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Also called atomic theory. Philosophy. the theory that minute, discrete, finite, and indivisible elements are the ultimate constituents of all matter.
Psychology. a method or theory that reduces all psychological phenomena to simple elements.
Contemporary Examples

Such a committee can judge people in full, not as an atomistic collection of receipts and isolated life events.
Appoint Real People, Not Saints Philip K. Howard March 24, 2009

Historical Examples

A deeper insight into the relations prevailing here is offered from the atomistic point of view.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 Various

Education needs to shift from the atomistic view that isolates subjects from the whole of reality to a holistic perspective.
The Civilization of Illiteracy Mihai Nadin

But the basic structure of Shoshone society remained diffuse and atomistic.
Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society Robert F. Murphy

This atomistic view of nature can not, for one moment, be regarded as or explained by an error of the reason.
The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures Frederick von Schlegel

Its defects lie in its “atomistic view of industry and politics.”
The I.W.W. Paul Frederick Brissenden

The revolution, the atomistic revolution, is inevitable: but what are those smallest indivisible elements of human society?
Thoughts Out of Season (Part II) Friedrich Nietzsche

Democritus, the laughing philosopher, founder of the atomistic theory, 5th century B. C.
A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) Augustus de Morgan

This atomistic hypothesis goes furthest of all the different views as to the extension of consciousness.
The Riddle of the Universe at the close of the nineteenth century Ernst Haeckel

His theory of experience, therefore, closely parallels the atomistic theory of matter.
Pragmatism D.L. Murray

noun
an ancient philosophical theory, developed by Democritus and expounded by Lucretius, that the ultimate constituents of the universe are atoms See atom (sense 3)

any of a number of theories that hold that some objects or phenomena can be explained as constructed out of a small number of distinct types of simple indivisible entities
any theory that holds that an understanding of the parts is logically prior to an understanding of the whole Compare holism (sense 3)

(psychol) the theory that experiences and mental states are composed of elementary units
adj.

1809, in reference to the classical philosophical doctrine of atomism (1670s); modern philosophical sense (logical atomism) traces to 1914 and Bertrand Russell.