Fragmentalism

Fragmentalism is a term used to describe metaphysical positions such as philosophical realism, which hold that the world consists of individual and independent objects. [cite journal |author=Kukla A |title=Antirealist Explanations of the Success of Science |journal=Philosophy of Science |url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248%28199609%2963%3CS298%3AAEOTSO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=S298–S305 |year=1996 |doi=10.1086/289964] The term fragmentalism is frequently used in a pejorative sense to describe reductionism, which is an argument that the world is indeed composed of separable parts, and that it is knowable through the study of these components. Fragmentalism has also been defined as "the notion that knowledge is a growing collection of substantiated facts or "nuggets of truth." [cite journal |author=Pope ML |title=Personal construction of formal knowledge |journal=Interchange |url=http://www.springerlink.com/index/VQ4L33X920880824.pdf |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=3–14 |year=1982 |doi=10.1007/BF01191417] Anti-realists use the term fragmentalism in arguments that the world does not exist of separable entities, instead consisting of wholes. For example, advocates of this position declare that:

The linear deterministic approach to nature and technology promoted a fragmented perception of reality, and a loss of the ability to foresee, to adequately evaluate, in all their complexity, global crises in ecology, civilization and education. [Anatoly P. Liferov, Global Education as a Trend Reflecting the Problems of Today and Meeting the Requirements of Tomorrowhttp://www.indiana.edu/~isre/NEWSLETTER/vol6no2/global.htm]

This term is usually applied to reductionist modes of thought, frequently with the related pejorative term of "scientism". This usage is popular amongst some ecological activists:

There is a need now to move away from scientism and the ideology of cause-and-effect determinism toward a radical empiricism, such as William James proposed, as an epistemology of science. [Yunkaporta on Kakkib and Oneness, Tyson Yunkaporta, Friday, January 05, 2007 http://bioregionalanimism.blogspot.com/]

These perspectives are not new and in the early twentieth century, William James noted that rationalist science emphasized what he termed fragmentation and disconnection. Such anti-realist rhetoric also underpins many criticisms of the scientific method:

The scientific method only acknowledges monophasic consciousness. The method is a specialized system that focuses on studying small and distinctive parts in isolation, which results in fragmented knowledge.Tara W. Lumpkin, "Perceptual Diversity: Is Polyphasic Consciousness Necessary for Global Survival?" December 28, 2006, http://bioregionalanimism.blogspot.com]

An alternative usage of this term is in cognitive psychology. Here, George Kelly developed "constructive alternativism" as a form of personal construct psychology, this provided an alternative to what he saw as "accumulative fragmentalism". In this theory, knowledge is seen as the construction of successful mental models of the exterior world, rather than the accumulation of independent "nuggets of truth". [cite journal |author=Pope ML and Watts M | title=Constructivist goggles: implications for process in teaching and learning physics | journal=Eur. J. Physics | url=http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0143-0807/9/2/004 | volume=9 | pages=101–109 | year=1988 |doi=10.1088/0143-0807/9/2/004]

Notes

External links

*Maureen L Pope, "Personal construction of formal knowledge," Humanities Social Science and Law, 13.4, December, 1982, pp.3-14

*Tara W. Lumpkin, "Perceptual Diversity: Is Polyphasic Consciousness Necessary for Global Survival?" December 28, 2006, http://bioregionalanimism.blogspot.com/

*Vandana Shiva, 1995, "Monocultures, Monopolies and the Masculinisation of Knowledge." International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Reports: Gender Equity. 23:15-17 http://idrinfo.idrc.ca/archive/ReportsINTRA/pdfs/v23n2e/109174.htm

* [http://www.loyno.edu/~folse/Kukla.html The Anti-Realist Side of the Debate: A Theory's Predictive Success does not Warrant Belief in the Unobservable Entities it Postulates] Andre Kukla and Joel Walmsley.

ee also

*Holistic science
*Antireductionism
*Antiscience
*Reductionism