Learn English – Opposite of Holistic

antonymssingle-word-requests

From Oxford Dictionaries

characterized by the belief that the parts of something are intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.

Is there an opposite view for not taking the big picture at face value (accepting that 'face value' is not baked into the definition of holistic), but evaluating the individual components to come to your own conclusion of the big picture 'from first principles'?

For example:

Rather than accepting the 'big picture' conclusion, she used _________ to come to the same conclusion by looking at the individual factors at play, from first principles.

The best I can think of is Critical Thinking or Inductive (?) Reasoning, but both are techniques and not philosophies.

Best Answer

The antonym is atomistic.

Again from ODO:

atomism [noun] mass noun

Philosophy A theoretical approach that regards something as interpretable through analysis into distinct, separable, and independent elementary components.

The opposite of holism

and atomistic: [adjective] [Philosophy] see atomism [ODO]

......

And '... evaluating the individual components to come to your own conclusion of the big picture', which tacitly assumes atomism, is the analytical approach / method:

Analytical Approach

An analytical approach is the use of analysis to break a problem down into the elements necessary to solve it.

[Thwink.org]

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