System Concepts in Psychopathology

General system theory has its roots in the organismic conception in biology. On the European continent, this was developed by the present author (1928a) in the 1920’s, with parallel developments in the Anglo-Saxon countries (Whitehead, Woodger, Cog- hill and others) and in psychological gestalt theory (W. Kohler). It is interesting to note that Eugen

The Whorfian Hypothesis

Among recent developments in the anthropological sciences, hardly any have found so much attention and led to so much controversy as have the views advanced by the late Benjamin Whorf. The hypothesis offered by Whorf is, that the commonly held belief that the cognitive processes of all human beings possess a common logical structure which

The Biological Relativity of Categories

Cognition is dependent, firstly, on the psycho-physical organization of man. We may refer here in particular to that approach in modern biology which was inaugurated by Jacob von Uexkiill under the name of Umwelt-Lehre. It essentially amounts to the statement that, from the great cake of reality, every living organism cuts a slice, which

The Cultural Relativity of Categories

We now come to the second point, the dependence of categories on cultural factors. As already mentioned, the Whorfian thesis of the dependence of categories on linguistic factors is part of a general conception of cultural relativism which has developed in the past 50 years; although even this is not quite correct, since Wilhelm

The Perspectivistic View

Having indicated the biological and cultural relativity of the categories of experience and cognition, we can, on the other hand, also indicate the limits of this relativity, and thus come to the third topic stated in the beginning. Relativism has often been formulated to express the purely conventional and utilitarian character of knowledge, and

The Meaning and Unity of Science

At a time of universal crises such as we are experiencing today, the question of the meaning and purpose of natural sciences arises. That science is to be blamed for the miseries of our time is a reproach frequently heard; it is believed that men have been enslaved by machines, by technology at large,

The Emergence of Holistic Thinking

While man and his situation are the central focus of all social and humanistic sciences, each science pursues its studies from a certain point of view. Political science concentrates on the society’s political and administrative organization. Business economics is concerned with the commercial organization, geography with the physical structure and philosophy with the pattern

The scholastic paradigm

First we must realize that beliefs and knowledge in any era are influenced by concomitant time-dependent paradigms. That the medieval world view could be described with the help of the scholastic paradigm satisfied contemporary needs. Although this paradigm may be characterized as prescientific, it was a complete philosophy which wove together morality and heavenly systems

The Renaissance paradigm

With the coming of the 16th century, the prescientific stage is succeeded by one in which science is acknowledged as capable of describing phenomena, as a route to knowledge. The introspective, absorbed mentality of scholasticism left room for a rediscovery of the external reality. Learned men began to understand the value of careful, reiterated

The mechanistic world and determinism

In the beginning of the 18th century, the view that we today call the ‘scientific world view’ was firmly established in European society, albeit dressed in clothes of its own time. Tradition and speculation were replaced by rationalism and empiricism with the assumption that natural phenomena can and must be investigated and explained. The

The hegemony of determinism

A uniform world view was emerging, expressed in mechanistic terms. It is possible to comprehend the universe, at least fundamentally. This clockwork universe, having been wound up by the Creator, works according to the internal structure and the causal laws of nature. The purpose and meaning, the very existence is put outside of the

The age of relativity and quantum mechanics

The first fatal blow to determinism with its static view of the universe comes from Albert Einstein (1879-1955) in 1905, in his special theory of relativity. An event is defined with four numbers: three for the position in space and one for time. These constituents do not exist individually; it is not possible to

The systems age

In the 1950s, with the introduction of computers, hydrogen bombs and space exploration, large-scale problems began to penetrate Western society. The traffic-system breakdowns, environmental disasters and the nuclear threat were immediately high on the agenda. Society was faced with messes, interacting problems varying from technical and organizational to social and political. It was suddenly

Basic Ideas of General Systems Theory

Each body of theory has its implied assumptions or axioms which in reality are impossible to prove and hence must be accepted as value judgements. The underlying assumptions and premises of systems theory can be traced backward in history. The thought that the existence has certain common general features and that a hidden connection

GST and concepts defining systems properties

First we have to define the word system and emphasize its subjective nature. From a linguistic point of view, the word originated from Greek where it denotes a connected or regular whole. A system is not something presented to the observer, it is something to be recognized by him. An example is how man

Cybernetics and concepts defining systems processes

In order to predict the behaviour of a rational system before a certain response from it occurs, it is essential to have some knowledge of general control mechanisms. Although automatic control systems have been documented in the Western field of engineering for some 2000 years, the working theory of these has been limited and

General scientific and systemic concepts

The accumulation of scientific knowledge may be considered to be one of the most extensive intellectual processes of humanity. The organization of the enormous material, a science in itself, is influenced by systemic principles. (See Namilov and the systems view of science, page 189.) A survey of the content in a specific knowledge area

Widely-known laws, principles, theorems and hypotheses

Systems knowledge of a more general nature, particularly within systems behaviour, has been expressed in different laws, principles, theorems and hypotheses. This knowledge is considered to be within the core of General Systems Theory even if its origin is to be found in another area. Some of the formulations presented here cover a broad

Some generic facts of systems behaviour

System behaviour, such as is expressed in the formulations on the foregoing pages, can always be related to the concept of complexity. The more complex a system, the more intricate its behaviour. It is, however, necessary to bear in mind that, given enough time and space, even the simplest system can produce quite unexpected

Boulding and the Hierarchy of Systems Complexity

As one of the founding fathers of the Systems Movement, Kenneth Boulding presented his classical paper, General Systems Theory — The Skeleton of Science, in 1956. In this paper the author is deeply concerned about the existing over-specialization of science and the lack of communication between the different areas. He proposes as a way