BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

EPISTEMOLOGY (Systemic) 3)

"The set of viewpoints and instruments used by… researchers… to discover and organize coherence, derive consequences and connect ideas in order to construct their inner mappings and to orient themselves" (W KARGL, 1991, p.580).

KARGL's plural is symptomatic: Systemic epistemology is related to the activity of observers, and observed observers, comparing their views.

Similarly, in R. VALLÉE "Epistemo-praxeology" "… subjectivity is underlined, but objectivity is in no way excluded, where interactions between subjects imply observations, decisions and result in actions that modify the subjects themselves in a more or less significant way, according to issues. These objectivity perturbing interactions… can be reduced by efforts which become greater as the reduction is more radical. The best is to accept them, without ignoring their presence. This subjectivist epistemology cannot be separated (without an arbitrary decision) from a praxeology (1987, p.45-6).

KARGL and VALLÉE viewpoints are mainly constructivist ones. Besides coincidence, coherence and connectivity seeking are indeed quite systemic ways.

L.von BERTALANFFY considered that "The investigation of organized wholes of many variables requires new categories of interaction, transaction, organization, teleology, etc., 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 is not a simple approximation to "truth" or "reality". It is an interaction between knower and known, and is dependent on a multiplicity of factors of biological, psychological, cultural, linguistic, etc., nature… Against 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 science as one of the "perspectives" that man with his biological, cultural and linguistic endowment and bondage has created to deal with the universe in which he is "thrown", or rather to which he is adapted owing to evolution and history" (1975, p.166-7).

The most significant parts of this text are probably the quotes used with "truth" and "reality", words whose absolute meaning is reflected upon within systemics.

See: "Ontological skepticism or agnosticism".

BERTALANFFY also stressed the concern of "systems philosophy" with values: "I do not see that these humanistic aspects can be evaded if general system theory is not to be limited to a restructured and fractional vision.

"Thus there is indeed a great and perhaps puzzling multiplicity of approaches and "trends" in general system theory. This is understandably uncomfortable to those who want a neat formalism, e.g. the textbook writer and the dogmatist" (p.167).

Accordingly T. SANDOZ writes: "Systemic epistemology supposes not only a new way of seeing problems or modelling systems properties, but another "culture". In fact, real –life problems, actions and methodological issues have to be developed together (co-evolve). In other terms, systems science, with the help of constructivist philosophy, should propose a new world of questions (what G. BATESON called a 3rd order change) and not only more pertinent models and formalizations" (1993, p.1543).

Systemic epistemology is thus essentially based on multiple reciprocal relationships. (see "Definition").

A typical case is the way chaos theory has modified the relation between the seemingly opposed concepts of determinism, and randomness. Randomness may mask some hidden determinism, and the opposite. Complementary models are thus admissible and frequently useful.

Systemic epistemology should also be evolutive. As, stated by D. CAMPBELL, organisms seek to increase their fit to their environment.(Quoted by E.von GLASERSFELD, in his paper "Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit und des Begriffs der Objektivität", 1991, p.27, in itself a constructivist manifest).

From another viewpoint, G. KLIR observes that systemics imply an "epistemological hierarchy, whose key feature "is that every system defined on some level in the hierarchy entails knowledge associated with all corresponding systems on lower levels and, at the same time, contains some knowledge that is not available in any of these lower systems.

"The number of levels in the epistemological hierarchy is potentially infinite. In praxis, however, only a small number of levels is considered" (1993, p.33).

An interesting example is J.G. MILLER's taxonomy of living systems, selecting 8 levels of complexity.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]


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