 The roots of the contemporary notion of levels of organization and the associated hierarchical thinking are best linked to the efforts of organicist biologists of the early-mid 20th century (for primers on the organicist movement, see Peterson 2014; Nicholson and Gawne 2015). Particularly important to the introduction and development of the levels concept were Joseph Woodger (1929, 1930), Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1928 [1933], 1932), and Joseph Needham (1936, 1937). These individuals were in turn influenced by Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy (see, e.g., Whitehead 1929; Needham 1941).