[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# The Limitations of Hierarchical Organization

## Details

**Authors** Potochnik, Angela and McGill, Brian

**Year** 2012

**Publisher** Philosophy of Science

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Philosophy

**Secondary disciplines** Ecology

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1086/663237) 
10.1086/663237

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To assess the concept of discrete hierarchical levels of organization in science, with ecology as focus.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

Not an empirical study; the concept of levels as used in ecology and philosophy of science.

### How they did it (methods)

Philosophical analysis of difficulties with levels, proposing scale-based analysis of causal processes as an alternative.

### What they found (results)

The authors argue that discrete hierarchical levels face many difficulties that undermine the implications usually drawn from hierarchy. They propose scale, studied through causal processes at different scales, as an alternative that retains a looser notion of quasi-levels.

## Commentary

### In short

An argument that science's talk of discrete levels of organization breaks down, and that analyzing causal processes across scales does the job better.

### Response

The paper bears on systems (nested levels of organization) and relationships (causal processes operating at scales), and argues the part/whole picture needs revision rather than abandonment, since quasi-levels remain. Caveats: only the abstract summary on the preprint record was read; the argument questions strict nesting, so the fit with part-whole structure is partial.

**Patterns it shows** S, R

Formal proof or model

**Added** 2026-10-26

**How to cite this** Potochnik, Angela and McGill, Brian (2012). The Limitations of Hierarchical Organization. Philosophy of Science.