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.

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"A sign which would possess the character which renders it significant, even though its object had no existence" (C.S. PEIRCE, in J. HOOPES ed., 1991, p.239).

PEIRCE gives the following example: "… a lead-pencil streak as representing a geometrical line" (p.239).

Icons have, or acquire quickly, a symbolic character, which easily elicits a variety of possible reactions in people, even at the level of conditioned behavior.

Examples of icons are the red cross, the national flag, the Ying and Yang symbol, etc.

Some icons in history have been used with well defined purpose of political and psychological manipulation, as for example the svastika or the hammer and sickle.

The icon has always a diagramatic character (p.181) and "partakes of some more or less overt character of its object" (p.252).

As such, PEIRCE considers that it somehow has the character of a fallacy, or a metaphor. This is important for systemics, in order never to forget that "the map is not the territory", or the model is not the entity it seeks to represent.

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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