SUMMARY

The holistic principle is based on the dictum "the Whole is greater than the sum of its parts", as opposed to the reductionist antithesis "the Whole - its unique properties - can be ultimately and completely reduced to the properties of its parts". The concept of the Whole in biology is usually associated with the morphological level. Then, in the frame of the dominating reductionist analysis, the "macroproperties" of the Whole are totally determined by the "microproperties" of its respective parts (portions, components, constituents, fractions, ingredients, elements etc.) expressed on the corresponding subordinate levels: cellular and, in turn, molecular. Hence, the causation is realized according to the down-up (bottom-top) principle, i.e. the living systems’ manifestations are totally reducible to the physical fundamentals. As opposed to that, according to the holistic principle, there is an unsplittable "something" which is associated only with the "complete" Whole. If the holistic principle is expressed by the vitalistic glossary, such "something" can be considered as an "extra ingredient" additional to the known physical fundamentals. The theory of biological field by A. Gurwitsch, non-reducible to any known physical fields, is an attempt to impart to the concept of Whole the ontological meaning. The strictly defined postulates of the Gurwitschian field have ontological and epistemological meaning and would be a powerful tool for scientific exploration of biological phenomenology (including the enigmatic problem of consciousness) according to the up-down (top-bottom) principle of causation.

Key words: gnoselology, vitalism, Gurwitschian field