known scientific role being as cosponsor and editor, with J. R. Smythies, of the papers from the Alpbach symposium Beyond Reductionism (Koestler and Smythies, 1969).

As an Appendix to his book The Ghost in the Machine, a study of man 's "built-in error or deficiency which predisposes him towards self-destruction," Koestler (1967) offers a paper on "General Properties of Open Hierarchical Systems." This gives a formal account of a notion much used in the book itself, the notion of holon. The word is coined to express the principle of layered, or hierarchical structure, namely, than an entity which is an auto- nomous whole at one level is also a part of a higher-level whole. Normally we would say in everyday language that a subsystem is itself a system. Koestler, in his rather po-faced Appendix declares,

Every holon has the dual tendency to preserve and assert its individuality as a quasi-autonomous whole; and to function as an integrated part of an (existing or evolving) larger whole.

It is clear that holon is the name of an abstract concept, and this is neatly brought out in the definition of the word by Tim Allen and Thomas Starr in their book Hierarchy: Perspectives for Ecological Complexity (1982):

Holon: The representation of an entity as a two-way window through which the environment influences the parts, through which the parts communicate as a unit to the rest of the universe. Holons have characteristic rates for their behaviour, and this places particular holons at certain levels in a hierarchy of holons. What a holon shall contain is determined by the observer.

That last sentence puts the authors on the side of the angels-- they know that holon is only the name of a concept. Koestler himself almost joins them

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when he writes that

The organism is to be regarded as a multi-levelled hierarchy of semi-autonomous sub-wholes.., sub-wholes on any level of a hierarchy are referred to as holons

He would have done better to write "may be regarded as," but that is a small point. Unfortunately he spoils the argument by going on to state unequivo- cally that

organs are evolutionary holons.., phrases are linquistic holons.., individuals, families, tribes, nations are social holons...

But never mind; although Arthur was nodding when he wrote "are" when he meant "may be regarded as," his paper as a whole makes clear that he has suggested the new word holon for the abstract concept which is usually indicated by the word system, a word, alas, also used as a label word for things in the world.

Forty years after Bertalanffy's semantic disaster we could begin to undo some of the confusion it has caused. We could improve the clarity of systems thinking at a stroke by conceding the word system to everyday language and using holon whenever we refer to the abstract concept of a whole or build a model of a holon (models being always descriptions of holons which might or might not map onto some bit of real-world complexity).

Shall we do it? Have we got the nerve?

R E F E R E N C E S

Allen, T., and Starr, T. (1982). Hierarchy: Perspectives for Ecological Complexity, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Koestler, A. (1967). The Ghost in the Machine, Hutchinson, London. Koestler, A., and Smythies, J. R. (eds.) (1969). Beyond Reductionism, Hutchinson, London.