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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WHOLENESS APPROACH 3)

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I. BLAUBERG et al. also state that the requeriments of the wholeness approach are "only seemingly simple to fulfil. In reality any complex problem must necessarily be decomposed into a set of subproblems each of which requires a special approach and, in particular, has an optimal solution all of its own. The point is, however, that the optimal solution of the problem as a whole is not necessarily equal to the sum of the optimal solutions to its parts."

"… In other words, the entire intricate hierarchy of operations aimed at solving a complex problem must be organized in such a way that the chief and decisive criterion at all levels was a unified evaluation of effectivity, i.e. that the system as a whole and its ultimate effect should always be borne in mind" (1977, p.263).

The wholeness approach implies "the fundamental irreductibility of its properties to the sum of the properties of its elements, and the non-deductibility from the latter of the properties of the whole" (Ibid, p.269).

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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