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

SOFT TECHNOLOGY 1)2)5)

← Back

"The scaffolding "(support systems, group process techniques,. design methodologies, decision making processes) for individual and collective self-determination: know-why"; "know what for"and "care why"(K. BAUSCH, Glossary, Pers. comm., 2002)

"Soft"comes in opposition to "Hard", related to methods, techniques and tools used in physical sciences and, up to a point, in biological sciences. It means that the study of all human behaviors is more difficult and allows for a lesser degree of certainty than experimental sciences because of the impossibility to reproduce tightly controlled sequences of events and the great difficulty to obtain a secure knowledge of historical events and experiences. As a result, the situation at the "starting block"is never very well known, nor objectively evaluable.

Soft technologies are still quite "in the making "and in need of a better understanding in systemic terms, specially in their psychological and cultural dimensions.

→ Design (generic); Design (Systemic approach to); Interpretive structural modelling; Underconceptualization

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]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint