Traditions of Systems Theory: Major Figures and Contemporary Developments

Cover......Page 1
Original Title......Page 2
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 12
PART I Early Developments and Their Continued Repercussions......Page 14
Introduction to Part I......Page 16
1 Systems Theory: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century......Page 23
2 The Persistence of Information Theory......Page 34
3 Cybernetics: Thinking Through the Technology......Page 58
4 Expanding the Self-Referential Paradox: The Macy Conferences and the Second Wave of Cybernetic Thinking......Page 91
5 The Hermeneutical System of General Systemology: Bertalanffian and Other Early Contributions to Its Foundations and Development......Page 97
6 The Ethics of Epistemology: The Work of the Constructivist and Cybernetician Heinz von Foerster, from the Vienna Circle to the Cybernetic Circle......Page 150
7 Maturana and Varela: From Autopoiesis to Systems Applications......Page 171
8 Eugene Odum and the Homeostatic Ecosystem: The Resilience of an Idea......Page 192
PART II Systems Thinking in Sociology......Page 208
Introduction to Part II......Page 210
9 Talcott Parsons: A Sociological Theory of Action Systems......Page 215
10 Luhmann: Three Key Concepts, System, Meaning, Autopoiesis......Page 232
11 Systems Historicized: Wallerstein’s World-Systems Analysis......Page 255
PART III Further Contemporary Developments......Page 266
Introduction to Part III......Page 268
12 Systems Theories and Literary Studies......Page 274
13 Systems Heuristics and Digital Culture......Page 290
14 A Brief Outline of Evolutionary Cultural Ecology......Page 306
15 Prigogine: The Interplay of Cosmos, Complexity, and Culture......Page 322
16 Systems Theory and Practice in Organizational Change and Development......Page 339
17 Systems, Tools, and Bateson’s Cybernetics: A Joint Metalogue......Page 358
Contributors......Page 376
Index......Page 382