Literary notes about totality (AI summary)
In literature, "totality" is employed as a multifaceted concept that bridges both the abstract and the concrete. Philosophically, it often signifies an all-encompassing completeness or the unconditioned synthesis of phenomena, as seen in discussions that fuse reason with the comprehensive structure of conditions ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, the term extends to denote the aggregate of natural elements or societal relations, whether referring to the entirety of flora and fauna in a region ([4], [5]) or the interconnected unity of social institutions and human characteristics ([6], [7]). Even in narrative contexts, "totality" can evoke vivid imagery—illustrated by descriptions of a world bathed in light that reinforces a sense of harmonious wholeness ([8]). Thus, across different genres and disciplines, the word conveys an idea of unity that is both abstract and perceptually tangible ([9], [10]).
- This unconditioned is always contained in the absolute totality of the series, when we endeavour to form a representation of it in thought.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - This object is the absolutely unconditioned totality of the synthesis of phenomena.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - The transcendental conception of reason is therefore nothing else than the conception of the totality of the conditions of a given conditioned.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - FAUNA.—The totality of the animals naturally inhabiting a certain country or region, or which have lived during a given geological period.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - FLORA.—The totality of the plants growing naturally in a country, or during a given geological period.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - The “relative” totality of the “relative” relations of the individuals as independent persons to one another in a formal universality— Civil Society .
— from Hegel's Philosophy of Mind by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - For that which makes a man is the totality of the intellectual property which constitutes civilization, and civilization is the work of society.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - Electric light flooded this whole harmonious totality, falling from four frosted half globes set in the scrollwork of the ceiling.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - It is a point moving everywhere with an infinite velocity; for it is one in all places, and is all totality in every place.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal - What our intellect really aims at is neither variety nor unity taken singly but totality.[Footnote: Compare A. Bellanger:
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James
