Some remarks on wholes, parts and their perception : target article be Latimer on part-whole-perception

We emphasize the relativity of wholes and parts in whole/part perception, and suggest that consideration must be given to what the terms "whole" and "part" mean, and how they relate in a particular context. A formal analysis of the part/whole relationship by Rescher & Oppenheim, (1955) is shown to have a unifying and clarifying role in many controversial issues including illusions, emergence, local/global precedence, holistic/analytic processing, schema/feature theories and "smart mechanisms". The logic of direct extraction of holistic properties is questioned, and attention drawn to vagueness of reference to wholes and parts which can refer to phenomenal units, physiological structures or theoretical units of perceptual analysis.