Abstract
A renaissance of systems theory in the social sciences must have good reasons. At least there must be some hope to overcome the main deficit of the »old one«, i.e. the absence of mechanisms which could explain the macroscopic behavior of the system on the basis of its microscopic interactions.
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Notes and References
T. Parsons, The Social System, New York: The Free Press, 1964; N.W. Storer, The Social System of Science, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970; B. Barber, Science and the Social Order, New York: Collier Books, 1962; W.O. Hagstrom, The Scientific Community, New York: Basic Books, 1965.
Paradigmatically presented in T. Parsons/G.M. Platt, The American University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973.
T. Parsons/G.M. Platt, op. cit., note 2, 1973, p. 14.
P. Feyerabend, Wider den Methodenzwang. Skizze einer anarchistischen Erkenntnistheorie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976.
St. Cotgrove/St. Box, Science, Industry and Society. Studies in the Sociology of Science, London: Allen and Unwin, 1979.
Th.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
S.B. Barnes/R.G.A. Dolby, The Scientific Ethos. A Deviant Viewpoint, in European Journal of Sociology, 11 (1970), 3–25.
The simplest description (idealization) of complex systems is presented by H. von Foerster, »Principles of Self-Organization in a Socio-Managerial Context«, in H. Ulrich/G.J.B. Probst, (ed.), Self-Organization and Management of Social Systems. Insights, Promises, Doubts, and Questions,Berlin u.a.: Springer, 1984, 2–24 in the model of a non-trivial machine. It matches an entity to another on the grounds of its internal state and thereby changes its state on the grounds of its inner structure. Such a machine is not reconstructible from an analysis of the matching of entities (e.g. numbers) because of the hidden change in state. In the case of machines, the programme of which is not known because they were not built by us, i.e. natural and social systems, an empirical task follows to develop a model of its construction by means of the composition of functional analysis (investigation of the matching of input and output) with the investigation of the organization (mechanism of operating)
Beyond thermodynamical equilibrium« means that the mechanical forces are balanced but the thermodynamical ones (gradients with respect to temperature, concentration, etc.) are not.
See R.F. Bales, Personality and interpersonal Behavior,New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970, 5–8. In general this distinction is still considered to be useful.
L. Fleck, Erfahntng und Tatsache. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983, p. 147–174.
Eigenvalues or eigensolutions describe certain parameters or states of a system which, depending on the boundary conditions, have been chosen from the number of theoretically possible parameters or states of a system. In contrast to classical systems where the boundary condition is independent of the state (by means of undetermined constants contained in the general solution, any boundary condition can be fulfilled), the boundary condition and state of the system in case of self-organized systems are closely connected with each other. It can be said, therefore, that the system forms its own boundary and the boundary determines the state of the system.
J. Piaget, Die Entwicklung des Erkennens (1950), 3 Vol., Stuttgart: Klett, 1972/73; G. Bateson, Geist und Natur. Eine notwendige Einheit, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982; E. von Glasersfeld, Wissen, Sprache und Wirklichkeit, Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1987; G. Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form (1971), London: Allen and Unwin, 1979.
Exceptions here are the »radical conventionalism« of Ajdukiewicz (Ajdukiewicz, K., The Scientific World Perspective and other Essays 1931–1963,Dordrecht, Boston: Reidel, 1978) and perhaps the older tradition of the conventionalism of Duhem (Duhem, P., The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory,New York: Atheneum, 1962) and Poincare (Poincare, H., Science and Hypothesis,New York: Dover, 1952). Here, however, a reference to social interaction was missing They only reconstructed theories and world images. The more recent laboratory studies exhaust themselves in arguments against their rivals in the field of theory of knowledge - rationalists and positivists.
Following on G. Bateson, op. cit.,1982, note 13.
As expressed by G. Spencer-Brown, op. cit., 1971, note 13.
N.R. Hanson, Perception and Discovery. An Introduction to Scientific Inquiry, San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Co., 1969; K. Knorr-Cetina, Die Fabrikation von Erkenntnis. Zur Anthropologie der Naturwissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984.
L. Fleck, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache,Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980, p. 152ff.
K. R. Popper, The Logic of Discovery, New York: Harper and Row,1976; I. Lalcatos, »History of Science and its Rational Reconstruction«, in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, VIII, 91–136. L. Laudan, Progress and its Problems, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.
See Fleck, op. cit., 1980, note 18, p. 58.
The complementary concepts are therefore: The complement class of rational action is ir-rational action regardless of whether performed against a subject or object. Ir-rational action is, according to the everyday use of the word, for example, emotional or intuitive action. Social action is oriented towards subjects capable of interaction and communication regardless of whether rational or emotional. The complement class of social action is action directed toward objects. One could argue whether the demarcation line between the class of complements is essential or gradual. This would not be just a debate on concepts but an empirical one (e.g. on the rationality of emotional strategies, communication with animals, amongst others).
See M. Maruyama’s »deviation amplifying mutual causal processes«, in «The Second Cybernetics. Deviation-Ampliffying Mutual Processes«, in W. Buckley (ed.), Modem Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist, 2. ed., Chicago: Aldine, 1969, 304–316.
W. Krohn/G. Köppers, Die Selbstorganisation der Wissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989.
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Krohn, W., Küppers, G. (1990). Science as a Self-Organizing System Outline of a Theoretical Model. In: Krohn, W., Küppers, G., Nowotny, H. (eds) Selforganization. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2975-8_14
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