Swerve, Tyche, Singularity

A Singularity is absolutely isolated from any other event, and, so, is absolutely incommensurate with any other event.  So, if Swerve or Tyche is a Singularity, there is a clear moment of rupture with respect to the uniformity from which or to which it deviates.  Now, Differential analysis shows the difficulty in pinpointing such a moment.  But, if there is no such moment, then the difference between Regularity and Irregularity is of degree, not kind.  Thus, the Rectilinear-Swerve relation is of straighter-less straight, and the Repetition-Tyche relation is that of more predictable-less predictable.  So, if Swerve and Tyche are counterexamples to Democritean or Newtonian Physics, it is not as Singularities, but as marginalized possibilities.

Swerve, Tyche, Pragmatism

Probably the closest Modern equivalent of Lucretian Swerve is Peirce's concept of Tyche, i. e. Chance, though there is little evidence of any awareness of his of the precursor.  One structural distinction between the two is that in Swerve, the transition from regularity to irregularity is emphasized, while Peirce is interested in the inverse, though any concept of randomness presupposes antecedent uniformity.  Now, Peirce bases his concept of Pragmatism on Tychism, and not on mere Humean Skepticism, which questions the independence of future events from past regularities without attributing objective deviation to them.  Consequently, instead of merely suspending Certainty, he proposes, as a positive alternative to the latter Epistemological criterion, Probability, always provisional.  Hence, Pragmatism accommodates the possibility of Chance that is common to Swerve and Tyche, i. e. formulates a method of Technical control that respects the ever present possibility of eluding it.

Swerve, Free Will, Creativity

For Epicurus and Lucretius, Clinamen, aka Swerve, explains Free Will.  But, while the concept of a deviation from a rigid path seems to account for liberation from some deterministic influence, it does not quite explain why initiation of the moment seems to be in one's control.  In contrast, a sudden impulse seems more like a real deviation.  Now, another unintended unexpected experience is that of Genius, as Kant characterizes it, the novelty of which becomes embodied in the product of the experience.  In other words, Creativity seems to better exemplify Swerve than does Free Will.

Material Causality, Swerve, Mutation

Deleuze cites the Epicurean concept of Clinamen as a forerunner of his concept of Difference, probably familiar to him via the representation of it by Lucretius, better known these days as Swerve.  The Philosophical significance of these concepts is their independence from the concept of Identity, to which it is otherwise more generally reduced or subordinated.  According to Lucretius, Swerve is a fundamental principle of Nature, to which he attributes experimentation, some results of which anticipate Darwinist concepts, including Adaptation and the Survival of the Fittest.  However, Lucretius does not connect Swerve with the origin of a Species, thereby missing its application to the motor of Evolution--Mutation.  But despite the more recent growing prominence of Darwinism, that application remains beyond the ken of the Philosophical mainstream, which, even when the significance of Evolution is recognized, struggles to explain it with accepted concepts such as Efficient Causality, Teleological Causality, or even Emergence.  In contrast, Mutation is an instance of Material Causality, so the latter is more adequate to the concept of Evolution than any of the traditional alternatives.

Material Causality, Dissemination, Difference

Even though every Philosopher who publishes or even teaches engages in an act of Dissemination, the only explicit treatment of the concept, Derrida's, is generally considered to be extrinsic to Philosophy proper.  But less easy to similarly marginalize is one of Derrida's earliest innovations, the concept of what he calls 'Differance', but which is essentially an active version of a concept that most Philosophers recognize as having Logical pedigree, Difference, some of the implications of which are developed by Derrida's colleague Deleuze.  But, while Dissemination can be conceived as derived from Difference, i. e. as simultaneous multiple acts of differentiation, the entailment of multiplicity indicates more than mere separation.  That entailment signifies, rather, Diversification, of a quantitative variety.  Thus, rather than Dissemination being derived from Difference, Difference is abstracted from Dissemination, i. e. from Diversification.  So, it is Derrida's later innovation that more closely approximates to the concept of Material Causality than does either his earlier one or Deleuze's development of the latter, a shortcoming that is a function of the limits of Structuralism, which is the general context of the studies of each.

Material Causality, Dissemination, Publication

Because Derrida has had very little impact on contemporary mainstream American Philosophy, one of his interests, the concept of Dissemination, is not usually classified as 'Philosophy'.  So, not much consideration is typically given to the relevance of the concept to a more traditional one such as Kant's concept of Genius, one dimension of which, the impulse to creating an exemplary work, can be analyzed as an impulse to making it disseminable.  But, Kant himself preempts any such analysis by shifting focus to the "communicability" of the judgments of works of Genius.  Now, closer to an explicit treatment of Dissemination, and a likely source of inspiration for Derrida, is the subtitle of Thus Spoke Zarathustra--A Book for Everyone and No One.  But, though that subtitle is generally considered to be of specialized interest, it connotes a factor that is central to virtually the entire history of Philosophy, and, yet, has been otherwise completely ignored.  For, any publication, in any medium, by any Philosopher, is an act of Dissemination, the frequent irony of which being when the content of a work is oblivious to or questions the existence of others, e. g. The Meditations.  Now, Dissemination is a process of making Multiple an original Unity.  Hence, Dissemination is an example of Material Causality, so the unrecognized Philosophical relevance of the former is that of the latter, as well.

Material Causality, Body, Psychology

One of the important applications of Aristotle's concept of Matter as inert is to the bodies of otherwise animate entities including Humans, an application that has significant ramifications for any concept of Psychology.  Accordingly, if, as has been proposed here, Matter is conceived instead as inherently dynamic, i. e. as a process of increasing Multiplicity, or, in other words, as Material Causality, then the Human Body is immanently dynamic independently of the Formal Causality that he, and the subsequent tradition, attribute to Mind.  On that basis, the Motility of an animate entity can be conceived as an instance of Material Causality, with autonomous motor functions emanating from the brain to the extremities, e. g. legs, arms, etc.  Accordingly, that motivation is an essential factor in any behavior, and, hence, must be recognized as such in a theory of Psychology.  Thus, for example, ordinary experiences such as an urge to exercise, boredom, and wanderlust, are expressions of an independent vital principle, and, so, are not in themselves Psychologically trivial.  Likewise, organic Health therefore consists in a Mind-Body balance from which concepts of Psychological Health and Mental Health are derived, not independent of or prior to.

Material Causality and Centrifugal Force

'Centrifugal' means 'away from a Center', while 'Centripetal' means 'towards a Center'.  Likewise, Centrifugal Force connotes Causality from a point, while Centripetal Force connotes Causality towards a point.  Now, while the former has not been shown to be impossible, in Modern Physics, it is generally treated as fictional, based on some scenarios in which what appears to be Centrifugal Force is proven to be Centripetal Force.  Thus, any association of Centrifugal Force with events such as a Big Bang, or Universe-Expansion, has precluded by the generalization of that limited sample.  However, Material Causality consists in motion of indefinite direction away from a point, so provides the concept of Centrifugal Force a systematic ground.  Thus, any generalization of that Force as fictional is unjustified, and, perhaps, is a hindrance to fruitful application of it.

Material Causality and Extra-Terrestrial Travel

A paradox of Aristotle's system is that in it, the Geometric Center is the Earth, but the Causal Center is located at the Geometric Circumference, i. e. its Telos, the Unmoved Mover.  Accordingly, the primary ambition of his Ethics is to make explicit that orientation in Human behavior, i. e. via the cultivation of the divine component of the Human Psyche, its Rationality.  Now, Modern Heliocentrism may destroy that Teleology, but not necessarily the Earth-to-Heaven Causality that Aristotle detects as a Human Psychological principle.  For, as subsequent history has shown, extra-terrestrial travel has been one, if not the primary, consequence of that Heliocentrism.  But, the Causality that best explains that drive is the inverse of Teleological Causality, the pattern of which is an emanation away from the the Earth, rather than towards the sky--Material Causality, as defined here, not as defined by Aristotle.  So, his Psychological insight is compromised by a shortcoming of his Physics, i. e. he correctly detects the heavens-ward orientation of Human behavior, but can interpret it it only Teleologically.

Material Causality and Heliocentrism

The inverse of Teleological Causality is generally conceived to be Efficient Causality, since the former closes a process, while the latter initiates it.  So, just as Heliocentrism inverts the traditional Earth-Heavens relation of Geocentricism, in Modern Physics, Efficient Causality replaces Teleological Causality as predominant.  However, there is a respect in which the former is not the inverse of the latter.  For, as Whitehead reminds in his correspondence of Concrescence and Telos, Teleological Causality effects a Unity of a Multiplicity, whereas Efficient Causality consists in a mere sequence of Units.  Furthermore, as is, the Aristotelian quartet lacks any inverse of a Multiplicity-Unity relation.  However, the revision of Material Causality that has been proposed here consists in precisely such an inverse, i. e. a principle of Diversification, with Unity as its initial stage.  Accordingly, if there is an inversion of Causality that corresponds to the replacement of Geocentrism by Heliocentrism, it is that of Teleological Causality by this revised Material Causality, which, in Whitehead's system, might be called Discrescence.

Material Causality and Eden

Some Philosophers have studied the question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?', but none has considered 'Why if there is something, are there many things?'  The latter is of Theological import in the case of a deity to whom Perfection is attributed, but nevertheless proceeds to create beyond itself.  It is of potential further Theological import insofar as a creature that has been created 'in the image' of the deity is likewise dissatisfied with Perfection, e. g. dissatisfied with an Edenic existence.  One solution is that one of the attributes of the deity is Material Causality, the principle of Diversification, or, equivalently, of Creativity, so that entailed in Perfection is creating beyond itself.  On that basis, a second Theological question that arises is 'Why does a Creator become angry when a creature that it has created in its own image itself begins to create beyond sufficient circumstances?', e. g. the central drama of Genesis 3.  Now, Spinoza has the resources to pose and answer both of these questions--with the divine Attribute of Extension interpreted as Material Causality, and instantiated in each of the Modes of divine Substance.  Accordingly, Modal Creativity is equivalent to the instantiation of Substance. However, perhaps out of prudence in circumstances that are already hostile to his heterodoxy, he leaves undeveloped the implication of his doctrine that Modal Material Causality--Creativity beyond Edenic sufficiency--does not merit the divine anger that is the decisive factor in the orthodoxy.  In any case, an answer to the otherwise unaddressed question is--the reason why there is not only something but many things is that inherent in any something is a principle of Diversification.

Material Causality and Creativity

Philosophers seem to have struggled with the concept of Creativity.  For example, none of the various attempts to reconcile Philosophy with the Abrahamic Theological tradition, including Spinoza's, begins with the foundational premise of Genesis--divine creation.  Kant tacitly acknowledges Creativity in his concept of Genius, but only as a process that requires constraint, i. e. by Taste.  Nietzsche could replace Schopenhauer's Will to Live with a Will to Create, and possibly does in the few passages in which it is presented as a Will to Empowerment.  But the predominant treatment of his replacement is as a Will to Overpower, thereby obscuring the original potential of a Will to Create.  Now, Creativity is an explicit feature of Whitehead's system, though it is eventually subordinated to its final phase, Concrescence.  Still, that shift of focus is instructive.  For, it reflects the limits of Whitehead's conceptual resources--Efficient Causality and Teleological Causality--which impose upon Creativity an emphasis on its first and last phases, to the neglect of the process as a whole.  Instead, Creativity can be recognized as a diversification of given circumstances, and, hence, as exemplifying Material Causality, as defined here, with Formal Causality the complementary source of any internal coherence.  So, the traditional inadequacy of Philosophy to the concept of Creativity is perhaps a concrete correlate of its unawareness, beginning with Aristotle, of the concept of Material Causality

Material Causality and Extension

Spinoza repudiates Teleological Causality, and classifies divine creativity as Efficient Causality.  But how the latter, which since Aristotle has entailed a substantive distinction between Cause and Effect, can obtain in the case of a single Substance is unclear.  Now, his Substance is immanently dynamic. So, what he calls an 'attribute', which usually connotes a static property a-temporally possessed by a static substratum, is better expressed as 'power', as it is rendered at Ethics, II, vii.  Thus, Substance's Attribute of Thought is better expressed as the Power of Thinking, and its Attribute of Extension is better expressed as the Power of Extending, or equivalently, as Spinoza presents it at Ethics, II, vii, "action".  But, as has been previously discussed, to extend is to vary a given, i. e. by adding to it, and, hence, can be classified as Material Causality, as defined here.  Meanwhile, insofar as the function of Thinking is to maintain connectivity in creativity, it can be classified as Formal Causality.  Hence, his Parallelism consists in Formal Causality-Material Causality complementarity, usually recognized as Form-Matter complementarity.  Accordingly, the Knowledge by which, in his doctrine, passivity is transformed into activity, is not contemplative, but technical, i. e. consisting in how one might effectively conduct oneself.  Conceiving this crucial phase of his doctrine as Empowerment is difficult on the basis of traditional interpretations of Efficient Causality and Extension.

Material Causality and Empowerment

As has been previously discussed, Freeing Will is an instance of Material Causality, two notable examples of which are Kant's Categorical Imperative and Nietzsche's Affirmation of Eternal Recurrence.  A third, less concisely formulated, but clearly expressed, is the final two stages of Spinoza's Ethics, consisting in a transition from "Bondage" to "Freedom".  The cause of this transition is objective Knowledge of the Emotions, one variety of which, Intuition, is relatively obscure, but the role of the other, Reason, anticipates contemporary Psychotherapeutic techniques.  Now, Spinoza equates gaining such Knowledge with gaining Power over one's conduct.  Hence, Material Causality in all three cases effects Empowerment, a process that is otherwise difficult to recognize in the absence of that concept, as is the function of a Philosopher as other than reinforcing Theology, consoling, or analyzing language.

Material Causality, Categorical Imperative, Eternal Recurrence

Distinguishable are: 1. Free Will--Volition that is not the effect of a prior external cause; 2. Freeing Will--Volition that seeks liberation from some condition; 3. Freed Will--Free Will that has resulted from Freeing Will. #1 is the concept that is involved in the traditional Free Will vs. Determinism debate.  #2 is, as been previously discussed, an instance of Material Causality.  So, #3 is Free Will that has resulted from Material Causality.  Now, the distinctions can be applied to two important concepts of Modern Philosophy.  For, Kant's Fundamental Principle of Pure Practical Reason, aka The Categorical Imperative, is an example of a formula of a Freeing Will that can liberate Volition from heteronomous influences, facilitating a freedom to choose, e. g. between false promising and refraining from false promising.  Similarly, Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence is a formulation which when affirmed can liberate Volition from Ressentiment, to function creatively.  Both are examples of Material Causality, and, when recognized as such, can be more clearly distinguished from the Freed Will that results.  Thus, Kant's distinction between 'Wille' and 'Willkur' is that between Freeing Will and Freed Will, as is the distinction between Affirming Eternal Recurrence and Will to Power in Nietzsche's doctrine.

Material Causality and Freeing Will

Hume's concept of Constant Conjunction does not apply to Material Causality, because the latter consists in a Disjunction.  Likewise, Material Causality is a process of Dissociation, so is not reducible to the relation of Association that is a fundamental thesis of Atomism.  To the contrary, Atomists tend to ignore that it is via a process of Dissociation that their Atoms are first produced, e. g. the process by which Descartes isolates the Cogito, and the process by which Empiricists isolate a Sense-Datum.  Now, Dissociation can not only be applied to some external object, it can also obtain in personal experience, e. g. departure, emigration, divorce, escape, etc.  In such cases, a liberation from antecedent conditions is effected, often deliberately.  In other words, in such cases, Material Causality functions as a freeing Will, which is not to be confused with the standard concept of a Free Will.  But, the latter might presuppose a Freeing Will, by which liberation from prior conditions is first established.  However, Freeing Will is not part of the standard Free Will vs. Determinism debate, and, thus, nor is Material Causality.  In other words, the argument for neither side of that debate applies to the concept of Material Causality.

Material Causality and Skepticism

The concept of Material Causality is not affected by two well-known expressions of Skepticism.  The first is Hume's, according to which Causal Connection is no more than a Constant Conjunction.  But that analysis does not apply to Material Causality, which can obtain in a single sequence, without any generality attributed.  Rather, as Deleuze has shown, any sequence of terms, even a repetition, involves differentiation in some respect, even merely numerical, and, so, instantiates Material Causality.  Indeed, Hume's own concept of a Conjunction is nothing but one such sequence, and, so, his Skepticism presupposes Material Causality.  Second, a more recent analysis, presented, for other purposes, by both Wittgenstein and Goodman, implies that a variation is indistinguishable from a fulfillment, in which case, Material Causality is indistinguishable from Teleological Causality.  But a fulfillment, e. g. maturation, still entails a distinction between an earlier phase and a later phase, and, hence, entails Material Causality.  So, since there are sequences in which what is dubious is the conception of the later term as a completion of the earlier, and not merely its successor, Teleological Causality is a special case of Material Causality, and not contrary to it.  So, such Skepticism accepts Material Causality, even if it does not recognize it as such.

Material Causality and Evolution

One potentially fruitful application of the concept of Material Causality that has been proposed here is to Evolutionism.  Teleological Causality consists in a transition from imperfection to perfection, so hardly seems applicable to any of the transitions that have been classified as an Evolutionary step, i. e. even the most devoted Anthropocentrist might have difficulty attributing perfection to the 'crown of creation'.  Nor does Formal Causality or Aristotle's version of Material Causality seem to have an applicability to e. g. the development of the Human thumb.  So, any substantive debate on the topic has focused on whether or not the predominant Causality of Modern Science--Efficient--is adequate to Evolutionary transitions, and, specifically, to apparently unprecedented phenomena.  The debate at bottom is--the novelty of the phenomena is only apparent, a reflection of a lack of comprehension of how the consequences are, in fact, implicit in antecedent conditions vs. the novelty is truly emergent, irreducible to the sum of antecedent constituents.  But neither side is satisfactory--the former begs the question, while the latter, as is, is no more than ad hoc and nominal.  Now, lacking in the debate is an analysis of the concept of Evolution, constituent stages of which include Mutation, and, hence, Variation.  But Variation is Diversification, the principle of which, as has been previously discussed, is Material Causality, which, as implicit in well-established Philosophical concepts, cannot be dismissed as ad hoc and nominal.  Instead, the concept of Evolution, with which Philosophers are only beginning to reckon, occasions the recovery of a type of Causality that hitherto has remained only implicit but undeveloped, and, hence, unbeknownst in the tradition.

Matter and Causality

Aristotle conceives Matter as inherently inert.  Nevertheless, he seems unaware that it follows that a concept of Material Causality is, if not contradictory, at least problematic.  Now, in Modern Science and Philosophy, Matter is conceived as not inherently stable, e. g. evincing Repulsion and Attraction, or concrete Contradiction and Synthesis, for example.  But, that Attraction and Synthesis can each be classified as a Formal Cause indicates that Matter is still the locus of Causality, not itself Causal.  So, that 'material cause' is merely nominal persists, thereby opening the phrase to an analysis of its derivation.  But such an analysis exposes the underlying problem with the concept, a methodological problem that even Aristotle does not notice--no definition of 'Matter' any clearer than vague 'stuff'.  Now, the correction of that problem has been proposed here, beginning with the generally accepted concept of the Form-Matter relation as that of Unity-Multiplicity, from which can be derived the definition of Material Cause as Diversification.  The application of that definition to Biology has already been discussed, and concepts such as the Big Bang and expanding universe suggest applicability to Physics and Astronomy, as well.

Material Causality and Extension

The concept of Material Causality, previously introduced, connotes immanent dynamic increase.  Now, insofar as 'extension' signifies a given, fixed multiplicity, e. g. three-dimensional Space, it does not exemplify Material Causality.  But, insofar as 'extension' is used as a participle, signifying an immanent development, it does exemplify Material Causality.  Thus, Descartes' concept of Extension, the dominant one in Modern Philosophy, connoting given, fixed three-dimensionality, does not exemplify Material Causality.  However, Spinoza's concept of Extension, an Attribute of immanent, dynamic Substance, perhaps a descendent of Plotinus' concept of Emanation, might exemplify Material Causality, though Spinoza does not elaborate on his use of the term sufficiently to confirm that divergence from the Cartesian concept.  However, whether or not he explicitly intends it as such, his concept of Modification does exemplify Material Causality.  For, his Modes are the products of Modification, and a specific human is the example of a Mode that is most important in his doctrine.  But, a specific human is a product of procreation, which, as has been previously discussed, is an instance of Material Causality.  Thus, his concept of Modification does exemplify Material Causality, which he misses not because the concept of Material Causality is unknown to him, but because, he glosses Variation as Individuation.  That is, he does not recognize that procreation is a process of a varying of the species, not merely a process of producing a new individual member that is independent of any other such process, which is what the concept Individuation connotes.  Likewise, therefore, insofar as Extension is an immanent dynamic Modification of the given, it, too, exemplifies Material Causality, thereby calling into question Spinoza's apparent exclusive commitment to Efficient Causality.

Material Causality, Procreation, DNA

One of the most significant examples of Material Causality is one of the recent discoveries in Biology via the microscope.  This is DNA, one of the fundamental constituents of a Cell, responsible for multiple developmental processes.  In many multi-cellular organisms, including humans, DNA is transmitted via the procreative process.  And, as has become very well known, DNA testing is among the primary means of identifying a person.  In other words, DNA is ingredient in procreation, and is a source of differentiating people.  Together, the two functions indicate that Procreation is determined by a principle of Diversification, and, hence, is an instance of Material Causality, previously defined.  But, in the context of an ideology that promotes social Individuality or Singularity, i. e. that promotes the essential mutual independence of its members, that character of Procreation cannot be recognized.  For, Diversification entails not independence but relativity, i. e. difference-from, and, hence, is antithetical to such an ideology.  Thus, recognized or not, the by now familiar practice of DNA testing exposes a shortcoming of such ideology, while demonstrating the potential importance of the revision of the concept of Material Causality that has been proposed here.

Material Causality, Biology, Physics

The Form-Matter relation is that of Unity-Multiplicity.  Thus, Formal Causality can be defined as the process of unifying a multiplicity.  Likewise, Material Causality can be defined as an increase in the variety within some unity.  Thus, the standard Philosophical concept of Material Cause, originating with Aristotle, in which Matter is conceived as inert and passive, falsifies Material Causality.  As does Dialectical Materialism, which even though it conceives Matter as dynamic, still conceives it as governed by a Formal principle, i. e. Synthesis.  Now, Material Causality is an essential factor in Biology--Reproduction, Variation, Biodiversity, etc.  And so is Formal Causality, notably as unifying the parts of an Organism.  However, Physics has been dominated by either Efficient Causality or Teleological Causality.  Thus, the correct concept of Material Causality further demonstrates the inadequacy of Physics to Biology, or, equivalently, the reduction of the latter to the former.

Cell, Physics, Philosophy

While the microscope has expanded the scope of Physics, it has also exposed its limits.  For, among its discoveries has been the Cell, which, as a discrete unity of a manifold, one inherent capacity of which is self-replication, seems irreducible to any laws of Physics, Modern or Ancient.  The Cell seems to pose a challenge to also Spinoza's doctrine.  For, a Cell is either Substance itself, or a Mode of Substance.  But, since there is only one Substance in the doctrine, but there plainly exists a great number of Cells, of varying complexity, the former cannot be the case.  On the other hand, that a Mode is Cellular is not immediately incoherent, but still requires some adjustments of the doctrine.  For example, that equivalence might entail that the dynamic immanent creativity of Substance is essentially Modular, with Extension more accurately a progressive creation of Modes, expanding like the process of Emanation that some scholars believe is the inspiration for the doctrine.  But even if such adjustments are feasible, left unexplained is the converse of the problem that confronts Physics--how inanimate entities are derived from an animate one such as a Cell.  Bergson's attempted explanation--that Life degenerates--leaves unaccounted for why such a fate can befall a force that is infinitely persistent, which would require an additional principle, e. g. Entropy.  So, the microscope has led to a discovery that is problematic for both Physics and Philosophy.

Atomism and Adequacy

A Philosophical method must be adequate to its object of investigation.  For example, Logical Atomism is adequate to any object of investigation that is constituted by irreducibly simple basic particles that are essentially mutually independent.  So, Logical Atomism might be adequate to Physical Atomism, such as Newtonian Physics.  And, it might be adequate to a Physics that, following the microscopic discovery of a manifold within the erstwhile simplest particle, isolates new simplest particles within the manifold.  But, the standard characterization of these constituents obscures the inadequacy of the method that informs it.  For, though they are characterized as 'charged particles', they are charges, i. e. forces, not 'particles' at all. Furthermore, insofar as Charge is either Positive or Negative, they are not inherently mutually independent.  Now, microscopic investigation has discovered an entity that is, in one respect, irreducibly simple--the Cell.  But, Logical Atomism is inadequate to this entity because the latter contains within it a capacity to reproduce.  Thus, if any Atomism is adequate to this Biological Atom, it is Dialectical Atomism.  Nevertheless, despite these established inadequacies, Logical Atomism remains a predominant method in contemporary Philosophy, i. e. qua Analytic Philosophy, which presupposes the irreducibility and face value of, e. g. common utterances.

Microscope and Atomism

Kant's characterization of one of his Epistemological innovations as a 'Copernican Revolution' implicitly signifies a recognition of the influence of the invention of the modern telescope.  He might also have characterized another of his innovations as a 'Galilean inversion'--his thesis that a manifold of data is synthesized in an apparently simple perception could be drawn from the revelation of a heterogeneity constituting an apparently simple homogeneity, thanks to the invention of the modern microscope.  Another possible influence of that invention is reflected in his Second Antinomy--the possibility of the existence of no smallest particle, or, equivalently, the possibility that the universe is not only infinitely large, but infinitely small, as well.  Such a possibility is rarely considered in Philosophical systems, e. g. Spinoza does not seem to consider that Nature is infinite in that direction, and, hence, that the Human world obtains somewhere in between, with no distinguishing characteristic other than that of happening to be the object of its inhabitants.  One Philosophical principle that has remained indifferent to the implications of microscopic discovery is Logical Atomism, which persists in not recognizing that its Physical basis has become obsolete, thereby exposing the groundlessness of the corresponding methodology.  Likewise, any presumption of finitude in Analytic Philosophy, i. e. that ultimate Atoms can be isolated, is arbitrary.

Immanent, Inner, Theology

Though 'immanent' and 'inner' are literally synonymous, the former is antithetical to 'transcendent', while the latter is often conceived as, if not synonymous with it, at least coextensive with it.  The confusion is patent in the reaction to the displacement by Heliocentrism of the erstwhile deity from the physical heavens.  Generally, the relocation of the deity has been to some interior realm.  But, while the subsequent deity is immanent for Spinoza, for virtually everyone else it is inner, and transcendent, e. g. not only those for whom the deity is an object of faith, but for the likes of Descartes, for whom a causal or a logical connection mediates the deity-believer relation.  Later, Kant further complicates the original Immanent-Inner equivalence, by introducing additional nuances between 'inner', 'transcendent', 'transcendental', and 'noumenal'.  But initial apparent safe haven for the deity from the eye of the telescope has become replaced by increasing vulnerability to microscopic vision and its refinements.  For, among the recent discoveries in the inner realm is the physical storage capacity of Memory, thereby refuting the attempt of Bergson to associate Memory and Spirituality, and DNA, which is evidence of what the transcendent Theology is primarily designed to escape from--the immutable membership of a person in the Human species.  Furthermore, also contrary to the premises of that Theology, Human DNA is also evidence of a close kinship with other Species, just as Darwin proposes.  So, while the looser concept of 'inner' continues to predominate culturally, the evidence is increasingly supportive of the more rigorous concept.

Synergy and Labor Theory of Value

A notable historical example of Synergy is Smith's illustration of the advantage of Division of Labor.  According to him, in a pin factory, dividing the manufacture of a pin into 18 specialized tasks is 50 times more productive than each worker producing one pin at a time.  Thus, regardless of the mechanical character of this type of Organization of Labor, the Whole is significantly greater than the some of its Parts.  But, if the Labor Theory of Value is correct, and if, presumably, the exertion of an individual worker is the same in both contexts, the corresponding increase of Value of the productivity of the work-force can be attributable only to the source of the organizational scheme.  However, it is unclear how proponents of the LTV, which Smith is in at least some passages, incorporate a Synergic analysis into it.  For example, an organizational scheme is easy to conceive as the product of intellectual Labor, but Marx does not seem to recognize it as such, and, hence, he does not consider that his inclusion of 'intellectual' Labor within the Division of Labor abstracts from the Labor expended by an intellect in devising a scheme which entails such a differentiation of tasks.  So, in these prominent cases, there is little indication of explicit attention to Synergy in Economic Theory, even where its involvement is plain and efficacious.

Synergy and Capitalism

A Division of Labor presupposes a systemization of labor, and, hence, a Whole that is greater than the sum of its Parts.  In other words, Division of Labor connotes a Holistic concept.  On the other hand, the pursuit of exclusively personal profit is an Atomist concept.  Thus, a contradiction in Smith's system that seems to escape the notice of Marxists is between the promotion of a Division of Labor and the promotion of the personal profit-motive.  But this contradiction is not merely abstract--it is a source of psychological tension wherever Capitalism predominates, often resolved by the repression of the Holistic influence.  Now, as has been previously discussed, Synergy consists in a collective activity that is greater than the sum of its Parts.  Thus, one reason that the Synergic character of the Human species is not more widely recognized is the predominance of Economic systems that require its repression in order to be effective.

Genius, Dionysian, Synergy

As has been previously discussed, a super-person elevation is common to Kant's experience of Genius and Nietzsche's of the Dionysian principle.  In the case of former, the source of inspiration is "nature", while in the latter, at least at that stage of Nietzsche's development, the source is equivalent to Schopenhauer's "will to live".  Hence, neither considers that the experience is a specifically Human one.  Furthermore, neither examines the possibility of collective diversity involved in the experience.  Kant might have noticed the artist-audience relation by transposing it to the context of a Human History that he develops elsewhere, i. e. how the artistic experience functions as a motor of historical development.  Nietzsche does recognize that the Dionysian experience is collective, but restricting the scope of his analysis of it to the individual celebrant or to a composer, he misses the possibility of collective Genius, e. g. how an orchestra might be so elevated.  In other words, neither considers how the elevated artistic experience can be Synergic, with the Whole that is greater than the some of its Parts a Human collective, or, equivalently, an Organism, as has been previously discussed.

Whole, Parts, Synergy

There are probably four main explanations of the concept of a Whole that is greater than the sum of its Parts. 1) Atomist: the inequality is only apparent, involving an inadequate concept of all the relations involved, e. g. a Chemical reaction taken to be more than an association of Mechanical causalities. 2) Emergent: under certain conditions, a Multiplicity can merge into a novel Unity, e. g. Dialectical Logic.  3) Formal: components are ordered according to some pattern, rather than merely conjoined, e. g. Kant's Categories.  4) Organicist: the Parts are diversifications of a vital Whole, combining productively, e. g. species procreation.  So, insofar as Synergy connotes a Whole that is greater than the sum of its Parts, it is open to any one of these explanations.  For example, #4 applies to Synergy that is involved in a concept of a History of a Species, e. g. the principle of which is Evolution.