Part and whole categories

Perceived as antithetical identities; logically expressed as member and set, or object and class, and by some, considered to be philosophical categories. A number of paradoxes raise epistemological issues in part-whole categorization and thus also in class logic, mathematics, language and mental behaviour. Illustrating this are such current phrases as 'the part is greater than the whole', and 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts' (as in holism and synergy), and 'the part is equal to the whole' (as in popular holism).