2. Systems Thinking

There are, however, some systems paradigms that reject this approach or consign it to a minor role in the systems thinking universe of ideas (see Midgley, 2003b).

On the other hand, Fuenmayor (1991a) traces the roots of reductionism in the eleatic ontology (that is, the discovery or naming of reality driven by the interest in persuading another person) underlying the Greek philosophy of Aristotle and Parmenides, passing onto Aquinas; while crediting mainly Heidegger, Heraclitus, and Kant for more systemic insights. He traces reductionism as leading onto ‘The Mathematical Project of Modern Science’, where reason starts from simple but unquestionable axioms on which an acceptable method is applied to arrive at certain conclusions.

Table 2.1 only lists articles, books, and resources that provide an overview of the field as a whole; it excludes books and resources that elaborate only one single approach or methodology.

Some sources for information on this are the websites of the American Society of Cybernetics and the INCOSE; the latter also produces a journal.

Given that our models of the universe at the atomic or quantum levels are sophisticated mathematical abstractions, as well as the fact that instrumentation and recording of the events and objects at these levels are also dependent on many levels of abstraction, the extrapolation and discussion of the nature of the world from these scientific researches necessarily involve interpretation grounded in philosophical positions. To my mind, therefore, it is an ironic comment on the nature of the uncritical and religious faith in ‘Science’ in the Western world that it seeks confirmation of principles that have been commonplace and self-evident across centuries to most of human civilisation. Yet every piece of evidence that does not appear to meet the religious prescriptions of that ‘science’ is labelled as ‘spiritual’ or ‘mystic’, which in effect consigns all other forms of knowing to the garbage heap of this new theology. For example, there are numerous healing traditions across the world, and some of them evidence demonstrable success; yet the singular reliance on allopathy (despite its numerous problems) is unshaken in the mainstream of the West, while effective answers from other systems are routinely condemned (see Shapiro & Selin, 2003). This criticism of science—a limited lay understanding but also limited in nature when classically interpreted, is referred to as first-order science. A better interpretation, termed Second-Order Science is discussed in the next chapter.

In fact, it is possible to map the successive, unfolding waves of systems thinking to an evolutionary typology like the Existential Universe Mapper (see Sect. 3.​4.​1 in the next chapter), and such an exercise, although not included in this book, can add some insights to the picture of development.

During a private conversation in 2013 while I was doing my doctoral research.

Later a soft System Dynamics approach was developed as part of the second wave of systems thinking.

Churchman (1979a) refers to politics, morality, religion, and aesthetics as the enemies of systems thinking. These dimensions of the human context provide a powerful way of learning about the systems approach, precisely because they enable the rational mind to step outside itself and to observe itself (from the vantage point of the enemies). The reality of these ‘enemies’ cannot be conceptualized, approximated, or measured; and thus confront the rational approach with the seriousness of its limitations.

In fact, the coherence and collimation of comprehension and understanding, of energies and of skills that is achieved in cultural practices (such as rituals, theatre, yoga, or when practical skills like sports or surgery are honed), go far beyond rational comprehension and knowledge. I have routinely seen far too many ‘magical’ processes in my theatre-based inquiry work and in yoga practitioners, which are described in Sect. 6.​2.

If ‘judgements about boundaries’ is read for ‘distinctions’, then we are, in effect, speaking about Systemic Intervention.

The idea of boundary critique was originally propounded by Churchman in the second wave of ST and has been developed in different ways in the third wave by Ulrich and Midgley.