The holistic model coming close to the total man
pp. 25-49
in: , Models of man, Berlin, Springer, 1972Abstract
We have seen in the preceding chapter that the warring factions of the disciples of Wundt created two sorts of revolt: the first, in the form of functionalism, respected consciousness but rejected the "elementism" of the master; the second, in the form of behaviorism, kept the ideal of elementism and eliminated the idea of "consciousness." It was the second revolution which won out in mainline experimental psychology in America, while the functionalist revolution made some headway in the social sciences, but lost out, generally speaking, in the control of the enterprise of experimental psychology. The operationalist takeover was further simplified by the fact that functionalism as a technique could be incorporated into the behaviorist enterprise without incoherence. In the endeavors of philosophical anthropology, the empiricist successors of Aristotle seem increasingly threatened with irrelevance, while the transcendental philosophers seem incapable of maintaining a link with empiricism which would make their endeavors more truly a philosophical anthropology by integrating somehow the human body into their considerations. There is, it seems, more than a hint of dualism in the latter effort. Perhaps a holistic model of human being in the world may contribute a larger context into which transcendental philosophy might be at home. Let us see. In providing such a model, the present thesis maintains that the holistic model belongs in a phenomenological tradition.