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

FALSIFIABILITY 3)

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"Capacity of a theory to generate a test which, if failed, refutes the theory" (R. FIVAZ, 1991, p. 32).

This epistemological concept – also known as "refutability" – has been introduced by K. POPPER.

D. BOHM and F.D. PEAT explain: "Repeated experiments, made on the basis of a theory's predictions, will certainly increase its credibility among the scientific community, but they can never prove its correctness in any absolute sense, All theories are in some way limited, and while a series of experiments may confirm the theory in some limited domain, they cannot rule out the possibilities of exceptions and novel behavior. The best that science can do, therefore, is to falsify a theory by establishing some significant point of deviation between experiment and prediction" (1987, p.58).

R. FIVAZ observes however: "General theories such as thermodynamics, often do not specify completely how they are to be applied; therefore, they are immune to test by reality and consequently unfalsifiable" (Ibid).

This is also the case of so-called General Systems Theory", insofar as it may really be considered a "theory".

This is an intriguing point. In fact, it would seem that the falsifiability criterion can be applied in a strong sense only to classical and narrowly specific deterministic theories, In M. BUNGE's words: "Evidently, the more general a theory, the wider the domain of facts it refers to, and the less testable it is" (1993, p.221).

True or false is in such a case a too narrow dichotomy and testability in these terms an off the mark criterion.

Could models (as for example catastrophe or chaos ones) be either proved or disproved?

From a strict semantic viewpoint, the very term "falsifiability" seems unfortunate, as, for superficial minds, it seems to introduce the notion of falseness, However, neither the corpuscular, nor the ondulatory theory of light have been recognized as "false ": they merely became integrated within a more general embracing theory.

For a short and very readable synthesis about "thinking about thinking" and an evaluation of POPPER's falsifiability, see M. CROSS (2000)

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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