Systems Practice, Vol. 1, No.

3, 1988

Guest Editorial

The Case for "Holon"

Peter Cheekland 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.
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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 distinction 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 initiating the work of the systems movement, it might be worthwhile trying consciously 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 characterized 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 educational 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.
N o w 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 m a n ' 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 b o o k
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 autonomous 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 b o o k 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-levelledhierarchy 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 " m a y be regarded as," but that is a small
point. Unfortunately he spoils the argument by going on to state unequivocally 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 " a r e " when he
meant " m a y 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?

REFERENCES

Allen, T., and Starr, T. (1982). Hierarchy: Perspectivesfor 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.