From Parts to Wholes (1980-1989)

"The principle that whole entities exhibit properties which are meaningful only when attributed to the whole, not to its parts - e.g. the smell of ammonia. Every model of human activity system exhibits properties as a whole entity which derive from it component activities and their structure, but cannot be reduced to them." (Peter Checkland, "Systems Thinking, Systems Practice", 1981)

"[Hierarchy is] the principle according to which entities meaningfully treated as wholes are built up of smaller entities which are themselves wholes […] and so on. In hierarchy, emergent properties denote the levels." (Peter Checkland, "Systems Thinking, Systems Practice", 1981)

"Degradation of a system as a whole does not mean that all its elements are beginning to disintegrate. Regress is a contradictory process: the whole falls apart but certain elements in it may progress. What is more, a system as a whole may progress while certain of its elements fall into decay. Thus, the progressive development of biological forms as a whole goes hand in hand with the degradation of certain species." (Alexander Spirkin, "Dialectical Materialism", 1983)

"Structure is the type of connection between the elements of a whole. […] . Structure is a composite whole, or an internally organised content. […] Structure implies not only the position of its elements in space but also their movement in time, their sequence and rhythm, the law of mutation of a process. So structure is actually the law or set of laws that determine a system's composition and functioning, its properties and stability." (Alexander Spirkin, "Dialectical Materialism", 1983)

"The defining attribute of harmony is a relationship between the elements of the whole in which the development of one of them is a condition for the development of the others or vice versa. In art, harmony may be understood as a form of relationship in which each element, while retaining a relative independence, contributes greater expressiveness to the whole and, at the same time and because of this, more fully expresses its own essence. Beauty may be defined as harmony of all the parts, united by that to which they belong in such a way that nothing can be added or taken away or changed without detriment to the whole." (Alexander Spirkin, "Dialectical Materialism", 1983)