"one of the most important tasks of Renaissance philosphy and mathematics was the creation, step by step, of the conditions for a new concept of space. The task was to replace aggregate space by system space ." (Cassirer, Individual and Cosmos p.182) (cf smooth / striated) (cf perspective )
Kant's ideas about unity related the systematic unity demanded of knowledge to the distinctive feature of organisms, including the world as a whole. Both are internally organized and not mere aggregations of their parts. " Natural forms" must be recognized as a special kind of being: a unified self-contained structure. For Kant a priori principles distinguish systems from aggregates, and the human mind must necessarily aim at bringing about a system of empirical laws.
According to Kant, when nature proceeds mechanically, its products are mere aggregates. But when it proceeds technically as well, for example in relation to crystals, plants, and animals, nature proceeds not as mere nature but as an artist. Thus we can give a mechanical explanation, according to objective principles, and at the same time give a technical estimation (Beurteilung) according to the subjective principles of reflection. For Kant, our understanding (as opposed to judgement) knows only the mechanical principle, which regards the parts of any whole as unrelated to one another and to the whole to which they belong. The idea of a logical system of nature is a subjective principle of reflection.
In Chapt. 27 of his second edition of the Essay on Human Understanding, John Locke differentiated the mechanical aggregate or "mass" from the organic body, which continues to be the same entity while its constituent particles are replaced.
The theories of gestalt oppose form, as "organized structure" to heaps or aggregates.
The emphasis on aggregate behaviour in complex adaptive systems, on emergence, and on organisms, might be seen as a contemporary return of aggregate space, although it may be more accurate to think of their systematic aspects in terms of organismic fields. What concepts describe the coherence of a "flock," for example?