Holism
Etymology
From Greek "holos," "whole, entire." The term was coined by the South African statesman and thinker Jan Smuts in his 1926 book “Holism and Evolution,” to name nature’s tendency to form wholes greater than the mere sum of their parts.
noun · /HOH-liz-um/
The view that a system must be understood as a whole, because its behavior cannot be fully explained by its parts taken separately.
What it names
A handle for the truth captured by “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” — that arrangement and relationship can create properties no single component has.
Example
The doctor took a holism-minded view, treating the patient’s sleep, stress, and diet together rather than one symptom at a time.
Related idea
Reductionism is the opposing method, explaining wholes by decomposing them; holism insists that some things are only visible when you keep the whole intact.