ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Henri Bortoft and J. G. Bennett's understandings of wholeness and explains how Bennett's method of progressive approximation is particularly relevant for a phenomenology of place, which as a phenomenon is remarkably complex environmentally and existentially. To make the parts/whole relationship grounded phenomenologically, Bortoft draws on phenomenological philosopher Martin Heidegger's discussion of "belonging together" vs. "belonging together". The chapter emphasizes that, in Bennett's systematics, "system" is defined differently from the standard systems-theory definition of "an integrated set of parts and their relationships." Systematics draws on the interpretive significance of whole numbers to facilitate a deepening familiarity with and understanding of the phenomenon. The chapter reviews the monad and dyad in greater detail. If the monad relates to the phenomenon as a unity marked by diversity, the dyad shifts one's attention to the phenomenon as described by binaries and contrasts.
