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Exploring the genealogy of systems thinking
Author(s) -
Hammond Debora
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
systems research and behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 1092-7026
DOI - 10.1002/sres.499
Subject(s) - miller , discipline , variety (cybernetics) , systems thinking , epistemology , meaning (existential) , field (mathematics) , sociology , engineering ethics , social science , computer science , engineering , philosophy , artificial intelligence , mathematics , ecology , pure mathematics , biology
Abstract As a plenary address at the 2001 Annual Conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), this paper was intended to initiate an interactive exploration into the roots of systems thinking. Beginning with a summary of the key influences in the development of the author's own understanding of systems, the paper continues with an overview of developments in the broad variety of disciplinary fields that contributed to the elaboration of systems concepts. Following these introductory reflections, the paper provides a brief discussion of the primary concerns of the original founders of the ISSS (Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard, James G. Miller and Anatol Rapoport). Those who attended the conference were then asked to consider the evolution of their own understanding of the meaning and significance of systems thinking by responding to the following questions: (1) Through what academic discipline or occupational field were you originally introduced to systems ideas? (2) Which systems thinkers have been most influential in the evolution of your own thinking about systems? (3) What kinds of questions motivated your interest in systems? (4) What kinds of problems were you seeking to address? (5) Has your concern with systems ideas been primarily theoretical or practical? A brief summary of answers to these questions is included in the concluding remarks. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.