Whole
Overview
Whole (전체, 全體; English: whole, totality) is a concept denoting a unified entity formed by multiple parts or a totality encompassing all elements belonging to a certain scope. It is not reducible to a mere sum of parts, and it includes properties newly emerging through relations and interactions among the parts, making it a long-standing subject of inquiry in philosophy, mathematics, logic, and systems science.
Main Content
Etymology and Basic Definition
It is a combination of the Chinese characters 全 (jeon, 'complete/whole') and 體 (che, 'body'), meaning 'a single whole mass with nothing missing.' Corresponding concepts in English include whole, totality, entire, and aggregate, and depending on context it is translated as 'all,' 'totality,' 'total amount,' 'population,' and so on. In logic, it is connected to the quantifier 'all,' and in mathematics it is concretized in terms such as universal set, entire domain, and population as opposed to sample.
The Whole in Philosophy: Holism and Reductionism
Aristotle offered the insight that 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts,' which became the prototype of modern holism. Holism holds that the properties of a system cannot be fully explained by individual parts alone. Reductionism, by contrast, seeks to explain a complex whole by decomposing it into parts. The two positions have formed a long-standing debate in biology, psychology, and sociology, and in the dialectics of Hegel and Marx, the 'whole' is emphasized as a higher structure that determines the parts.
The Whole in Mathematics
In mathematics, the whole is treated set-theoretically. The universal set is the set containing all elements of the domain of discourse, but after Russell's paradox, unrestricted definition was restricted. In statistics, the distinction between the entire population and a sample is central, and it forms the basis of probability and inference. In arithmetic, 'whole' sometimes means a complete percentage such as 100%.
Logic and Quantification
The universal quantifier (∀, for all) indicates the whole, meaning 'for every object.' A universal proposition holds only if it is true across the entire domain of objects, and it can be refuted by even a single counterexample. This shows how the concept of the 'whole' operates in logical inference and proof.
Systems Theory and Emergence
Since the 20th century, systems theory, cybernetics, and complexity science have grasped the whole as a network of relations. Emergence is a property at the level of the whole that cannot be predicted from the simple sum of parts, and it is observed in ant colonies, neural networks, markets, ecosystems, and so on. Also important is the discussion of the 'holistic fallacy,' in which partial optimization can conflict with whole optimization.
Usage in Everyday Language and Society
In everyday life, 'whole' is used in expressions that encompass a scope, such as 'as a whole,' 'general meeting,' and 'entire population.' In society and politics, harmony between the whole interest and individual interests is a major issue, and in democracy, the voting system that determines the general will is directly connected to this concept.
Latest Trends
In 2024–2025, with advances in artificial intelligence and big data, large language models and multimodal AI that learn vast 'whole data' are emerging, and the relationship between parts and wholes is being reexamined. In particular, emergent abilities that suddenly appear as large-scale neural networks grow in scale have summoned a holistic perspective, and in AI ethics, the problem that the entire training dataset—a collection of individual data—produces bias has emerged as a key agenda. In climate crisis and digital transformation policies, a 'holistic approach' has become a keyword, and in healthcare, whole-person care that looks at the entire patient rather than individual organs is emphasized. In quantum computing, the wave function describing the whole state and entanglement are studied as examples showing the physical reality of wholeness. Meanwhile, due to the computational and power cost issues of ultra-large models, efficiency techniques that 'learn only parts and approximate the whole' are drawing attention.
Related Topics
- [[부분]]
- [[전체론]]
- [[환원주의]]
- [[시스템 이론]]
- [[창발성]]
- [[집합론]]