Abstract
This chapter presents a history and critique of mid-twentieth century general, and social systems theory. The history of systemic thought is familiar to most students of social science. What is less well integrated into current sociological theory and practice is the ‘second wave’ of systemic theory or ‘complexity theory’, which succeeded the general systems program. It beings with a critical re-evaluation of the legacies of ‘classical’ general systems theorists, and the early multidisciplinary promise of their work. Social systems theory emphasises the role of functional pre-requisites for social stability and reproduction, allied to a model of social structure often referred to as ‘structural functionalism’. The chapter concludes that the two tasks can productively be separated, and that there is nothing inherently conservative in specifying structural models as guiding ideal-types.
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Notes
- 1.
The relative youth of sociology in comparison to that of the ‘mature’ physical sciences may account for the current ambiguity of its epistemology and subject matter – although the postmodern turn offers little evidence of a trajectory corresponding to that of Kuhn (Eliot and Kiel 2004; Harvey and Reed 2004). Conversely, others have suggested that it is possible for disciplines to experience periods of ‘non-paradigm, multi-paradigm, or dual paradigm activity’ (see Johnston and Sidaway 2004: 12).
- 2.
A comprehensive, but disjointed history of this group, variously operating as the Committee on the Behavioral Sciences, the ‘Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences’ (under the auspices of the Ford Foundation (est. 1936), and the International Society for the Systems Sciences is offered in Debora Hammond’s (2003) The Science of Synthesis: Exploring the Social Implications of General Systems Theory. The political implications of post-war research funding, and the humanistic connotations of holistic conceptualisation are also addressed. The term General Systems Theory is credited to Ludwig Von Bertalanffy (1901–1972), whereas Living Systems Theory is credited to James Grier Miller’s (b1916) publication of the same name (1978). These terms are used interchangeably, as both approaches inform and complement each other, and the authors share common origins in the above groups – the term ‘systems theory’ is therefore an umbrella term for work within these traditions. The intricacies of these earlier debates and divergences are beyond the scope of this present discussion, and the reader is directed to Hammond (2003) and Skyttner (2005) for a comprehensive history.
- 3.
Recent attempts to pointedly operationalise such measures of disorder include the analogical adoption of the concept of entropy (Miller and Miller 1992; Bailey 2006). The laws of the conservation of energy specify that closed systems, in their appropriation of energy, transform such energies into increasingly diffuse and less useful forms (Atkins 2007). A key principle of systems theory is that open living systems by necessity counteract this tendency by appropriating more energy from their environments, stored as surplus energy; degradation of structure is consequently conditional on this reverse process of negentropy. This level of analysis is clearly beyond the scope of conventional sociology, due to the impossible task of quantifying various social processes in terms of energy conservation.
- 4.
Turner (1991) also offers a suitable summary of the pattern variable as an attempt to account for differing subjective orientations to action (1991: xxi). These variables were ultimately outlined by Parsons as a universal set, consisting of; affectivity vs. affective neutrality; self vs. collective orientation; universalism vs. particularism; achievement vs. ascription; specificity vs. diffuseness. As normative standards governing individual choice, the respective sets of pattern variables demonstrate similarities both to Tonnies’ distinction of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft (Turner 1991: xxi), and to the social contexts of Durkheim’s mechanical and organic solidarities.
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Flaherty, E. (2019). A Brief History of Systemic Thought in the Social and Natural Sciences. In: Complexity and Resilience in the Social and Ecological Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54978-5_1
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