Early scientific thinking was holistic, but speculative — the modern scientific temper reacted by being empirical, but atomistic. Neither is free from error, the former because it replaces factual inquiry with faith and insight, and the latter because it sacrifices coherence at the altar of facticity. We witness today another shift in ways of thinking: the shift toward rigorous but holistic theories. This means thinking in terms of facts and events in the context of wholes, forming integrated sets with their own properties and relationships,

p. 19; As cited in: Bela H. Banathy (1996) Designing social systems in a changing world. p. 156. - Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972)