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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SOCIAL SUBSYSTEMS 2)4)

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As stated by O. THYSSEN (1995, p. 17): "Modern societies (as distinguished from traditional) are divided into functional subsystems such as economics, science, politics and intimacy".

These distinctions are LUHMANN's, who also added religion and law.

THYSSEN adds: "Each subsystem is closed and creates its own domain allowing only certain operations. As a consequence, it is not possible to observe- or handle- society as a whole, as no vantage point exists from which to do so. As a further consequence it is not possible to talk about what is rational for society as a whole, or what will benefit society as a whole".

And "A functional subsystem has limited possibilities of observing and cannot observe "the world as it is". Economics cannot observe "real needs" and politics cannot observe "real voters". What they can observe are diagrams showing changes in sales or in voter support" (Ibid)

This kind of global social agnosticism should possibly be relativized. There are clearly positive or negative symptoms of the state of a society as a whole. It sometimes loses coherence as a whole, particularly when the distinct subsystems enter in conflict and do not anymore negotiate stabilizing balances between their possibly conflictive needs, aims or beliefs. This is a result of disfunction of the social regulators and controls and, or inoperancy of A. SMITH "invisible hand"

This incipient trouble can readily been observed, through a spreading uneasiness and increasing civil protest or rebellion.

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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