October 2007

October 2007 (vol. 2, issue 1)
"Holism, Modernism, and Postmodernism"

Where does holism fit in the current discussion among postmodern scholars relative to the idea of universal values, truth, or reality? Is holism a form of postmodern theory and practice or a force counter to it? Is holism a form of modernist thought or an advance on it? Before we can answer those questions, we need to distinguish between modernism and postmodernism. The single greatest distinction here can be found in their different conceptualizations of truth and knowledge. Modernists retained the notion of an objective and pure reality existing prior to human experience. They held to the universality of reason and progress on behalf of the enlightenment of humanity and sought true universal values across borders of time, space, and culture.

Postmodern deconstruction scholars have altered the Enlightenment notion of truth as beyond critique. They maintain a notion of truth as a social agreement within various traditions. In an attempt to include the many viewpoints and voices previously isolated or ignored by modernism, postmodern thinkers reject the modernist hierarchy of truths and certainties, favoring difference and multiplicity of equally valid perspectives. This perspective is variously referred to as multiculturalism, diversity, pluralism, or heteronomy. Enlightenment reason is replaced by postmodern reason, a pragmatic, socially learned process for individual and collective action.

It is helpful here to discuss two discrete but related brands of the postmodern project. Lacking a singular definition of postmodernism, scholars isolate two separate forms of postmodernism: constructive postmodernism and deconstructive postmodernism. A characteristic of the two postmodernisms is their bond and their disjunction in one. The bond lies in their mutual efforts to respond to the challenges of cultural renewal. I will address the disjunction below. It is my contention that our holistic theory and practice must be a form of constructive postmodernism. But what is meant by the term?

David Ray Griffin coined the term constructive postmodernism. For Griffin, constructive postmodernists seek to transcend and include aspects of the modern worldview by constructing "a new unity of scientific, ethical, aesthetic and religious intuitions." The critique of modernism championed by Griffin and other constructive postmodernists (as opposed to deconstructive postmodernists) is not as radical as to preclude development of a new worldview of wholeness consisting of the revision of some modernist beliefs and practices, such as the privileging of abstract reason above other cognitive modalities. Constructive postmodernists endeavor to salvage what is most worthwhile in modernist notions of truth, rationality, selfhood, and historical meaning, integrating them with revisions of premodern values, including spirit and a conscious natural world.

Therein lays the aforementioned disjunction between constructive and deconstructive postmodernism. Seeking to avoid radical individualism and relativism, constructive postmodernists place significant import upon intersubjectivity, cooperation, and elements of the perennial philosophies of the premodern worldview. Constructive postmodernists typically look to Alfred North Whitehead's "process" cosmology as the source of their unequivocal rejection of the mechanistic worldview of modernity and their primary inspiration concerning the project of interdependent wholeness of multiple perspectives. Whitehead's process orientation moves away from mechanistic dualism and determinism toward synthesis, interdependence, and dialogue.

Deconstruction scholars seek the disestablishment of all traditional centers of power and authority, positing a notion of multiple "truths." They seek to indicate that philosophical texts do not mean what they appear to mean, do not mean what the author intended, and in fact possess no discernible meaning at all. Deconstruction, aims at showing how the attempt by traditional philosophers to use language in such a way as to get beyond language so as to arrive at some translinguistic, transcultural, transhistorical inevitably fails.

To answer the questions raised earlier about holism's relationship to modernism and postmodernism, let us note that insofar as our holism posits a fundamental unity of the universe and seeks out meaning, it is related to modernism. However, in its attempt to move beyond modernist hierarchy and absolutism by honoring multiplicity and difference, holism is part of postmodernism. Holism prizes intuition through contemplation and subjectivity as means of realizing value from that interconnectedness, and so it is a force counter to the strict rationalism of modernism. It seeks the relationship between our higher self and Spirit. It attempts to restore the link between ethics and behavior through engagement, relatedness, and cooperation. So as it posits the interdependence of life, seeks a new unity of humanity and nature inclusive of scientific, ethical, aesthetic, and religious intuitions rejected by deconstructionists, and values human wholeness through an education of multiculturalism and multiple intelligences, holism is a constructive form of postmodernism.