Discuss the holism and reductionism debate PDF

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Essay on holism and the reductionism debate...

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Reductionism vs. Holism Holism is the approach or belief that things can only be explained by considering the whole rather than the constituent parts. This includes examining the whole behaviour, whole experience, whole person or whole system. In relation to human beings this means that analysing component parts, such as, for example, the brain, specific personality traits such as aggressiveness doesn’t properly capture nor do justice to the whole person. This is what Gestalt psychologists mean when they say ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. Take an every day physical example such as a watch. A watch is made up of many component parts. However how all these parts come together to tell the time, the purpose of the watch is missed unless you see the whole put together. The humanistic approach emerged as a reaction against those dehumanising psychological perspectives that attempted to reduce behaviour to a set of simple elements. Humanistic psychologists feel the holism is the only valid approach to the complete understanding of mind and behaviour. Gestalt psychologists argued that when studying any aspect of human functioning, it is essential to look at unified wholes, complete structures and totalities. The nature of an experience or behaviour is not revealed simply by analysing the several parts that make up the whole. Gestaltists applied their beliefs to perception. Insight is a Gestalt view of learning which is opposed to the reductionist S-R approach. Kohler demonstrated insight learning in chimpanzees. A banana was placed outside the cage, out of the reach of the hungry chimp. A long stick was also placed outside the cage, but within reach. The chimp reached for the stick and raked in the banana. All the parts are seen in relation to each other, forming a meaningful whole. The holistic approaches provide a more complete picture of behaviour and experience than reductionist approaches. For example, they can explain behaviour like insight and perception of closure which cannot be explained with a more reductionist approach. Also, higher level explanations do not ignore the complexity of behaviour and can be more meaningful, as holism seeks to integrate the different components – for example memory and consciousness – in order to understand the person as a whole. However, there is difficulty in integrating and investigating explanations from different levels as holistic explanations lack the predictive power of a scientific explanation. The holistic approach tends to neglect the importance of biological explanations, especially the role of genes in human behaviour and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. The holistic approach has tended to shun the findings of scientific psychology. As a consequence holism is seen as different from a scientific approach. It is wrong to dismiss all research carried out in the laboratory; some of it has proven to be very successful. For example, Baddely and Hitch carried out laboratory experiments to support the working memory model but findings have been applied to children with reading problems who seem to have a phonological loop deficit and so this model has helped to improve the quality of a child’s life. Reductionism is the opposite view of holism. It involves breaking down complex phenomenon into simpler components. It implies that this process is desirable because complex phenomena are best understood in terms of a simpler

level explanation. Rose identified three kinds of reductionism: reductionism as a methodology which is reducing complex behaviours to isolated variables which is a useful strategy for conducting research. It underlies the experimental approach in which behaviours are reduced to operationalised variables that can be manipulated to determine causal relationships. Another is reductionism as an explanation; the best explanations or theories are those with the fewest sets of laws or principles. The cannon of parsimony or Occam’s razor states that ‘of two competing theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one should be preferred’. The third is reductionism as a philosophy; psychology should dovetail seamlessly with the other sciences. If all science is unitary, we should be able to reduce all explanations of behaviour to physical laws. Reductionism, then, is a belief that the subject matter of psychology can be more properly explained within the framework of the physical sciences. Under these terms there is no need to resort to complex psychological or sociological explanations of behaviour when it can be more than adequately explained at a biochemical or physiological level. In the sense that biochemistry and physiology are more established than psychology and sociology, this has a more immediate intuitive appeal. It is argued that because we are made up of biological components all behaviour can be reduced to a biological level and explained at that level and other levels are unimportant. The obvious advantage of biological reductionism is that behaviour can be described in precise and concise terms. Higher level explanations are neither readily observable nor easily defined or measured. It is much easier to explain and understand schizophrenia for example as being due to genes than to consider social and environmental explanations. A basic assumption of the behaviourist approach is that only overt behaviour should be studied and the appropriate unit of analysis is the simple S-R association strengthened by reinforcement. Behaviourists argue that complex high level functioning of humans can be understood at the level of S-R links studies in rats and other animals. This view is not shared by all psychologists, for example Humanists believe the human condition is unique and that humans are both quantitatively and qualititatively different to animals. Scientific research is reductionist and has led to many important discoveries that have enabled people to control and predict their world better, specifically using the laboratory experiment to find causal relationships, for example to understand the nervous system and the HPA and SAM systems. Reductionist explanations can be more easily verified or falsified than more complex psychological explanations and therefore may be seen as more scientifically valid. Also, because of the perceived higher status and respectability of the physical sciences, reductionist explanations often appear more attractive and ‘certain’ to the lay person. Rose has distinguished between different levels of explanation, each of which has a valid contribution to make. The lowest level is the molecular followed by the intra-cellular then parts of individuals, behaviour of individuals and ultimately the behaviour of groups. We can explain any particular behaviour at all these different levels. For example, mental illness can be explained in physiological terms, in ters of psyche or in terms of social systems.

However, Putnam points out that much human behaviour cannot be solely understood in terms of basic biological processes. ‘People’s psychology is partly a reflection of deeply entrenched societal beliefs’. This can be illustrated with an example: suppose a psychologist wants to predict how people will vote in an election. A detailed biochemical and physiological examination will not be very informative. Voting behaviour is determined by social attitudes, group pressures rather than directly by underlying biochemical processes. Adopting a reductionist explanation of behaviour often distracts attention away from other levels of explanation. To dismiss human aggression as an inevitable aspect of human nature means we are less likely to explore socially constructive ways of reducing it. Many psychologists believe that the quest for a single causal explanation for human behaviour is futile. To speak of mental disorders as only being a case of physiological dysfunction ignores the possible contributions of social and cultural factors....