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The holistic principle in general is based upon 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». According to the latter utterance which is the corner stone of physics, the concept of Whole has no ontological meaning. However, in biology the concept of Whole is closely interknitted with structural, functional, and causal relationships between the three hierarchic levels of biological organization: molecular, cellular and morphological (organismic), so that each consecutive level can be considered as a Whole related to the subordinate one. In the frame of the dominating reductionist analysis, the Whole (a living system) is considered as an immediate result of the assembly of its parts, i.e. the living system's macro-properties (e.g. morphological) are totally determined by the micro-properties of the respective parts (portions, components, constituents, fractions, ingredients, elements, etc.) of the corresponding subordinate levels: cellular and, in turn, molecular. In accordance with this, the causation is realized according to the down - up (bottom - top) principle. For example, any species-specific morphological contour must be determined by the shapes of the respective cells constituting this contour (like in the Lego toy). Consequently, the living systems' manifestations are totally reducible to the physical fundamentals, and, hence, the Whole in biology also has neither ontological, nor epistemological meaning. 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 using the vitalistic glossary, such «something» can be considered as an «extra ingredient» additional to the known physical fundamentals. However, due to its bad reputation, the term «vitalism' has become a synonym of something which, in the best sense, is mystical but, in general, is merely «antiscientific'. Therefore, scientifically valid vitalistic principle must be based on a non-tautological definition of the extra ingredient that would become a powerful epistemological tool. Then, the experimental evidence on possible manifestations of the postulated extra ingredient through different levels of the Life phenomenology would prove its existence as an ontological category. The theory of the biological field by A. Gurwitsch, non-reducible to any known physical fields, is an unprecedented attempt of such kind. The strictly defined postulates of the Gurwitschian field have been found fruitful when applied to all the three levels of biological organization. The robust fact inherent to any living system is the absence of isomorphic identity between the living state in its macro-expression and the corresponding processes occurring at the subordinate levels (cellular and molecular), i.e. any interplay between the levels occurs in contrast to the Lego toy principle. Correspondingly, the causation between a living system/s levels is realized according to the up - down (top - bottom) principle. In such frame, apart from the morphological evidence, the enigmatic «binding problem», especially I applied to the visual perception, is of high significance. The problem concerns the discrepancy between the spatially segregated processing of individual features of any perceived object (in separate brain maps) and unitary, integral and coherent perception of the whole dynamically changing world while such things like «central cortical exchange», or «multi-modal association areas» have not been found. This is in contrast to the neuronal theory based on the reductionist principle while fully compatible with the Gurwitsch's field theory.
 

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