General systems theory (GST) is linked with cybernetics and information theory. The origin of the general systems theory is associated with the publication in 1928 of a seminal book ( Von Bertalanffy, 1928, 1968) titled Kritische Theorie der Formbildung, authored by eminent Austrian biologist and philosopher Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–71). General systems theory (GST) is a science investigating general laws for arbitrarily complex arrangements-“systems”-which constitute functional integrities. Stanisław Sieniutycz, in Complexity and Complex Thermo-Economic Systems, 2020 1.1 General systems theory Although Naveh has not yet published his methodology, articles by American colleagues and students describe how SOD is used to frame understanding of a complex operational environment and design an intervention to transform the system. Following his historical review of the evolution of operational art, Naveh developed a novel systems approach to operations called Systemic Operational Design (SOD). Naveh claimed that the operational level of war - the link between strategy and tactics - is the implementation of Bertalanffy's concept of systems as goal-directed open complex wholes in the military sphere. Naveh's PhD thesis, subsequently published as a book, used GST as a heuristic framework for interpreting the history of operational art, from Blitzkreig and Soviet Deep Operation theory in the 1920s and 1930s through to its American expression in Airland Battle doctrine in the 1980s. It was not until the 1990s that a significant, explicit military application of GST was developed by Brigadier General (Retired) Naveh, co-founder of Israel's Operational Theory Research Institute. As leader of the Proletkult movement and President of the Academy of Social Sciences, Bogdanov's influence spread through the Scientific Organisation of Labour ( Nachnaia Organizatsiia Truda) movement to the Red Army, and helped to shape the development of the Russian military's novel theoretical construct of “operational art”. Russian society in general, and the Red Army in particular, was influenced by Bogdanov's approach to systems thinking and the science of organisation. In Russia, Bogdanov's Tectology, a remarkably similar but independently developed theory, attempted to understand the universal science of organisation. In fact, GST and systems science, aware of the aims set out by GST, are the trans-disciplinary science per se. Trans-disciplinarity does thereby not mean the abolition of disciplinary knowledge but grasping for a bigger picture. While multi-disciplinarity would mean the unrelated coexistence of mono-disciplinary accounts and inter-disciplinarity the casual establishment of relations between mono-disciplines without having feedback loops that have a lasting impact on their repertoire of methods and concepts, trans-disciplinarity comes into play when each discipline is engaged in the collaborative undertaking of constructing a common base of methods and concepts, of which its own methods and concepts can be understood as kind of instantiations. In its aiming for generalizations, GST is thus heading towards a state of science called in preset days “trans-disciplinarity.” The term “trans-disciplinarity” is used to define a concept that goes beyond the meaning of multi- and even interdisciplinarity. This holds for epistemological, ontological and ethical aspects of philosophical implications as well. The complex systems approach as the most recent development of the new paradigm seems to have more in common with the original ideas than other ramifications and more than today acknowledged. This chapter explores the general system theory (GST) that turns out to be the name for systems science in statu nascendi from which many ramifications followed in the course of the history of systems science. Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Matthias Schafranek, in Philosophy of Complex Systems, 2011 Publisher Summary
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