Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The concept that society or the universe is analogous to a biological organism, as in development or organization.
  • noun The doctrine that the total organization of an organism, rather than the functioning of individual organs, is the principal or exclusive determinant of every life process.
  • noun The theory that all disease is associated with structural alterations of organs.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In pathology, the doctrine of the localization of disease; the theory which refers all disease to material lesions of organs.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) The doctrine of the localization of disease, or which refers it always to a material lesion of an organ.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun philosophy The treatment of society or the universe as if it were an organism
  • noun The theory that the total organization of an organism is more important than the functioning of its individual organs
  • noun dated, medicine The theory that disease is a result of structural alteration of organs

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun theory that the total organization of an organism rather than the functioning of individual organs is the determinant of life processes

Etymologies

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Examples

  • All this is familiar, of course, as is the political organicism which is its corollary.

    Complexity and Order. 2001

  • I still sense that Aster’s implied higher level principles presuppose some kind of organicism here — not that she personally accepts them.

    Shameless Self-promotion Sunday #45 2009

  • Book Made of Forest is exactly that; its poems exhibit a sort of humble, subtle, contemplative organicism that cannot be taught, and that connotes an earnest and unaffected attachment to the natural both literally and aesthetically.

    Seth Abramson: November 2011 Contemporary Poetry Reviews Seth Abramson 2011

  • Book Made of Forest is exactly that; its poems exhibit a sort of humble, subtle, contemplative organicism that cannot be taught, and that connotes an earnest and unaffected attachment to the natural both literally and aesthetically.

    Seth Abramson: November 2011 Contemporary Poetry Reviews Seth Abramson 2011

  • Writing from a Deleuzian perspective, Iain Hamilton Grant distinguishes organicism from the notion of "organization" with which it is associated in Raymond Williams 'Keywords (227-29).

    Notes on ''The Abyss of the Past': Psychoanalysis in Schelling's Ages of the World (1815)' 2008

  • Maybe the International style was less about not emulating biological organicism and more about giving geology a little respect.

    Archive 2007-02-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2007

  • If I've drifted into poor methodology here, the problem is a form of atomism, not organicism.

    Rad Geek People’s Daily – 2009 – April – 05 2009

  • Maybe the International style was less about not emulating biological organicism and more about giving geology a little respect.

    Sticks and Bricks (off-topic Friday) Matthew Guerrieri 2007

  • I think this is a major reason that baroque complexity is added by design to many human systems, games and otherwise: because they are systems which need to simulate adaptability, portability, flexibility, which need to mimic the organicism and mutability of life itself.

    November 2008 2008

  • I think this is a major reason that baroque complexity is added by design to many human systems, games and otherwise: because they are systems which need to simulate adaptability, portability, flexibility, which need to mimic the organicism and mutability of life itself.

    Irreparable Complexity, Game and World 2008

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