ABSTRACT
To many, it smacks of the esoteric. And not only because phonetically it may be much
too close to holier than thou attitudes. Its ontological and conceptual contours are too
vague and fluid for those who prefer their metaphysics clear and demarcated, and their
concepts exact. But as James, Dewey, and the rest of philosophers with holistic temper-
aments show here, we can espouse holism and also have a robust metaphysics and pre-
cise conceptualizations.
