Karl ludwig von bertalanffy biography of donald
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A review of "The Dialectical Tragedy of the Concept of Wholeness: Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s Biography Revisited" written by David Pouvreau, published by ISCE Publishing ISBN 9780981703282 (2009)
Revelations
Ludwig von Bertalanffy is of course well known as the founder of the systems approach known as “General Systems Theory” (GST), and for his many publications in this area as well as in inaugurating and leading several of the large systems sciences associations. GST certainly ranks as one of the important precursors to modern complexity theory bygd setting the conceptual scen for many important developments in the latter. This excellent biography of Bertalanffy written bygd David Pouvreau (translated from the French by Elisabeth Schober) was prompted bygd two precipitating events. The first was the advent of several recent scholarly German language biographies of Bertalanffy written as doctoral theses. This research uncovered aspects of Bertalanffy’s early ca
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Ludwig von Bertalanffy - General System Theory - 1950
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General system theory, therefore, is a general science of wholeness... The meaning of the somewhat mystical expression, “The whole is more that the sum of its parts” is simply that constitutive characteristics are not explainable from the characteristics of the isolated parts. The characteristics of the complex, therefore, appear as new or emergent... - Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Systems theory was proposed in the 1940's by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and furthered by Ross Ashby (1964). Von Bertalanffy was reacting against both reductionism and attempting to revive the unity of science. He is considered to be the founder and principal author of general systems theory.
If one were to analyze current notions and fashionable catchwords, he would find “systems” high on the list - Ludwig von Bertalanffy
von Bertalanffy
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BERTALANFFY'S GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY
Systems theory studies the structure and properties of systems in terms of relationships, from which new properties of wholes emerge. It was established as a science by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Anatol Rapoport, Kenneth E. Boulding, William Ross Ashby, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and others in the 1950's. Systems theory, in its transdisciplinary role, brings together theoretical principles and concepts from ontology, philosophy of science, physics, biology and engineering. Applications are found in numerous fields including geography, sociology, political science, organizational theory, management, psychotherapy and economics amongst others.
The concept of system, though it seems to be intrinsic to human thinking, has been extensively employed and developed over the last few decades, due in a large measure to contributions made by Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), a Viennese professor of biology. He worked to identify structural