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

ORGANIZATION (General Theory of) 1)3)

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According to K. BOULDING: "The general theory of organization begins with the concept of homeostasis; that is of a mechanism for stabilizing a variable or a group of variables within certain limits of tolerance. Every organism or organization is characterized by a group of such variables, and the organization consist mainly in more or less elaborate apparatus to maintain these variables between an upper and lower limit. Should any of the essential variables rise above the upper limit, machinery must be brought into play to reduce it; should it fall below the lower limit, machinery must be brought into play to raise it. An organization in this view consist of an aggregate of such governing mechanisms sometimes called control mechanism or feedback" (1952, p.36).

A feedback is not really per se a control mechanism, but only an essential part of it.

Moreover this formulation (dated 1952) does not escape from the critique of "mechanistic reductionism" that has been frequently directed at WIENER's cybernetics. Nearly all the important contributions of ASHBY, von FOERSTER, MATURANA, MARUYAMA, and many others did appear after 1952.

According to Rafael RODRIGUEZ DELGADO (1997, p.25) a General Theory of Organization should cover the following subjects: "Wholeness, growth, differentiation, hierarchical order, dominance, control, competition and teleology, whose parameters are not easily measured… Moreover, organization implies a configuration of interrelations (communication, information), ordered and coherent, of the inside of the systems and of groups of systems"

The growing use of networks to explain intelligent structures or to construct them (see "connection machine") brings now a still newer dimension to our concept of organisation.

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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