Atomism

A scientific doctrine which maintains that all complex systems are aggregates (see aggregation ) of smaller ones and that any whole can therefore be understood entirely from the knowledge of its parts. E.g., an atomistic social theory insists that all social institutions and events car be exhaustively explained in terms of the actions of individuals. A radical application of this doctrine suggests dividing a given phenomenon into smaller and smaller units until they are no longer divisible. The resulting atoms are the ultimate constituents of the phenomena in question and until one has identified these there is nothing to investigate. (krippendorff )