Precursors 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.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy traced systems concepts to the philosophy of
Gottfried Leibniz and
Nicholas of Cusa's
coincidentia oppositorum. While modern systems can seem considerably more complicated, they may embed themselves in history. Figures like
James Joule and
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 Gibbs and others, established the
system reference model as a formal scientific object. Similar ideas are found in
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. 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
specialization remain separate and many treat teaching as
behaviorist conditioning. The contemporary work of
Peter Senge provides detailed discussion of the commonplace critique of educational systems grounded in conventional assumptions about learning, 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. 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 systems with the development of
open systems perspectives. The shift originated from
absolute and universal authoritative principles and knowledge to relative and general
conceptual and
perceptual knowledge 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
interpretations of
Newtonian mechanics by
Enlightenment philosophers and later psychologists that laid the foundations of modern organizational theory and management by the late 19th century.
Founding and early development Where assumptions in Western science from
Plato and
Aristotle to
Isaac Newton's
Principia (1687) have historically influenced all areas from the
hard to
social sciences (see,
David Easton's seminal development of the "
political system" as an analytical construct), the original systems theorists explored the implications of 20th-century advances in terms of systems. Between 1929 and 1951,
Robert Maynard Hutchins at the
University of Chicago had undertaken efforts to encourage innovation and interdisciplinary research in the social sciences, aided by the
Ford Foundation with the university's interdisciplinary
Division of the Social Sciences established in 1931. Bertalanffy developed the theory via lectures beginning in 1937 and then via publications beginning in 1946. According to
Mike C. Jackson (2000), Bertalanffy promoted an embryonic form of GST as early as the 1920s and 1930s, but it was not until the early 1950s that it became more widely known in scientific circles. Jackson also claimed that Bertalanffy's work was informed by
Alexander Bogdanov's three-volume
Tectology (1912–1917), providing the conceptual base for GST. In 1954, von Bertalanffy, along with
Anatol Rapoport,
Ralph W. Gerard, and
Kenneth Boulding, came together at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto to discuss the creation of a "society for the advancement of General Systems Theory." In December that year, a meeting of around 70 people was held in
Berkeley to form a society for the exploration and development of GST. The
Society for General Systems Research (renamed the International Society for Systems Science in 1988) was established in 1956 thereafter as an affiliate of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Economist Kenneth Boulding, an early researcher in systems theory, had concerns over the manipulation of systems concepts. Boulding concluded from the effects of the Cold War that abuses of
power always prove consequential and that systems theory might address such issues. view on the subject. In sociology, systems thinking also began in the 20th century, including
Talcott Parsons'
action theory and
Niklas Luhmann's
social systems theory. According to Rudolf Stichweh (2011):Since its beginnings the
social sciences were an important part of the establishment of systems theory... [T]he two most influential suggestions were the comprehensive sociological versions of systems theory which were proposed by Talcott Parsons since the 1950s and by Niklas Luhmann since the 1970s.Elements of systems thinking can also be seen in the work of
James Clerk Maxwell, particularly
control theory. ==General systems research and systems inquiry==