Editing Systems theory (section)

===Precursors===
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Predecessors
* [[Baron d'Holbach]] (1723/1789), [[Henri de Saint-Simon|Saint-Simon]] (1760–1825), [[Auguste Comte]] (1798–1857), [[Karl Marx]] (1818–1883), [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820–1895), [[Herbert Spencer]] (1820–1903), [[Rudolf Clausius]] (1822–1888), [[Vilfredo Pareto]] (1848–1923), [[Émile Durkheim]] (1858–1917), [[Alexander Bogdanov]] (1873–1928), [[Nicolai Hartmann]] (1882–1950), [[Robert Maynard Hutchins]] (1929–1951), among others
Founders
* 1946–1953: [[Macy conferences]]
* 1948: [[Norbert Wiener]] publishes ''[[Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine]]''
* 1951: [[Talcott Parsons]] publishes ''The Social System''<ref>{{cite book|last=Parsons|first=Talcott|title=The Social System|date=1951|publisher=Glencoe}}</ref>
* 1954: The [[Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory]] is established by [[Ludwig von Bertalanffy]], [[Anatol Rapoport]], [[Ralph W. Gerard]], [[Kenneth Boulding]].
* 1955: [[William Ross Ashby]] publishes ''Introduction to Cybernetics''
* 1968: Bertalanffy publishes ''General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications''

Other contributors
* 1970–1990 [[Second-order cybernetics]] ([[Heinz von Foerster]], [[Gregory Bateson]], [[Humberto Maturana]], and others)
* 1971–1973 [[Cybersyn]], rudimentary internet and cybernetic system for democratic economic planning developed by [[Stafford Beer]] in Chile under the [[Allende government]]
* 1970s: [[Catastrophe theory]] ([[René Thom]], [[E.C. Zeeman]]) [[Dynamical system]]s in mathematics.
* 1977: [[Ilya Prigogine]] received the Nobel Prize for his works on [[self-organization]], conciliating important ''systems theory'' concepts with [[thermodynamic system|system thermodynamics]].
* 1980s: [[Chaos theory]] ([[David Ruelle]], [[Edward Lorenz]], [[Mitchell Feigenbaum]], [[Steve Smale]], [[James A. Yorke]])
* 1986: [[Context theory]] ([[Anthony Wilden]])
* 1988: [[List of systems science organizations|International Society for Systems Science]] is established.
* 1990: [[Complex adaptive system]]s ([[John Henry Holland|John H. Holland]], [[Murray Gell-Mann]], [[W. Brian Arthur]])
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Systems thinking can date back to antiquity, whether considering the first systems of written communication with Sumerian [[cuneiform]] to [[Maya numerals]], or the feats of engineering with the [[Egyptian pyramids]]. Differentiated from Western [[rationalist]] traditions of philosophy, [[C. West Churchman]] often identified with the [[I Ching]] as a systems approach sharing a frame of reference similar to [[pre-Socratic]] philosophy and [[Heraclitus]].<ref name=Hammond>{{cite book|title=The Science of Synthesis|last=Hammond, Debora|year=2003|publisher=University of Colorado Press|isbn=9780870817229}}</ref>{{rp|12–13}} [[Ludwig von Bertalanffy]] traced systems concepts to the philosophy of [[Gottfried Leibniz]] and [[Nicholas of Cusa]]'s ''[[Coincidentia oppositorum#Coincidentia oppositorum|coincidentia oppositorum]]''. While modern systems can seem considerably more complicated, they may embed themselves in history.

Figures like [[James Prescott Joule|James Joule]] and [[Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot|Sadi Carnot]] represent an important step to introduce the ''systems approach'' into the (rationalist) hard sciences of the 19th century, also known as the [[energy transformation]]. Then, the [[thermodynamics]] of this century, by [[Rudolf Clausius]], [[Josiah Willard Gibbs|Josiah Gibbs]] and others, established the ''system'' [[reference model]] as a formal scientific object.

Similar ideas are found in [[Learning theory (education)|learning theories]] that developed from the same fundamental concepts, emphasising how understanding results from knowing concepts both in part and as a whole. In fact, Bertalanffy's organismic psychology paralleled the learning theory of [[Jean Piaget]].<ref name="GST">[[Ludwig von Bertalanffy|von Bertalanffy, Ludwig]]. [1968] 1976. ''General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications'' (rev. ed.). New York: George Braziller. {{ISBN|0-8076-0453-4}}.</ref> Some consider interdisciplinary perspectives critical in breaking away from [[industrial age]] models and thinking, wherein history represents history and math represents math, while the arts and sciences [[Academic specialization|specialization]] remain separate and many treat teaching as [[behaviorist]] conditioning.<ref>see Steiss 1967; Buckley, 1967.</ref>

The contemporary work of [[Peter Senge]] provides detailed discussion of the commonplace critique of educational systems grounded in conventional assumptions about learning,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Senge |first=Peter., Ed |title=Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education. |publisher=Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. |year=2000 |location=New York |pages=27–49}}</ref> including the problems with fragmented knowledge and lack of holistic learning from the "machine-age thinking" that became a "model of school separated from daily life." In this way, some systems theorists attempt to provide alternatives to, and evolved ideation from orthodox theories which have grounds in classical assumptions, including individuals such as [[Max Weber]] and [[Émile Durkheim]] in sociology and [[Frederick Winslow Taylor]] in [[scientific management]].<ref>Bailey, 1994, pp. 3–8; see also Owens, 2004.</ref> The theorists sought holistic methods by developing systems concepts that could integrate with different areas.

Some may view the contradiction of [[reductionism]] in conventional theory (which has as its subject a single part) as simply an example of changing assumptions. The emphasis with systems theory shifts from parts to the organization of parts, recognizing interactions of the parts as not static and constant but dynamic processes. Some questioned the conventional [[closed system]]s with the development of [[open system (systems theory)|open systems]] perspectives. The shift originated from [[Absolute (philosophy)|absolute]] and universal authoritative principles and knowledge to relative and general [[concept]]ual and [[perceptual]] knowledge<ref>Bailey 1994, pp. 3–8.</ref> and still remains in the tradition of theorists that sought to provide means to organize human life. In other words, theorists rethought the preceding [[history of ideas]]; they did not lose them. Mechanistic thinking was particularly critiqued, especially the industrial-age mechanistic [[metaphor]] for the mind from [[interpretation (philosophy)|interpretation]]s of [[Newtonian mechanics]] by [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosophers and later psychologists that laid the foundations of modern organizational theory and management by the late 19th century.<ref>Bailey, 1994; Flood, 1997; Checkland, 1999; Laszlo, 1972.</ref>