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The need for integration may be the single most important issue facing social science, the humanities and their sub-disciplines, especially given the scope of the social/behavioral problems facing humanity. One path toward integrating disciplines, sub-disciplines, and micro-macro levels is suggested by Spinoza's idea of part/whole methodology, moving rapidly back and forth between concrete instances and general ideas. Any discipline, sub-discipline or level can serve as a valuable stepping-off place, but to advance further, integration with at least one other viewpoint may be necessary. This essay links three hitherto separate subjects: role-taking, meditation, and a theory of emotion. The idea of role-taking plays a central part in sociological social psychology. Meditation implies the same process in terms of a self able to witness the ego. Drama theories also depend upon a witnessing self that establishes a safe zone for resolving intense emotions. All three approaches imply that the everyday ego is largely automated. In one of her novels, Virginia Woolf suggests three crucial points about automated thought: incredible speed, how it involves role-taking, and by implication, the presence of a witnessing self., LITERARY AND SOCIAL STUDIES: PART/WHOLE METHOD One of the first philosophers of science, Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), outlined what amounts to a method for understanding the human world. He proposed that [...]

Discusses a teaching method used by the author in his college sociology classes. Describes a method of active learning in which students are encouraged to discover interrelationships of parts and wholes on their own. Compares this discovery method to the Montessori method used in elementary education. (DK)