Full Synopsis

The full synopsis of my March 2025 Annual Philosophy Lecture was revealed this week:

"In our 2025 Annual Philosophy Lecture, Thomas O. Scarborough presents a two-part lecture on holism. The first part develops a concept of the whole. The second part considers how this applies to various aspects of our modern existence. Dictionary definitions of the whole tend to focus on wholes which have parts. For instance, an engine is a whole; so is a molecule, or an ecosystem. Each, too, has parts. Yet there is another kind of whole, oft neglected. The whole that Scarborough presents has its roots in the ancients.

"Imagine that a scientist writes a symbol on a blackboard. She calls it 'x', and defines it. Suppose now that everything outside x is unnamed and undefined. Now consider something more complex than x. Say, GMm/r². Everything outside G, M, m, and r is now unnamed and undefined. We may expand on this at will.

"The 'unnamed and undefined' constitutes a kind of whole which Lao Tzu called the Nameless: 'The Nameless is the beginning of the ten thousand things.' There is therefore a Whole which lies outside of everything we name and define. All mathematical formulae, all written texts, and anything by which we name and define things, excludes a vastness of things unnamed and undefined – if indeed we may call them 'things'. Now, let us note that we have no control over things unnamed and undefined. This is extremely dangerous – and explains much of our crisis at this juncture in modern history. Yet by understanding the nature of the crisis, we will be in a better position to adapt to it."