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

LEVEL (Phenomenological) 1)3)

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An observation level directed at a complex system, corresponding to a clearly identifiable organizational level.

Even the global study of a system as a whole requires a certain degree of analytical decomposition, without which only tautological pronouncements of the type "The system is what it is or does what it does" could be produced.

The determination of any phenomenological level is unavoidedly a complex compromise between the postulate of the existence of a "concrete system", the perceptive ability of the observer (with or without instrumental implements), his/her viewpoint, conceptual postulates and the practical goals pursued.

The phenomenological level is however by necessity the one of "direct experience, encompassing perception of outside things", according to J.W. SUTHERLAND, who adds, perhaps somewhat more questionably "feeling, thinking, willing, etc. (1973, p.55).

This last perceptive setting may possibly be somewhat too subjective, but is partially compensated by debate among observers and by the resulting process of consensus, still subject, of course, to the possibility of errors, collective biases or illusions.

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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