Holistic Structuralism, Elementarism and Piaget’s Theory of ‘Relationalism’

Abstract

A key issue dividing holists and elementarists concerns the connection between the whole, its parts, and the relations between the parts. Piaget is sometimes classed as a holist and sometimes as an elementarist but he advocates a third position – relationalism – in which neither the whole is primary, nor the parts, but the relations between the parts. After contrasting holism, elementarism, and Piaget’s relationalism, I then suggest Piaget’s views are close to those of ‘transactionalism’. I then contrast two kinds of structures, those which Piaget calls Gestalt holistic structures and his own operatory structures, the key difference between them being whether the composition laws are additive or not. Piaget’s own version of structuralism (relationalism), therefore, is distinctive in being committed to both transactionalism and additive composition laws.

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