Systems Concepts

Understanding the world requires one to understand at least some of the fundamental systems contained within it, along with some of the key theories, concepts, and principles underlying them. Even a simple organization is an open system whereby material, information, and energy are exchanged with its environment as some material or ideas are transformed into outputs or goods or services. For example, a coffee shop serves as a concrete example of an open system. Coffee beans are purchased by the coffee shop along with water, electricity, milk, etc. Coffee is ground and expressed, milk is steamed, and coffee and milk are combined to create a drink called espresso, which is then sold to customers. Waste products include extra heat energy from the building, used water, as well as coffee grounds. This simple model of a system can be used to explore societies, cities, ant colonies, technology, and the economy in detail. The journey of learning about general, complex, and evolutionary systems is just ahead.

To prepare for this Discussion, review the resources and reflect upon your perceptions of general systems theory with application to organizations.

an explanation of how you think the concept of systems might affect your understanding of organizations with respect to your understanding of leadership and management. Finally explain how you see this concept shaping the way you lead and/or manage.

VOUM«2 April 1956 Management Science SYSTEVIS THEORY—THE SKELETON OF SCIENCE KENNETH E. BOULDING University of Michigan General Systems Theoryi is a name which has come into use to describe a level of theoretical model-building which lies somewhere between the highly generaiiwd constructions of pure mathematics and the specific theories of the specialized diaaplines. Mathematics attempts to organize highly general relationships into a coherent system, a system however which does not have any necessary connections with the “real” world around us. It studies all thinkable relationships abstracted from any concrete situation or body of empirical knowledge. It is not even confined to “quantitative” relationships narrowly defined—indeed, the developments of a mathematira of quality and structure is akeady on the way, even though it is not as far advanced as the “classical” mathematics of quantity mi number. Neverthelras because in a sense mathematics contains aU theories itcontaiifflnone;itisthelanguageof theory,butitdoesnotgive us the content. At the other extreme we have the separate disciplines and sciences, with their separate bodies of theory. Each discipline corresponds to a certain segment of the empirical world, and each develops theories which have particular applicability to its own empirical s^ment. Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Economics and so on all carve out for themselves certain elements of the experience of man and develop theories and patterns of activity (research) which yield satisfaction in understanding, and which are appropriate to their ^>ecial s^ments. In recent years increasing need has been felt for a body of systematic theoretical constructs which will discuss the general relationships of the empirical world. Tlus is the quest of General Sj^tems Theory. It does not seek, of course, to establidi a single, self-contained “general theory of practically everything” whidi will replace all the special theories of particular disciplines. Such a theory woidd be almost without content, for we always pay for generality by sacrificing c(mtent, and all we can say about practically everything is ahnost nothing. Somefl^ere however between the specific that has no meaning and the general that has no content there must be, for each purpose and at each level of abstrac- * The same and many of the ideas are to be credited to L. von Bertalanffy, who is not, however, to be held accountable for the ideas of the present author 1 For a general discussion of BertalanCPy’s ideas see General System Theory: A New Approach to Unity of Science Bumm Biology, Dec., 1961, Vol. 23, p. 303-361. 197 198 KENNETH tion, an optimum d^ree of graier^ty. It is the contention of the General Systems Theorists that this optimum degree of generality in theory is not always reached by the particular sciences. The objectives of General Systems Theory then can be set out with vajrjdng degrees a! ambition and confidence. At a low level of ambition but with a high degree d confidence it aims to point out similarities in the theoretical constructions of different disciplines, where these exist, and to develop theoretical models having applicability to at least two different fields of study. At a higher level of ambition, but with perhaps a lower degree of confidence it hopes to develop something like a “spectrum” of theories—a system of systems which may perform the function of a “gestalt” in theoretical construction. Such “gestalts” in special fields have been of great value in directing research towards the gaps which they reveal. Thus the periodic table of elements in chemistry directed research for many decades towards the discovery of unknown elements to fill gaps in the table until the table was completely filled. Similarly a “system of systems” might be of value in directing the attention of theorists towards gaps in theoretical models, and might even be of value in pointing towards methods of filling them. The need for general systems theory is accentuated by the prraent sociological situation in science. Knowledge is not something which exists and grows in the abstract. It is a function of human organisms and of social organization. Knowledge, that is to say, is always what somebody knows: the most perfect transcript of knowledge in writing is not knowledge if nobody knows it. Knowledge however grows by the receipt of meaningful information—that is, by the intake of messages by a knower which are capable of reorganizing his knowledge. We will quietly duck the question as to what reorganizations constitute “growth” of knowledge by defining “semantic growth” of knowledge as those reorganizations which can profitably be talked about, in writing or speech, by the Right People. Science, that is to say, is what can be talked about profitably by scientists in their role as scientists. The crisis of science today arises because of the increasing difiiculty of such profitable talk among scientists as a whole. Specialization has outrun Trade, commimication between the disciples becomes increasingly difficult, and the Republic of Learning is breaking up into isolated subcultures with only tenuous lines of communication between them—a situation which threatens intellectual civil war. The reason for this breakup in the body of knowledge is that in the course of specialization the receptors of information themselves become specialized. Hence physicists only talk to physicists, economists to economists—^worse still, nuclear physicists only talk to nuclear physicists and econometricians to econometricians/One wonders sometimes if science will not grind to a stop in an assemblage of walled-in hermits, «kch mumbling to himself words in a private language that only he can understand. In these days the arts may have beaten the sciences to this desert of mutual unintelligibility, but that may be merely because the swift intuitions of art reach the future faster than the plodding leg work of the scientist. The more science breaks into sub-groui», and Hie less communication is possible among the discipline, however, the greater chance tliere is that the total growth of knowledge is being slowed down by the GENERAL SYSTEMS THEOKT 199 loss of relevant communications. The spread of specialized deafness means that Bommae who ought to know something that someone else knows isn’t able to find it out for lack of generalized ears. It is one of the main objectives of General Systems Theory to develop these generalized ears, and by developing a framework of general theory to enable one specialist to catch relevant communications from others. Thus the economist who realizes the strong formal similarity between utility theory in economics and field theory in physics’ is probably in a better position to learn from the physicists than one who does not. SimUarly a speciaUst who works with the growth concept^whether the crystallographer, the virologist, the cytologist, the physiologist, the psychologist, the sociologist or the economist—will be more serisitive to the contributions of other fields if he is aware of the many similarities of the growth process in widely different empirical fields. There is not much doubt about the demand for general systems theory under one brand name or another. It is a little more embarrassing to inquire into the supply. Does any of it exist, and if so where? What is the chance of getting more of it, and if so, how? The situation might be described as promising and in ferment, though it is not wholly clear what is being promised or brewed. Something which might be called an “interdisciplinary movement” has been abroad for sorne time. The first signs of this are usually the development of hybrid disciplines. Thus physical chemistry emerged in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, social psychology in the second quarter of the twentieth. In the physical and biological sciences the list of hybrid disciplines is now quite long—biophysics, biochemistry, astrophysics are all well established. In the social sciences social anthropology is fairly well established, econ
omic psychology and economic sociology are just b^inning. There are signs, even, that PoUtical Economy, .which died in infancy some hundred years ago, may have a re-birth. In recent years there has been an additional development of great interest in tiie form of “multisexual” interdisciplines. The hybrid disciplines, as their hyphenated names indicate, come from two respectable and honest academic parents. The newer interdisciplines have a much more varied and occasionally even obscure ancestry, and result from the reorganization of material from many different fields of study. Cybernetics, for instance, comes out of electrical engineering, neurophysiology, physics, biology, with even a dash of economics. Information theory, which originated in communications engineering, has irnportant applications in many fields stretching from biology to the social sciences. Organization theory com^ out of economics, sociology, engineering, physiolt^y, and Management Science itself is an equally multidisciplinary product. On the more empirical and practical side the interdisciplinary movement is reflected in the development ING affairs, and so on. O^ers are organized uitnmd the application d a common methodol<^y to many different fields and problems, such as the Survey Research Center and the Group Dynamics Center at the University of Michigan. Even more important than these viable developments, periiaps, though harder to perceive and identify, is a growing dissatisfaction in many departments, especially at the level of graduate study, wilii the existing traditional theoretical backgrounds for the empirical studio which form the major part of the output of Ph.D. theses. To take but a single example from the field with which I am most familiar. It is traditional for studies of labor relations, money and banking, and foreign investment to come out of departments of economics. Many of the needed theoretical models and frameworks in these fields, however, do not come out of “economic theory” as this is usually taught, but from sociology, social psychology, and cultural anthropology. Students in the deptartment of economics however rarely get a chance to become acquainted with these theoretical models, which may be relevant to their studies, and they become impatient with economic theory, much of which may not be relevant. It is clear that there is a good deal of interdisciplinary excitement abroad. If this excitement is to be productive, however, it must operate within a certain framework of coherence. It is all too easy for the interdisciplinary to degenerate into the undisciplined. If the interdisciplinary movement, therefore, is not to lose that sense of form and structure which is the “discipline” involved in the various separate disciplines, it should develop a structure of its own. This I conceive to be the great task of general systems theory. For the rest of this paper, therefore, I propose to look at some possible ways in which general systems theory might be structured. Two possible approaches to the organization of general ssrstems theory suggest themselves, which are to be thought of as complementary rather than competitive, or at least as two roads each of which is worth exploring. The first approach is to look over the empirical universe and to pick out certain general phenomena which are found in many different disciplines, and to seek to build up general theoretical models relevant to these phenomena. The second approach is to arrange the empirical fields in a hierarchy of complexity of organization of their basic “individual” or unit of behavior, and to try to develop a level of abstraction appropriate to each. Some examples of the first approach will ^rve to clarify it, without pretending to be exhaustive. In almost all disciplines, for instance, we find examples of populations—aggr^ates of individuals conformir^ to a common definition, to which individuals are added (bom) and subtracted (die) and in which the age of the individual is a relevant and identifiable variable. These populations exhibit dynamic movements of their own, which can frequently be draroribed by fairly simple systems of difference equations. The populations of different species also exhibit dynamic interactions among themselves, as in the theory of Volterra. Models of population change and interaction cut across a great many different fields—ecological ^stems in biology, capital theory in economics which deals with populations of “goods,” social ecology, and even certain problans of sta- GENERAL ST8TEH8 THEOBT 201 tifltical mechanics. In aU these fields population change, both in absolute numbers and m structure, can be discussed in terms of birth and survival functions relatog numbers of births and of deaths in specific age groups to various aspects

The History and Statm of General Systems Theory LUDWIG VON BERTALANFFY* Center for Theoretical Biology, Stote University of New York ot Buffalo HISTORICAL PRELUDE In order to evaluate the modern “systems approach,” it is advisable to look at the systems idea not as an ephemeral fashion or recent technique, but in the context of the history of ideas. (For an introduction and a survey of the field see [15], with an extensive bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading in the various topics of general systems theory.) In a certain sense it can be said that the notion of system is as old as European philosophy. If we try to define the central motif in the birth of philosophical-scientific thinking with the Ionian pre-Socratics of the sixth century B.C., one way to spell it out would be as follows. Man in early culture, and even primitives of today, experience themselves as being “thrown” into a hostile world, governed by chaotic and incomprehensible demonic forces which, at best, may be propitiated or influenced by way of magical practices. Philosophy and its descendant, science, was born when the early Greeks learned to consider or find, in the experienced world, an order or kosmos which was intelligible and, hence, controllable by thought and rational action. One formulation of this cosmic order was the Aristotelian world view with its holistic and telelogical notions. Aristotle’s statement, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts,” is a definition of the basic system problem which is still valid. Aristotelian teleology was eliminated in the later development of Western science, but the problems contained in it, such as the order and goal-directedness of living systems, were negated and by-passed rather than solved. Hence, the basic system is still not obsolete. A more detailed investigation would enumerate a long array of thinkers who, in one way or another, contributed notions to what nowadays we call systems theory. If we speak of hierarchic order, we use a term introduced by the Christian mystic, Dionysius the Aeropagite, although he was specu- * This article is reprinted, with permission, from George J. Kiir, ed., Trends in General Systems Theory (New York: Wiley-lnterscience, 1972). 407 408 Academy of Management Journal December lating about the choirs of angels and the organism of the Church. Nicholas of Cusa [5], that profound thinker of the fifteenth century, linking Medieval mysticism with the first beginnings of modern science, introduced the notion of the coincidentia oppositorum, the opposition or, indeed, fight among the parts within a whole which, nevertheless, forms a unity of higher order. Leibniz’s hierarchy of monads looks quite like that of modern systems; his mathesis universalis presages an expanded mathematics which is not limited to quantitative or numerical expressions and is able to formalize all conceptual thinking. Hegel and Marx emphasized the dialectic structure of thought and of the universe it produces: the deep insight that no proposition can exhaust reality but only approaches its coincidence of opposites by the dialectic process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Gustav Fechner, known as the author of the psychophysical law, elaborated in the way of the nature philosophers of the nineteenth century supraindividual organizations of higher order than the usual objects of observation; for example, life communities and the entire earth, thus romantically anticipating the ecosystems of modern parlance. Incidentally, the present writer wrote a doctoral thesis on this topic in 1925. Even such a rapid and superficial survey as the preceding one tends to show that the problems with which we are nowadays concerned under the term “system” were not “born yesterday” out of current questions of mathematics, science, and technology. Rather, they are a contemporary expression of perennial problems which have been recognized for centuries and discussed in the language available at the time. One way to circumscribe the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenthseventeenth centuries is to say that it replaced the descriptive-metaphysical conception of the universe epitomized in Aristotle’s doctrine by the mathematical-positivistic or Galilean conception. That Is, the vision of the world as a telelogical cosmos was replaced by the description of events in causal, mathematical laws. We say “replaced,” not “eliminated,” for the Aristotelian dictum of the whole that is more than its parts still remained. We must strongly emphasize that order or organization of a whole or system, transcending its parts when these are considered in isolation, is nothing metaphysical, not an anthropomorphic superstition or a philosophical speculation; it is a fact of observation encountered whenever we look at a living organism, a social group, or even an atom. Science, however, was not well prepared to deal with this problem. The second maxim of Descartes’ Discours de la Methode was “to break down every problem into as many separate simple elements as might be possible.” This, similarly formulated by Galileo as the “resolutive” method, was the conceptual “paradigm” [35] of science from its foundation to 1S72 The History and Status of General Systems Theory 409 modern laboratory work: that is, to resolve and reduce complex phenomena into elementary parts and processes. This method worked admirably well insofar as observed events were apt to be split into isolable causal chains, that is, relations between two or a few variables. It was at the root of the enormous success of physics and the consequent technology. But questions of many-variable problems always remained. This was the case even in the three-body problem of mechanics; the situation was aggravated when the organization of the living organism or even of the atom, beyond the simplest proton-electron system of hydrogen, was concerned. Two principal ideas were advanced in order to deal with the problem of order or organization. One was the comparison with man-made machines; the other was to conceive of order as a product of chance. The first was epitomized by Descartes’ bete machine, later expanded to the homme machine of Lamettrie. The other is expressed by the Darwinian idea of natural selection. Again, both ideas were highly successful. The theory of the living organism as a machine in its various disguises—from a mechanical machine or clockwork in the early explanations of the iatrophysicists of the seventeenth century, to later conceptions of the organism as a caloric, chemodynamic, cellular, and cybernetic machine [13] provided explanations of biological phenomena from the gross level of the physiology of organs down to the submicroscopic structures and enzymatic processes in the cell. Similarly, organismic order as a product of random events embraced an enormous number of facts under the title of “synthetic theory of evolution” including molecular genetics and biology. Nothwithstanding the singular success achieved in the explanation of ever more and finer life processes, basic questions remained unanswered. Descartes’ “animal machine” was a fair enough principle to explain the admirable order of processes found in the living organism. But then, according to Descartes, the “machine” had God for its creator. The evolution of machines by events at random rather appears to be self-contradictory. Wristwatches or nylon stockings are not as a rule found in nature as products of chance processes, and certainly the mitochondrial “machines” of enzymatic organization in even the simplest cell or nucleoprotein molecules are incomparably more complex than a watch or the simple polymers which form synthetic fibers. “Surival of the fittest” (or “differential reproduction” in modern terminology) seems to lead to a circuitous argument. Selfmaintaining systems must exist before they can enter into competition, which leaves systems with higher selective value or differential reproduction predominant. That self-maintenance, however, is the explicandum; it is not provided by the ordinary laws of physics. Rather, the
second law of thermodynamics prescribes that ordered systems in which irreversible processes take place tend toward most probable states and, hence, toward destruction of existing order and ultimate decay [16]. 410 Academy of Management Journal December Thus neovitalistic currents, represented by Driesch, Bergson, and others, reappeared around the turn of the present century, advancing quite legitimate arguments which were based essentially on the limits of possible regulations in a “machine,” of evolution by random events, and on the goal-directed ness of action. They were able, however, to refer only to the old Aristotelian “entelechy” under new names and descriptions, that is, a supernatural, organizing principle or “factor.” Thus the “fight on the concept of organism in the first decades of the twentieth century,” as Woodger [56] nicely put it, indicated increasing doubts regarding the “paradigm” of classical science, that is, the explanation of complex phenomena in terms of isolable elements. This was expressed in the question of “organization” found in every living system; in the question whether “random mutations cum natural selection provide all the answers to the phenomena of evolution” [32] and thus of the organization of living things; and in the question of goal-directedness, which may be denied but in some way or other still raises its ugly head. These problems were in no way limited to biology. Psychology, in gestalt theory, similarly and even earlier posed the question that psychological wholes (e.g., perceived gestalten) are not resolvable into elementary units such as punctual sensations and excitations in the retina. At the same time sociology [49, 50] came to the conclusion that physicalistic theories, modeled according to the Newtonian paradigm or the like, were unsatisfactory. Even the atom appeared as a minute “organism” to Whitehead. FOUNDATIONS OF GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY In the late 192O’s von Bertalanffy wrote: Since the fundamental character of the living thing is its organization, the customary investigation of the single parts and processes cannot provide a complete explanation of the vital phenomena. This investigation gives us no inforrnation about the coordination of parts and processes. Thus the chief task of bioiogy must be to discover the laws of biological systems (at all levels of organization). We believe that the attempts to find a foundation for theoretjcal biology point at a fundamental change in the world picture. This view, considered as a method of investigation, we shall call “organismio biotogy” and, as an attempt at an explanation, “f/ie system theory of the organism” [7, pp. 64 ff., 190, 46, condensed]. Recognized “as something new in biological literature” [43], the organismic program became widely accepted. This was the germ of what later became known as general systems theory. If the term “organism” in the above statements Is replaced by other “organized entities,” such as social groups, personality, or technological devices, this is the program of systems theory. The Aristotelian dictum of the whole being more than its parts, which was neglected by the mechanistic conception, on the one hand, and which led to a vitalistic demonology, on the other, has a simple and even trivial 1972 The History and Status ot General Systems Theory 411 answer—trivial, that is, in principle, but posing innumerable problems in its elaboration: The properties and modes of action of higher ieveis are not expiicabie by the summation of the properties and modes of action of their components taken in Isolation, if, however, we ioo. These correspond to solutions approaching a time-independent state (equilibrium, steady state), periodic solutions, and divergent solutions, respectively. A time-independent state, f,(Qi, Q2 Qn) = O, (1.2) can be considered as a trajectory degenerated into a single point. Then, readily visualizable in two-dimensional projection, the trajectories may converge toward a stable node represented by the equilibrium point, may approach it as a stable focus in damped oscillations, or may cycle around it in undamped oscillations (stable solutions). Or else, they may diverge from an unstable node, wander away from an unstable focus in oscillations, or from a saddle point (unstable solutions). A central notion of dynamical theory is that of stability, that is, the response of a system to perturbation. The concept of stability originates in mechanics (a rigid body is in stable equilibrium if it returns to its original position after sufficently small displacement; a motion is stable if insensitive to small perturbations), and is generalized to the “motions” of state variables of a system. This question is related to that of the existence of equilibrium states. Stability can be analyzed, therefore, by explicit solution of the differential equations describing the system (so-called indirect method, based essentially on discussion of the eigenwerte Xi of Eq. 1.1). In the case of nonlinear systems, these equations have to be linearized by development into Taylor series and retention of the first term. Linearization, however, pertains only to stability in the vicinity of equilibrium. But stability arguments without actual solution of the differential equations (direct method) and for nonlinear systems are possible by introduction of so-called Liapunov functions; these are essentially generalized energy functions, the sign of which indicates whether or not an equilibrium is asymptotically stable [28, 36]. Here the relation of dynamical system theory to control theory becomes apparent; control means essentially that a system which is not asymptotically stable is made so by incorporating a controller, counteracting the motion of the system away from the stable state. For this reason the theory of stability in internal description or dynamical system theory converges with the theory of (linear) control or feedback systems in external description (see below; cf. [48]). ^^^^ ^”^ History and Status of Generai Systems Theory 419 Description by ordinary differential equations (Eq. 1.1) abstracts from variations of the state variables in space which would be expressed by partial differential equations. Such field equations are, however, more difficu t to handle Ways of overcoming this difficulty are to assume complete stirring, so that distribution is homogeneous within the volume consideredor to assume the existence of compartments to which homogeneous disIn external description, the system is considered as a “black box”- Its relations to the environment and other systems are presented graphically m b ock and flow diagrams. The system description is given in terms of inputs and outputs (Klemmenverhalten in German terminology); its general IZ^’ l’T% ^””‘^”°”‘ “”^’^^’^^ ‘”P”* ^ ^t T gy) g IZm^’n l’T% ^””‘^”°”‘ “”^’^^’^^ ‘”P”* ^”^ °”^P”t- Typically, these are assumed to be linear and are represented by discrete sets of values (cf yes-no decisions in information theory, Turing machine). This is the language rl^ m ^^’^^”^’^Sy’ ^^^^’•”^’ description, typically, is given in terms of Sn^^th-”^^ ” (exchange of information between system and environment and within the system) and control of the system’s function with respect to environment (feedback), to use Wiener’s definition of cybernetics As mentioned, internal and external descriptions largely coincide with descriptions by continuous or discrete functions. These are two “languages” adapted to their respective purposes. Empirically, there is an obvious contrast between regulations due to the free interplay of forces within a dynamical system, and regulations due to constraints imposed by structural feedback mechanisms [15], for example, the “dynamic” regulations in a chem.ca system or in the network of reactions in a cell on the one hand and contro by mechanisms such as a thermostat or homeostatic nervous circuit on the other. Formally, however, the two “languages” are related and in certain cases
demonstrably translatable. For example, an input-output function can (under certain conditions) be developed as a linear nth-orSer ffn l n’ .^.””^ ‘°”‘ ^”^ *^^ ^^’””^ °f *^« ‘^«^^ ^«” be considered as oZXr”^nir’”T””’ “””” *”’^ P’^^’^^’ “^^^”‘”9 ^^’”^’”^ ‘”definite, formal translation” from one language into the other is possible. In certain cases-for example, the two-factor theory of nerve excitation (in terms of “excitatory and inhibitory factors” or “substances”) and network theory (McCulloch nets of “neurons”)-description in dynamfcal system theory by continuous functions and description in automata theory by digital analogs can be shown to be equivalent [45]. Similarly predatorprey systems, usually described dynamically by Volterra equations, can also be expressed m terms of cybernetic feedback circuits [55]. These are twovariable systems. Whether a similar “translation” can be effectuated °n many-variables systems remains (in the present writer’s opinion) to be seen. 420 Academy of Management Journal December Internal description is essentially “structural,” that is, it tries to describe the systems’ behavior in terms of state variables and their interdependence. External description is “functional”; the system’s behavior is described in terms of Its interaction with the environment. As this sketchy survey shows, considerable progress has been made in mathematical systems theory since the program was enunciated and inaugurated some 25 years ago. A variety of approaches, which, however, are connected with each other, have been developed. Today mathematical system theory is a rapidly growing field, but it is natural that basic problems, such as those of hierarchical order [53], are approached only slowly and presumably will need novel ideas and theories. “Verbal” descriptions and models (e.g., [20; 31; 42; 52]), are not expendable. Problems must be intuitively “seen” and recognized before they can be formalized mathematically. Otherwise, mathematical formalism may impede rather than expedite the exploration of very “real” problems. A strong system-theoretical movement has developed in psychiatry, largely through the efforts of Gray [26]. The same is true of the behavioral sciences [20] and also of certain areas in which such a development was quite unexpected, at least by the present writer—for example, theoretica geography [29]. Sociology was stated as being essentially “a science of social systems” [14]; not foreseen was, for instance, the close parallelism of general system theory with French structuralism (e.g., Piaget, LevyStrauss; cf. [37]) and the influence exerted on American functionalism in sociology ([22]: see especially pp. 2, 96, 141). Systems Technology The second realm of general systems theory is systems technology, that is, the problems arising in modern technology and society, including both “hardware” (control technology, automation, computerization, etc.) and “software” (application of system concepts and theory in social, ecological, economical, etc., problems). We can only allude to the vast realm of techniques, models, mathematical approaches, and so forth, summarized as systems engineering or under similar denominations, in order to place it into the perspective of the present study. Modern technology and society have become so complex that the traditional branches of technology are no longer sufficient; approaches of a holistic or systems, and generalist and interdisciplinary, nature became necessary. This is true in many ways. Modern engineering includes fields such as circuit theory, cybernetics as the study of “communication and control” (Wiener [54]), and computer techniques for handling “systems” of a complexity unamenable to classical methods of mathematics. Systems of many levels ask for scientific control: ecosystems, the disturbance of which results in pressing problems like pollution; formal organizations like 1972 The History and Status of General Systems Theory 421 bureaucracies, educational institutions, or armies; socioeconomic systems, with their grave problems of international relations, politics, and deterrence. Irrespective of the questions of how far scientific understanding (contrasted to the admission of irrationality of cultural and historical events) is possible, and to what extent scientific control is feasible or even desirable, there can be no dispute that these are essentially “system” problems, that is, problems involving interrelations of a great number of “variables.” The same applies to narrower objectives in industry, commerce, and armament. The technological demands have led to novel conceptions and disciplines, some displaying great originality and introducing new basic notions such as control and information theory, game, decision theory, the theory of circuits, of queuing and others. Again it transpired that concepts and models (such as feedback, information, control, stability, circuits) which originated in certain specified fields of technology have a much broader significance, are of an interdisciplinary nature, and are independent of their special realizations, as exemplified by isomorphic feedback models in mechanical, hydrodynamic, electrical, biological and other systems. Similarly, developments originating in pure and in applied science converge, as in dynamical system theory and control theory. Again, there is a spectrum ranging from highly sophisticated mathematical theory to computer simulation to more or less informal discussion of system problems. Systems Philosophy Third, there is the realm of systems philosophy [38], that is, the reorientation of thought and world view following the introduction of “system” as a new scientific paradigm (in contrast to the analytic, mechanistic, linearcausal paradigm of classical science). Like very scientific theory of broader scope, general systems theory has its “metascientific” or philosophical aspects. The concept of “system” constitutes a new “paradigm,” in Thomas Kuhn’s phrase, or a new “philosophy of nature,” in the present writer’s [14] words, contrasting the “blind laws of nature” of the mechanistic world view and the world process as a Shakespearean tale told by an idiot, with an organismic outlook of the “world as a great organization.” First, we must find out the “nature of the beast”: what is meant by “system,” and how systems are realized at the various levels of the world of observation. This is systems ontology. What is to be defined and described as system is not a question with an obvious or trivial answer. It will be readily agreed that a galaxy, a dog, a cell, and an atom are “systems.” But in what sense and what respects can we speak of an animal or a human society, personality, language, mathematics, and so forth as “systems”? We may first distinguish real systems, that is, entities perceived in or inferred from observation and existing independently of an observer. On 422 Academy of Management Journal December the other hand, there are conceptual systems, such as logic or mathematics, which essentially are symbolic constructs (but also including, e.g., music); with abstracted systems (science) [42] as a subclass, that is, conceptual systems corresponding with reality. However, the distinction is by no means as sharp as it would appear. Apart from philosophical interpretation (which would take us into the question of metaphysical realism, idealism, phenomenalism, etc.) we would consider as “objects” (which partly are “real systems”) entities given by perception because they are discrete in space and time. We do not doubt that a pebble, a table, an automobile, an animal, or a star (and in a somewhat different sense an atom, a molecule, and a planetary system) are “real” and existent independently of observation. Perception, however, is not a reliable guide. Following it, we “see” the sun revolving around the earth, and certainly do not see that a solid piece of matter like a stone “really” is
mostly empty space with minute centers of energy dispersed in astronomical distances. The spatial boundaries of even what appears to be an obvious object or “thing” actually are indistinct. From a crystal consisting of molecules, valences stick out, as it were, into the surrounding space; the spatial boundaries of a cell or an organism are equally vague because it maintains itself in a flow of molecules entering and leaving, and it is difficult to tell just what belongs to the “living system” and what does not. Ultimately all boundaries are dynamic rather than spatial. Hence an object (and in particular a system) is definable only by its cohesion in a broad sense, that is, the interactions of the component elements. In this sense an ecosystem or social system is just as “real” as an individual plant, animal, or human being, and indeed problems like pollution as a disturbance of the ecosystem, or social problems strikingly demonstrate their “reality.” Interactions (or, more generally, interrelations), however, are never directly seen or perceived; they are conceptual constructs. The same is true even of the objects of our everyday world, which by no means are simply “given” as sense data or simple perceptions but also are constructs based on innate or learned categories, the concordance of different senses, previous experience, learning processes, naming (i.e., symbolic processes), etc. all of which largely determine what we actually “see” or perceive [cf. 34]. Thus the distinction between “real” objects and systems as given in observation and “conceptual” constructs and systems cannot be drawn in any common-sense way. These are profound problems which can only be indicated in this context. The question for general systems theory is what statements can be made regarding material systems, informational systems, conceptual systems, and other types—questions which are far from being satisfactorily answered at the present time. ‘972 The History and Status of Generai Systems Theory 423 This leads to systems epistemology. As is apparent from the preceding this is profoundly different from the epistemology of logical positivism or empiricism, even though it shares the same scientific attitude. The epistemology (and metaphysics) of logical positivism was determined by the ideas of physicalism, atomism, and the “camera theory” of knowledge. These, in view of present-day knowledge, are obsolete. As against physicalism and reductionism, the problems and modes of thought occurring in the biological, behavioral and social sciences require equal consideration, and simple “reduction” to the elementary particles and conventional laws of physics does not appear feasible. Compared to the analytical procedure of classical science, with resolution into component elements and one-way or linear causality as the basic category, the investigation of organized wholes of many variables requires new categories of interaction, transaction, organization, teleology, and so forth, with many problems arising for epistemology, mathematical models and techniques. Furthermore, perception is not a reflection of “real things” (whatever their metaphysical status), and knowledge not a simple approximation to “truth” or “reality.” It is an interaction between knower and known, and thus dependent on a multiplicity of factors of a biological, psychological, cultural, and linguistic nature. Physics itself teaches that there are no ultimate entities like corpuscles or waves existing independently of the observer. This leads to a “perspective” philosophy in which physics, although its achievements in its own and related fields are fully acknowledged, is not a monopolistic way of knowledge. As opposed to reductionism and theories declaring that reality is “nothing but” (a heap of physical particles, genes, reflexes, drives, or whatever the case may be), we see sicence as one of the “perspectives” that man, with his biological, cultural, and linguistic endowment and bondage, has created to deal with the universe into which he is “thrown,” or rather to which he is adapted owning to evolution and history. The third part of systems philosophy is concerned with the relations of man and his world, or what is termed values in philosophical parlance. If reality is a hierarchy of organized wholes, the image of man will be different from what it is in a world of physical particles governed by chance events as the ultimate and only “true” reality. Rather, the world of symbols, values, social entities and cultures is something very “real”; and its embeddedness in a cosmic order of hierarchies tends to bridge the gulf between C. P. Snow’s “two cultures” of science and the humanities, technology and history, natural and social sciences, or in whatever way the antithesis is formulated. This humanistic concern of general systems theory, as this writer understands it, marks a difference to mechanistically oriented system theorists speaking solely in terms of mathematics, feedback, and technology and so giving rise to the fear that systems theory is indeed the ultimate step toward the mechanization and devaluation of man and toward technocratic 424 Academy of Management Journal December society. While understanding and emphasizing the role of mathematics and of pure and applied science, this writer does not see that the humanistic aspects can be evaded unless general systems theory is limited to a restricted and fractional vision. 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