Cultural Holism through Interactional Systems

Holism and empiricism—configurations of symbol and value and observed events of social, economic, and ceremonial organization—can be integrated by operationally defined modeling of systems of interpersonal interaction. Conceptual integration across the sciences treating systems is reviewed, and the convergence of anthropology toward a general systems‐theory of culture is illustrated. Minimal‐sequence models of hunters' sharing, shamanism, African kinship, and modern networks chart human systems, their accompaniments and their emergents . [holism, operationalism, interactionism, systems‐theory, hierarchy]