The Systems Approach: Its Variety of Aspects* · The Systems Approach: Its Variety of Aspects* Richard Mattessich Distinguished Arthur Andersen & Co. Professor, Faculty of Commerce

The Systems Approach:Its Variety of Aspects*

Richard MattessichDistinguished Arthur Andersen & Co. Professor, Faculty of Commerce andBusiness Administration, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.,Canada V6T 1Y8

This article offers a concise survey and glimpse of thevast literature presently available in the field of systemsthinking and cybernetics. The first part discusses theareas of systems philosophy, systems analysis (math-ematical systems theory), empirical systems research,and systems engineering, while the second part offerssome details about the contributions of the followingselected scholars: von Bertalanffy, Bogdanov, Ackoff,Churchman, and Herbert A. Simon. A bibliography ofsome 150 books and papers closes the article.

Introduction

The systems approach has many scintillating facets andreflects different colors when illuminated from differentangles. Its originators deemed it to be a potential replace-ment for traditional science; but these hopes have longbeen abandoned, and to many people the systems ap-proach remains nothing but a temporary fad, with Berlin-ski (1976) and Lilienfeld (1978) as its two major critics; toothers, it is a new scientific discipline or subdiscipline; tosome, it is a purely mathematical undertaking, while others

regard it as belonging to the empirical sciences; for some, itis an ontology par excellence, while others envision it as avaluable methodology; for some, its application is univer-sal, while others expect it to be especially useful in the lifesciences, and yet others regard it as particularly suited tothe applied and social sciences. Whether this great varietyis the strength or weakness of systems thinking is difficultto assess, but it certainly is a source of bewilderment to theuninitiated. Although an article of this limited size cannotexhaust such a multitude of interpretations, I shall tryto bring some order into this apparent chaos, and shallthen proceed to discuss the contributions of a few authorswhom I deem especially important, though occasion-ally neglected.*

The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences(see Vol. 15, pp. 452-495, 1965) classifies "systems anal-ysis" into the following five categories: (1) general systemstheory, (2) social systems, (3) political systems, (4) interna-tional systems, and (5) psychological systems. For our pur-pose, this disciplinary classification is hardly satisfactory,and I prefer to employ a more methodologically orientedscheme of categorization:

Systems Approach

Systems philosophy:Systems ontology,systems epistemol-ogy, systems meth-odology

Systems analysis:Development ofmathematical sys-tems theories (ho-mologies) and thedesigning of sys-tems models

Empiricalsystems research:

Studies of systemsbehavior, testing ofsystems laws, fittingof systems modelsand doing simula-tion studies withthem

Systems engineering:Constructing artifi-cial systems (includ-ing robots, EDP-systems. accountingsystems, etc.)

•Financial support from the Social Sciences and HumanitiesResearch Council of Canada for this project is gratefully acknowledged.

©1982 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

•Among the staggering amount of literature on systems andcybernetics, I decided to concentrate mainly on books in this article;even here, a careful selection proved necessary to prevent the listingsfrom getting out of hand.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE CCC 0002-8231/82/060383-12$03.40

Systems Philosophy

From the very outset (cf. Bogdanov 1912/1922, vonBertalanffy 1945, 1950, 1968), the systems approach hashad a strongly philosophic flavor, not so much because ofits programmatic nature, but because it embodied manyapsects of holistic paradigms expressed in the philoso-phies of Lao-tse, Heraclitus, Leibniz, Vico, Hegel, Marx,Whitehead, Driesch, and others. But its pioneers, Bog-danov and von Bertalanffy, regarded systems thinking (or"tektologia" as Bogdanov called it) as a scientific ap-proach and not as a mere philosophy. Although thewritings of those founders of the systems approach con-tain many more philosophic passages than falsifiable orverifiable scientific propositions, systems thinking as adeliberate philosophic enterprise is of relatively recentvintage. Although it fermented long before the 1960s (cf.Blauberg, Sadovsky, and Yudin, 1977), it found itsliterary precipitation in the late 1960s and the 1970s insome of the books by Churchman (1968a, 1968b, 1971,1979; see also my section on the contributions of Ackoffand Churchman), Laszlo (1969, 1972a), Sutherland(1973), and Ackoff and Emery (1972). Whereas the firsttwo of the books by Churchman (1968a, 1968b) could bedescribed as popular formulations of systems ethics,oriented toward the management and social sciences, hisother works are written in a professional philosophic andhistorical vein. Laszlo presents us with an Introduction toSystems Philosophy (1972a) strongly influenced by vonBertalanffy and his General Systems Theory. Along thesame line is Sutherland's (1973) attempt to apply generalsystems philosophy to the social sciences. Ackoff andEmery's (1972) work is much more rigorous than the lattertwo and offers a great deal of conceptual constructionsand clarification; whether one regards it as an exercise inphilosophy or as a foundation work for empirical scienceis a matter of personal taste. This constitutes what mightbe regarded as the ethical and introductory phase ofsystems philosophy.

The next phase, developing in the late 1970s, is markedby the methodology, episteniology, and ontology emerg-ing from the systems approach. I agree with Klir (1969,1972) and others that systems thinking is first and

foremost a point of view and a methodology arising out ofthis viewpoint. It is for this reason that I undertook (inMattessich, 1978) a comprehensive epistemological ex-amination of the systems approach as a methodologicaltool. There, 1 examined systems thinking in its relation todeductive and inductive inference, to management sci-ence, economics and the modern decision methods, aswell as to the applied and social sciences in general. To mymind, it seems that the systems approach, with its strongemphasis on input-output features and its purpose-orientation, is especially suited to the applied scienceswhich have traditionally lacked an epistemological andmethodological foundation. The traditional epistemologyof pure science seems to be insufficient for the appliedsciences (and probably for many aspects of the social

sciences) because the latter deal not only with cognitivehypotheses but, above all, with means-end relationships,or, in our terminology, instrumental hypotheses.* Mostsignificantly, two eminent scholars within the area of pro-fessional philosophy have recently adopted the systemsapproach. A purely epistemological application wasdeveloped by Rescher (1979), and the systems approach asan ontology par excellence is presented by Bunge (1979);this book is part of a comprehensive philosophic systemthat ultimately will comprise seven volumes. (A discussionof Bunge's systems ontology as it compares with my ownsystems methodology is provided in Mattessich, 1982a.)

Systems Analysis (Mathematical Systems Theory)

Although the meaning behind "systems analysis" maynot be unequivocal, we prefer this term to "mathematicalsystems theory" since it is questionable whethersomething like a single, uniform and undisputed systemstheory, mathematical or nonmathematical, exists atallt—perhaps "mathematical systems analysis" would bethe clearest expression. Some of the mathematical systemtheorists (e.g., Mortazavian, 1982) seem to be tempted torestrict the entire systems approach to the analytical,model-building aspects. We have pointed out elsewhere(cf. Mattessich, 1982b, 1982c) that such a restriction isneither feasible nor advisable; but there can be little doubtthat the analytical part of the systems approach is mostpromising and fertile. Undeniably, this analytical partemerged in the areas of cyberneticstt and communicationtheory with such mathematics as Wiener (1948/1961),Shannon and Weaver (1949), and others. But what com-plicates the situation is the fact that major contributionsto this kind of systems analysis were made by scholarsfrom empirical fields (psychology and other behavioralsciences, economics, management science, and engineer-ing) like Ashby (1956), Rapoport (1966), Lange (1962/1965), Iberall (1972), Bowler (1981), and others.However, the program for a general mathematicalsystems theory seems to have been conceived first byMesarovic (1960). For over two decades, he and other ap-plied mathematicians (e.g., Kalman, Falb, and Arbib,

*My terms, "instrumental hypothesis" and "instrumental reason-ing," are not related to Dewey's inslriimentui or pragmatic philosophy,but rather to Parsons' (1951) "instrumental orientation" and Parsonsand Shils' (1951) "instrumental action," as well as to Lowe's (1965) andMachlup's (1969/1978) "instrumental inference" and "instrumentalanalysis," I regard, in agreement with Machlup, instrumental inferenceor reasoning as leading to normative (i.e,, prescriptive) statements, anddo not envisage instrumental analysis as a third category beyond or be-tween positive and normative science (as Lowe seems to suggest),

tTo my knowledge, only Mesarovic and Takahara (1975) lay claim toa "general mathematical systems theory" in the above sense;Bunge's (1979) more global axiomatic system is only a systems frame-work (as he explicitly admits) into which various system theories mayfit.

t tFor the relationship between cybernetics and the systems ap-proach, see Eden (1982) and Mattessich (1982b),

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1969; Ahmavaara, 1974) have been working on a varietyof aspects of such a theory (for an overview, see Mortaza-vian, 1982), and the previously mentioned work byMesavoric and Takahara (1975) presents a mathematicalfoundation for general systems theory. Beyond thisgeneral mathematical foundation, the following two ma-jor areas ought to be distinguished:

(1) Linear and nonlinear system theories and controltheory. This classical version of mathematical systemtheory pivots on the transform functions expressing theconversion of inputs into outputs and on the feedbackfunctions by means of which this conversion process iscontrolled (cf. Dorf, 1967; Bellman, 1971; Brogan, 1974;Vidyasagar, 1974; Siljak, 1978; Kailath, 1980; Gabel,1980; Sethi and Thomson, 1981). Hereby, such featuresas the Laplace transform, dynamical system characteris-tics, the identification problem (identifying the nature ofthe change of system parameters), the output targets, anderror signals assume particular importance and elevatethe theory to something beyond a mere system of differen-tial and simultaneous equations.

(2) Automata theory (cf. Nelson, 1968, Hopcroft andUllman, 1979). Its basis is the theory of recursive func-tions (for an explication, see Hofstadter's best seller,1979, pp. 136-140); but it reaches from Turing machines(1936) over the theories of self-reproducing automata (vonNeumann, 1966) and computability to such problems aspattern recognition and neural networks. Berlinski (1976,p. 157) points out that:

Automata theory and the classical theory of linearsystems thus offer rivalrous interpretations ofsystemhood and its essences; in so doing the theoriestap different intuitions. The classical traditionabstracts from common engineering experiences,stripping from filters, amplifiers, and electrical cir-cuits their coarse physical properties.... Automatatheory, on the other hand, has historically arisen (atleast in part) as the result of abstractions performedon computational experiences.

Empirical Systems Research

In this area, a distinction between the programmaticformulations and actual empirical research ought to bemade. The works of Bogdanov (1912/1922) and von Ber-talanffy (1945, 1950, 1968) and of many others will have tobe regarded as programmatic, while Herbert Simon(1981) is one of the most eminent authors pleading for andactually doing empirical systems research. Indeed, he andhis collaborators have advanced one type of empiricalsystems research {heuristic research) that leads to thechess-playing behavior and theorem-solving behavior ofcomputers (e.g., Simon and Newell, 1958). Another, butrelated type of system research, employs computersimulation. In the area of management and economics,the best known research of this type is that of Forrester(1961, 1971), Meadows et al. (1972), and Mesarovic and

Pestel (1974).* Although such research usually pivots onmodel building, its ultimate quest is for new insights intothe system's behavior and conditional forecasting, boththrough computer simulation, instead of experimentationwith the concrete system itself.

A further type of system research consists of the manybehavioral studies of financial, managerial, and othersystems conducted by means of questionnaires, empiricalobservations, and sometimes even through experiments(often with student groups instead of actual executives) ingraduate schools of business administration and invarious departments of the behavioral sciences. In-evitably, one has to add here a good deal of the "program-matic" and "theoretical" work preparatory to actualbehavioral research, in as far as it stresses the systems ap-proach. Typical examples are the contributions by suchauthors as Parsons (1951, 1960, 1968), Kuhn (1974), andCavallo (1979) in sociology and social science research;Kaplan (1957), Knorr and Verba (1961), Boulding(1961/1969), McCelland (1961), Rosencrance (1963),Hoos (1972), Krone (1980), and Rosenau (1980) inpolitical science: Kohler (1929), Allport (1960), Rokeach(1960), Harvey (1961), Gochman (1962, 1966), and Piaget(1970) in psychology: Buckley (1967, 1968) in thebehavioral sciences in general: Beer (1959, 1967, 1979),Payne et al. (1975), Knight (1979), and Checkland (1981)in the area of management: Boulding (1961/1969) andAoki (1976) in economics: Bennet et al. (1978), States etal. (1978), Mulholland (1978), DeSouza (1979), and Hug-gett (1980) in social ecology, geography, and environmen-tal impact analysis: Fuller (1979) in architecture: Metzler(1977) in neuroscience: Johannides (1979) and Reisman(1979) in health care: O'Neil (1979) in education: Mann-heim (1979) in transportation: Townley (1978) in informa-tion retrieval: and finally, anthologies of a more generalnature, such as Emery (1969), Laszlo (1972b, 1973), andOptner (1973). But the major problems of empiricalsystems research still lie in the relative scarcity of opera-tionally defined concepts (cf. Rapoport, 1980) and in im-precise conceptualizations [as Amey (1980) illustrates, forexample, with regard to the notion of "steady state"].

Systems Engineering

This category ought to be understood in fairly broadterms, including not only the systems research under-taken by engineers (e.g.. Hall and Fagen, 1962; Wymore,1967; Zadeh and Polak, 1969), but also by such profes-sional groups as accountants and other informationsystem experts (e.g.. Van Gigch, 1974) concerned with thepreparaton for or actual construction of concrete systems.Much of this research overlaps with systems analysis

*Other pioneers in this area are Cohen (1960), Clarkson and Simon(1960), Orcutt (1960, 1961), Mattessich (1961, 1964a Chap, 9, 1964b),Balderston and Hoggatt (1962, 1963), Evans and Klein (1968, 1969),Klein (1969), Zeigler et al, (1979), and many others; for a survey, seeNaylor (1971), and for a general exposition, see Gordon (1978),

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(which often is carried out by engineers), as well as withempirical systems research, both of which are often onlyon a slightly higher level of generalization. Since thesedistinctions are a matter of degree, and since academicsoften do not recognize "practical research" as researchactivity proper, it is particularly difficult to characterizethis last category.

At the one extreme, there are system models built byengineers, but only on a slightly less abstract level thanthose by applied mathematicians (see the section onSystems Analysis), found in such works as Wymore(1967), the anthology by Zadeh and Polak (1969), or the"reconstructability analysis" by Cavallo and Klir (1979,1981a, 1981b). At the other extreme, one might considerthe fairly practical research of professional accountingbodies—e.g., that of the American Institute of CertifiedPublic Accountants, the Financial Accounting StandardsBoard, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accoun-tants—the ultimate task of which is the legislation ofminimal requirements to be met by the output of certainaccounting systems. In addition to these examples, onehas to mention the vast area of industrial research (notalways manifested in the literature) concerned withsystems design (Anderson, 1980) and with the construc-tion of the immense variety of computer and data process-ing (Gildersleeve, 1978) as well as roboter systems, missileand weapon systems, and other manufacturing and large-scale engineering systems (Wexler, 1976).

Von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory andBogdanov's Tektologia*

General Systems Theory (GST) is a movement foundedby Ludwig von Bertalanffy and fostered by the Society forGeneral Systems Research. GST aims at a unification andparticular reconstitution of most sciences. It also seems toimply a fairly radical holistic notion which, however, isdifferent from vitalism. GST can best be understood as areaction (perhaps an overreaction) to the dominant posi-tion of physics within modern science, to its methodologyand its lack of teleological concepts. As a biologist, vonBertalanffy (1968, p. 37) has sought to replace the"lifeless" positivistic foundations of science with a kind ofholistic vision, claiming that:

General system theory, therefore, is a generalscience of "wholeness' which up till now was consid-ered a vague, hazy, and semi-metaphysical concept.In elaborate form it would be a logico-mathematicaldiscipline, in itself purely formal but applicableto the various empirical sciences. For sciences con-cerned with "organized wholes," it would be of similarsignificance to that which probability theory has forsciences concerned with "chance events."

But von Bertalanffy's deeds belie his words, because hisown research bears hardly any similarity to that of amathematico-logical discipline. Any ambitious attemptto reconstruct the entire realm of science, to become a newsuperscience, is in danger of losing itself in verbosity, am-biguity, and contradiction—at worst, even in mysticism.Indeed, it is the ambiguity of some of its publicationsmore than its actual program that endangers GST.

Von Bertalanffy's first major work (1928) aimed atwhat we would consider a synthesis between the two op-posing biological theories. Out of the clash between"biological mechanism" and "vitalism" emerged his ownsystem-theoretic view, which he christened "organismicbiology."* At first, von Bertalanffy was far fromgeneralizing his system ideas, and his first article ongeneral systems theory was not published for more than adecade (1945). Bogdanov, however, developed his theoryfrom the very outset (1912) as a general theory of systemsorganization, providing a broad range of illustrations—from atomic, chemical, and biological "complexes" (aterm he uses interchangeably with "systems") to man andhuman organizations. Above all, Bogdanov (1922, p. 82,quoted from Gorelik, 1975, p. 3) developed a fairly com-prehensive conceptual apparatus for dealing with the veryproblems later explored by the disciples of GST and cy-bernetics. His main concern was to clarify and generalizethe organizational modes encountered in nature andsociety. He asserted that:

Tektology deals with organizational experiences notof this or that specialized field, but of all these fieldstogether. In other words, tektology embraces thesubject matter of all the other sciences and of all thehuman experience giving rise to these sciences, butonly from the aspect of method; that is, it is in-terested only in the modes of organization of thissubject matter.

The vocabulary and many of the notions found inTektologia are, of course, different from those used inGST; but the basic thrust of both is surprisingly similar.For Bogdanov is concerned with the organizing anddisorganizing forces of systems, with their differentiation,growth, and duplication, with the interdependencies be-tween system and environment, with the control and vari-ances, types of stability, the selection, vulnerability, crisesof systems, and so forth. As Setrov (1970, p. 59) claims, iteven seems that:

. . . many generally theoretical problems of thesystem approach are elaborated by A. Bogdanovmore fully and rigorously than is the case in the con-temporary theory of systems and cybernetics.

*This and the subsequent two sections are based on Mattessich(1978, pp, 276-301).

*Its main feature is "the establishment of laws of biologicalsystems in contrast to mechanism which "neither saw nor wished to seethis fundamental characteristic of life," and vitalism which "put aphilosophical construction in the place of natural scientific investiga-tion." (Von Bertalanffy, 1934/1962; p, 188),


A complaint brought against von Bertalanffy, ratherthan against GST, is the former's persistent silence con-cerning Alexander A. Bogdanov (1873-1928), the origi-nator of a truly generalized systems theory. The latter'sfundamental and highly original work appeared in Rus-sia under the title Tektologia, Vols. 1-3 (1912-1927),hence several years before von Bertalanffy's first system-theoretic notions—at the time restricted to biology—were published (1928). Furthermore, a German versionof the decisive first two volumes of Bogdanov's muchmore comprehensive presentation of systems organiza-tion was published in Bertalanffy's own mother tongue asearly as 1926-1928, and was subsequently reviewed inthe pertinent German literature.* We are certainly notaccusing Bertalanffy of plagiarism, and do not disputehis many genuine contributions; the history of sciencehas shown repeatedly that ideas frequently mature in theminds of two or more scholars simultaneously. Von Ber-talanffy may well have conceived his system ideas withoutany influence from Bogdanov. Yet it seems highly unlikelythat such a widely read scholar as von Bertalanffy, whoconcerned himself with research in the general systemsfield for nearly four decades, never encountered the Ger-man translation of Tektologia or the name of its au-thor—a name famous enough to occupy a separate sec-tion in t\\& Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967). Whateverthe reason, we can merely state the fact that in none ofvon Bergalanffy's more than 50 publications on this sub-ject does Bogdanov's name appear. In von Bertalanffy'sdefense, it should be mentioned that, in North America,neither the Russian original nor the German translationof Tektologia were widely known. For example, the En-cyclopedia of Philosophy mentions Bogdanov's interest inorganization theory, but does not list his Tektologia. Thefirst English translation (with commentary) of one ofBogdanov's works on systems theory was only recentlycompleted by Gorelik (1980).

The Contributions of Ackoff and Churchman

Three scholars deserve particular attention: Russell L.Ackoff, C. West Churchman, and Herbert A. Simon, allof whom have contributed significantly to methodolog-ical or other philosophic as well as empirical concerns ofsystems thinking.

Russell Ackoff combines a pragmatic attitude with aclear understanding of the need for sound methodologicalresearch. For many years, he has been one of the mostperceptive contributors to General Systems Research, andhis long-standing experience in the research, teaching,and application of systems has significantly helped toshape modern systems thinking. Of special importanceare his article "Towards a system of systems concepts"(1971) and his book. Scientific Method (1962)—see also

*The first volume of Tektologia's German translation, AllgemeineOrganisationslehre (1926), was reviewed by J. Plenge in 1927.

Ackoff and Emery (1972). From the outset, the articledistinguishes between an abstract system (all the elementsof which are concepts) and a concrete system (at least twoelements of which are factual objects) and emphasizes itsexclusive concern for the latter. This is a clear indicationthat, for Ackoff, systems research is an empirical disci-pline (or at least part of one). However, his disregard ofabstract systems could easily be misinterpreted: Ackoff is,of course, interested in the conceptual picture of an em-pirical system (which itself must be regarded as anabstract system), but his brand of Systems Research is notconcerned with systems encountered in pure logic andmathematics. Another decisive feature of this scheme isthe classification of systems, according to their goal-oriented behavior, into state-maintaining, goal-seeking,purposive, and purposeful systems. While the first merelyreacts (e.g., a simple thermostat system), the secondresponds by exercising choices of strategies but not ofgoals (e.g., an automatic pilot); the third pursues dif-ferent goals, without, however, selecting the goal to bepursued (e.g., a computer programmed to play checkers);finally, the fourth displays will, and thus chooses its owngoal (e.g., and organization). Ackoff adds a fifth type, theideal-seeking system, which, after attaining its goal, pro-ceeds to select another goal even closer to its standard ofperfection. These distinctions are important to an under-standing of systems and their evolution. Ackoff makessimilar distinctions for the components or elements of thesystem, and finally concludes with the conceptual dif-ference between an organism and an organization: Whileboth are purposeful systems, organisms do not possess"purposeful" elements.

The major concern of the fundamental work by Ackoffand Emery (1972) is to derive the notions of function andpurpose from the mechanistic notions of traditionalscience (without falling back on behavioral positivism).The authors of this exciting attempt advance from a set ofgeneric mathematical and physical concepts and pro-ceed, step by step, to construct a long series of further con-cepts. Among these, the producer-product concept (x is aproducer of y) is regarded by Ackoff and Emery as mostcritical, because from this idea one arrives at the notion offunctional class—and various structural and functionalrelations between actions and outcomes (uni-uni, uni-multi, multi-multi) are made. However, we consider themost crucial steps to be the ones from functional sets togoal-seeking and purposeful systems. Nevertheless, thesebig leaps leave several questions open; above all, they donot reveal clearly enough what we consider to be thecritical point in the relation between mechanistic andteleoiogical concepts. While the authors seem to representthe notions of "goal" and "purpose" as fairly un-problematic extensions of physical concepts, we believethat mentalistic or reflective aspects (e.g., beliefs, inten-tions, norms, goals, purposes) and material aspects (e.g.,events, properties, points of location and time, mass, ac-celeration) belong to different epistemic categories.


Although these two sets of notions are as inevitably boundto each other as two sides of the same coin, they never-theless represent two different aspects of our universewhich must not be confused with each other. To see theconnection between them (e.g., between purpose andevent), the "coin" must be flipped—and it is this flippingof the coin (i.e., the revelation that a leap to a differentepistemic category has been made) which is not broughtout in Ackoff and Emery's otherwise excellent presenta-tion. This is not to say that the authors neglect such no-tions as awareness, consciousness, and mental states. Onthe contrary, they assure us that the "definition of mentalstates is the preoccupation of their book" (1972, p. 72),yet they pay too little attention to the crucial distinctionbetween the reflective and the material aspects. For me, asystem has a goal or purpose either (1) because the inneror mentalistic aspect of the system is developed highlyenough so that norms emerge from this very system (e.g.,in the form of new holistic properties), or (2) because somenorms are imposed, in one form or another, from outsideupon the system. In the latter case, the pertinent systembecomes an instrumental extension of some other system,and the goal of the former is reducible to the purpose ofthe latter. However, Ackoff and Emery apparently believethat the major criterion of purposeful action is the proper{active multifunctional and, of course, environmentallyindependent) relationship between structure of actionand function of outcome.

While Churchman' shares many interests and viewswith Ackoff, his temperament and his contributions tosystems thinking follow an entirely different course.Churchman's philosophic training and natural inclina-tion lead him to focus his attention on the existence ornonexistence of a hierarchy of systems and their in-terdependencies; above all, he dwells on the reconcilia-tion between the goals of the subsystems with the goal ofthe supersystem. This inevitably leads him to the intri-cate problem of systems improvement. The followingpassages are characteristic of Churchman's outlook andaim (1968b, p. 20):

Now, the management scientist's argument against"efficiency" is that it is always conceived in relationto a small segment of the social organization. Mereattention to cost reduction by itself, he says, maydo the very opposite of what the manager intends.In fact, cost reduction in many instances may ac-tually increase the system's total cost.

Or in a broader context (1968a, p. 5):

Now of course the discussion of individual behaviordoes properly belong under the theme describedhere as the ethics of large-scale systems. It is per-fectly proper to talk about a given person within asystem in terms of the quality of his behavior, justas we have talked about the quality of behavior ofeducation and health. We could therefore sensiblyask whether an individual might have lived his life

in a better way than he did, given the resourcesmade available to him by the whole system. Thepoint, however, is that we cannot judge improve-ment in an individual unless we have some under-standing of the nature of the whole system in whichthis individual lives. The theme we are exploring isone that claims that a concept of ethical conductdepends at least in part on the concept of systemimprovement. The ethics of whole systems incor-porates the concepts of the ethics of individualbehavior and places the problem of the ethics of in-dividual behavior within the context of the wholesystem.

In order to solve the problem of system improvement,one needs criteria for and measures of effectiveness.Once such measures are created, one can proceed to ex-plore the difficult question: Which system or systemstructure is satisfactory, or optimal, for a given purpose?This seemingly modest question conceals a highly com-plex issue for which no solution can be expected over-night. All one can do at this stage is to analyze the prob-lem on several levels, and to have begun this task ofclarification is one of Churchman's merits. His majorconcern is to decide whether the scientist charged withthe design or improvement of a system can or should ac-cept the goals and value judgments of his client (cf.Mattessich, 1962); this basic issue is the recurrent themeof much of his writing (1968b, pp. 11-12; see also 1961,1968a):

In the past the economist or engineer could say tohimself, "These are the goals that my client wishesto attain, and I will study how he can best attainthem. It is none of my business whether these goalsare the correct ones." But when the scientist beginsto work hand in hand with the top administrator,he can no longer take such a detached viewpointtoward his client's goals, he must ask himselfwhether the goals specified by the client are thecorrect ones in terms of the client's interests, andhe often discovers that they are incorrectly stated ordangerously narrow from the point of view of theimprovement of the entire system.

Here the problems of "suboptimization" convergewith the question of whether science can be free ofvalues. But Churchman does not simply intimate that themanagement scientist's value judgements be substitutedfor those of the manager; rather, he suggests that thescientist's task is to help the manager clarify his owngoals. But is there not a danger that in this process of ad-vice and "purification" the manager may be influencedby the value judgments of the scientist? Such concernsconceal a more fundamental problem: To what extentcan broad value judgments be "substituted" by scientificanalysis or, rather, reduced to value judgments of a morebasic or narrow type?


Most decisive, however, is Churchman's view aboutthe essence of the systems approach (1968a, pp. 10-11):

All along, our effort will be to expand our capabilityof thinking about systems. Consequently, this isnot a book on the subject of how each individualshould learn to think; it is more concerned with theresources that a society has at its disposal for think-ing better about its systems.... A book of this sortis an extension of the old-fashioned logic andrhetoric in which the student is trained adequatelyto think about the world.. . . But today our expand-ing technology provides us with all kinds of addi-tional resources beyond the basic types of logicwhich were taught by Aristotle, Spinoza, Dewey,and others. There is a plethora of additionalresources that we will want to explore as we developsome basic ideas on how to think in our century.

Here again, we encounter the conviction that systemsthinking may represent the indispensable methodolog-ical tool for our era. In Churchman's view, this approachwill close the chasm between the extreme realist whothinks in terms of the short-run and narrow subsystems,and the extreme idealist who might choose the entireuniverse and the infinite long run as his bases of vision.The essence of systems thinking lies in constantly relat-ing subsystems back and forth to the pertinent supersys-tem or environment, and in trying to reconcile their oftenconflicting goals. He points at the many difficulties to beencountered in this endeavor, but warns the reader not toexpect "like in a detective story, that in the end we willpropose solutions to the perplexing problems.. . ."(Churchman, 1968b, p. 82).

From a purely epistemological standpoint. Church-man's major contribution to the systems area is his book.The Design of Inquiring Systems (1971). In this work hemade the fascinating attempt to illustrate, from asystems point of view, the epistemic theories of such ma-jor philosophers as Leibniz (together with Descartes andSpinoza), Lx3cke (together with Hume and BishopBerkeley), Kant, and Hegel—as well as E. A. Singer towhom Churchman, as his former student, feels partic-ularly attached. The notion of interpreting science andknowledge-creation as a kind of information system hasfar-reaching consequences. Not only does it impart anovel perspective to epistemology, it also invites thereader to contemplate the relationships between variousinformation systems. In the light of this intriguing idea, Isuggest that it is quite reasonable to speak of a commonground between such a venerable and exalted area asepistemology and such a prosaic and applied field as ac-countancy. Both are important information systemswhich have more in common than either philosophers oraccountants might suspect. For the details of thisfascinating concept, the reader may wish to refer toChurchman's book (1971) and to the review articles byMitroff (1973) and Mitroff, Betz, and Mason (1970).

In his latest work. Churchman (1979) continues thesearch for generality and for a design of social systems.Here, the major themes, with many variations, are the"environmental fallacy" and "the enemies of the systemsapproach." The latter expression is not meant in the per-sonal sense and does not refer directly to such opponentsof systems thinking as Berlinski (1976) or Lilienfeld(1978), but refers to the traditional approaches to politics,morality, religion, and even aesthetics. Of course, thiscould easily be misunderstood and its full comprehensionis hardly possible without reading Churchman's entiretreatise.

Herbert Simon's Science of Design and ArtificialIntelligence

In contrast to Churchman, H. A. Simon exhibits astrongly positivistic slant in his approach to systems; heis less geared toward the loosely knit macrosystems ofsociety than toward the much tighter microsystems of ad-ministration with their subsystems. Simon's approachmay be studied in many of his writings (e.g., Simon,1977), but is best summarized in The Sciences of the Ar-tificial (1981). For Simon, system thinking focuses on theproblem of how to develop a science of design, i.e., ascientific basis for designing and testing systems. In con-trast to von Bertalanffy, he does not stress biologicalorganisms and naturally occurring social systems (e.g., asociety of ants), but is concerned with artificial, or man-made systems (as regards human behavior, Simon wouldremark that as long as this behavior is adapted to goals,it also is artificial (cf. Simon, 1981, p. 95).* This ob-viously implies a strong teleological emphasis (Simon,1981, pp. 6-7):

If science is to encompass these objects andphenomena in which human purpose as well asnatural law are embodied, it must have means forrelating these two disparate components. Thecharacter of these means and their implications forcertain areas of knowledge—economics, psychol-ogy and design in particular—are the central con-cern of this book.The engineer, and more generally the designer, isconcerned with how things ought to be—how theyought to be in order to attain goals, and to func-tion. Hence a science of the artificial will be closelyakin to a science of engineering—but very dif-ferent, as we shall see in my fifth chapter, fromwhat goes currently by the name of "engineeringscience."

In accord with other authors, Simon emphasizes therelation among purpose, elements, and environment of

*The above remark reveals the semantical trap into which Simonmight step if he were to identify "adaptation" of a system as an ar-tificial process; then the natural sciences, too, especially biology, wouldbecome sciences of the artificial.


the system; but he utilizes Claude Bernard's (1878)distinction between inner and outer environment, under-scoring the fact that a system is a meeting place betweeninner and outer environment (Simon, 1981, pp. 15-16):

Central to their [the artifacts] description are thegoals that link the inner to the outer system. Theinner system is an organization of natural phenom-ena capable of attaining the goals in some range ofenvironments, but ordinarily there will be manyfunctionally equivalent natural systems capable ofdoing this.

The outer environment determines the condi-tions for goal attainment. If the inner system isproperly designed, it will be adapted to the outerenvironment, so that its behavior will be determinedin large part by the behavior of the latter Thebehavior of the system will only partly respond tothe task environment; partly, it will respond to thelimiting properties of the inner system.

Since it is often difficult to predict the behavior of acomplex system, Simon recommends vicarious systemexperimentation through simulation, pointing out thatthis technique may even create new knowledge aboutsystem behavior. He is especially keen to demonstratethat system behavior can be predicted even in ignoranceof (or with a minimal knowledge of) the system's struc-ture. In connection with this, he speaks in favor of whatare called black box theories (Simon, 1981, p. 20):*

We knew a great deal about the gross physical andchemical behavior of matter before we had a knowl-edge of molecules, a great deal about molecularchemistry before we had an atomic theory, and agreat deal about atoms before we had any theory ofelementary particles—if indeed we have such atheory today.

This skyhook-skyscraper construction of sciencefrom the roof down to the yet unconstructed foun-dations was possible because the behavior of thesystem at each level depended on only a very ap-proximate, simplified, abstracted characterizationof the system at the level next beneath.

Simon also refers to John von Neumann's research incomputer reliability and the problem of organizing asystem in such a way that as a whole, it becomes relativelyreliable in spite of the possible unreliability of its com-ponents. This he accepts as evidence for the possibility ofconstructing a mathematical theory of systems indepen-dent of a corresponding factual microtheory of the perti-nent system. But the reader must not misinterpret this asSimon's rejection of empirical research in computer sci-ence; rather, it supports his contention that a distinction

*"A black box theory treats its object or subject matter as if it werea system devoid of internal structure; it focuses on the system's behav-ior and handles the system as a single unit" (Bunge Vol. 1, p. 509, 1967).

must be made between the factual knowledge about in-dividual system components (e.g., the solid-state physicsof transistors) and behavioral research of the entiresystem. This kind of research forms the core of whatSimon envisions as systems research in a truly empiricalsense, and this idea might turn out to be one of the majorinsights of empirical systems research.

Reflections of this nature and a series of experimentslead Simon to postulate the hypothesis that even man, asa behavioral system, is structured simply, and that hisapparent complexity stems from the complexity of his en-vironment. Man's brain operates serially, limited by thecapacity of its memory, and by its ability to digest only afew signals simultaneously. If sufficiently confirmed,such an hypothesis could become of far reaching conse-quence for psychology as well as for systems science. Asfar as the hierarchy of systems is concerned, he ap-proaches the problem from the viewpoint of decomposi-tion. Unlike Churchman, who looks passionately atspecific existing systems, noting their inadequacy orgoal-conflict with the supersystem, Simon begins withthe supersystem and considers its potential decomposi-tions into subsystems.

There is no logical end to this examination of thesystems approach. Its variety of aspects can be pursuedby exploring areas of special interest through the sug-gested readings that follow.

Suggested Readings

Ackoff, R. L.; Gupta, S. R.; Minas, J. S., Collaborators.Scientific Method—Optimizing Applied ResearchDecisions. New York: Wiley; 1962.

Ackoff, R. L. "Towards a system of systems concepts."Management Science. 17:661-671; July 1971.

Ackoff, R. L.; Emery, F. E. On Purposeful Systems.Chicago: Aldine-Atherton; 1972.

Allport, G. W. "The open system in personality theory."Joumal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 61:301-310; 1960. Reprinted in: Personality and Social En-counter. Boston: Beacon; 1960.

Ahmavaara, A. Y. The Cybernetic Theory of Develop-ment. Helsinki: Tammi; 1974.

Amey, L. R. "System objectives and budgetary control."Behavioral Science. 25:130-139; 1980.

Anderson, R. G. Case Studies in Systems Design. Ply-mouth: MacDonald and Evans; 1980.

Aoki, M. Optimal Control and Systems Theory in Dy-namic Economic Analysis. New York: North-Holland;1976.

Ashby, W. R. An Introduction to Cybernetics. London:Chapman and Hall; 1956.

Balderston, F. E.; Hoggatt, A. Simulation of MarketProcesses. Berkeley: Institute of Business and Eco-nomic Research; 1962.

Balderston, F. E.; Hoggatt, A. "Simulation models: An-alytical variety and the problem of model reduction."


In: F. E. Balderston and A. Hoggatt, Eds. Sym-posium on Simulation Models. Cincinnati: South-western; 1963.

Bellman, R. Introduction to the Mathematical Theory ofControl Processes. New York: Academic; 1971: vols. 1and 2.

Beer, S. Cybernetics and Management. New York: Wi-ley; 1959.

Beer, S. Decision and Control. New York: Wiley; 1967.Beer, S. The Heart of the Enterprise. New York: Wiley;

1979.Bennett, R. J.; Chorley, R. J. Environmental Systems:

Philosophy, Analysis, and Control. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press; 1978.

Berlinski, D. On Systems Analysis. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press; 1976.

Bernard, C. Legons sur les phenomenes de la vie com-muns aux animaux et aux vegetaux. Paris; 1878.

Bertalanffy, L. von. Kritische Theorie der Formbildung.Berlin: Bomtraeger; 1928. English Tr., ModemTheories of Development (1934). New York: HarperTorchbooks; 1962.

Bertalanffy, L. von. "Zu einer allgemeinen system-lehre." Blatter fUr deutsche Philosophie. Nos. 3 and4; 1945.

Bertalanffy, L. von. "An outline of general system the-ory." British Journal of Philosophy of Science.1:139-164; 1950.

Bertalanffy, L. von. General Systems Theory. New York:George Braziller; 1968.

Blauberg, I. V.; Sadovsky, V. N.; Yudin, E. G. SystemsTheory: Philosophical and Methodological Problems.Moscow: Progress Publishers; 1977.

Bogdanov, A. Tektologia: Vseobshchaya Organizatin-naya Nauka (Tectology: The Universal Science ofOrganization): 1912, 2nd ed., 3 vols. Moscow: Iz-datelstvo Z. I.; 1922.

Bogdanov, A. Allgemeine Organisationslehre—Tekto-olgie (German Tr. of Vols. I and II of Tektologia).Berlin: Organisationsverlagsgesellschaft. G.m.b.H.(S. Hirzel); 1926.

Boulding, K. "National images and international sys-tems." In: J. N. Rosenau, Ed. International Politicsand Foreign Policy: A Reader in Research andTheory. New York: Free Press; 1961:391-398. Reviseded., 1969:422-431.

Bowler, T. D. General Systems Thinking: Its Scope andApplicability. New York: Elsevier-North-HoUand;1981.

Brogan, W. L. Modem Control Theory. New York:Quantum; 1974.

Buckley, W. F. Sociology and Modem Systems Theory.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1967.

Buckley, W. F. Modem Systems Research for BehavioralScientists. Chicago: Aldine; 1968.

Bunge, M., Ed. Scientific Research—The Search forSystem. New York: Springer-Verlag; 1967: Vol. I.

Bunge, M. Treatise on Basic Philosophy, Vol. 4: On-

tology II: A World of Systems. Dordrecht: D. Reidel;1979.

Cavallo, R. E. The Role of Systems Methodology in So-cial Science Research. The Hague: M. Nijhoff; 1979.

Cavallo, R. E.; Klir, G. J. "Reconstructability analysisof multidimensional relations: A theoretical basis forcomputer-aided determination of acceptable systemmodels." International Journal of General Systems.5:143-171; 1979.

Cavallo, R. E.; Klir, G. J. "Reconstructability analysis:Overview and bibliography." International Journal ofGeneral Systems. 7:1-6; 1981a.

Cavallo, R. E.; Klir, G. J. "Reconstructability analysis:Evaluation of reconstruction hypotheses." Interna-tional Journal of General Systems. 7:7-32; 1981b.

Checkland, P. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice.Chichester: Wiley; 1981.

Churchman, C. W. Predictions and Optimal Decision—Philosophical Issues of Science of Values. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1961.

Churchman, C. W. The Systems Approach. New York:Dell; 1968a.

Churchman, C. W. 4 Challenge to Reason. New York:McGraw-Hill; 1968b.

Churchman, C. W. The Design of Inquiring Systems.New York: Basic Books; 1971.

Churchman, C. W. The Systems Approach and Its Ene-mies. New York: Basic Books; 1979.

Clarkson, G. P. E.; Simon, H. A. "Simulation of indi-vidual and group behavior." American EconomicReview. L(5):920-932; December 1960.

Cohen, K. J. Computer Models of the Shoe, Leather,Hide Sequence. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall;1960.

De Souza, G. R. System Methods for Socioeconomic andEnvironmental Impact Analysis. Lexington, MA: Lex-ington Books; 1979.

Dorf, R. D. Modem Control Systems. Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley; 1967.

Eden, M. "Cybernetics: A proposal to link the principlesof communication and control of man-made objects tothe behavior of man and other living things."Knowledge. 2/3; December 1982.

Emery, F. E., Ed. Systems Thinking. Harmondsworth:Penguin Books; 1969.

Evans, M. K.; Klein, L. R. The Wharton EconometricForecasting Model, 2nd. ed. Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania; 1968.

Evans, M. K.; Klein, L. R. "Short and long term simu-lations with the Wharton model." Paper presented atConference on Econometric Models of Cyclical Behav-ior, Harvard University, November 14-15; 1969.

Forrester, J. W. Industrial Dynamics. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press; 1961.

Forrester, J. W. World Dynamics. Cambridge, MA:Wright-Allen; 1971.

Fuller, R. B. Synergetics 2, New York: MacMillan;1979.


Gabel, R. A. Signals and Linear Systems, 2nd ed. NewYork: Wiley; 1980.

Gildersleeve, T. R. Successful Data Processing SystemAnalysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1978.

Gochman, D. S. "System theory and adaptability,"Ph.D. dissertation. University of Colorado, 1962.

Gochman, D. S. "A systemic approach to adaptability."Perceptual and Motor Skills. 23:759-769; 1966.

Gordon, G. System Simulation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall; 1978.

Gorelik, G. "Principal ideas of Bogdanov's 'Tektology':The universal science of organization." GeneralSystems. 20; 1975.

Gorelik, G., Tr., A. Bodganov Assays in Tektology. TheSystems Inquiry Series. Seaside, CA: IntersystemsPublications; 1980.

Halfon, E., Ed. Theoretical Systems Ecology. New York:Academic; 1979.

Hall, A. D.; Fagen, R. E. A Methodology for SystemsEngineering. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand; 1962.

Harvey, O. J.; Hunt, D. E.; Schroder, H. M. ConceptualSystems and Personality Organization. New York:Wiley; 1961.

Hofstadter, D. R. Godel, Escher, Bach. New York:Basic Books; 1979.

Hoos, I. R. Systems Analysis in Public Policy. Berkeley:University of California Press; 1972.

Hopcroft, J. E.; Ullman, J. D. Introduction to AutomataTheory, Language, and Computation. Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley; 1979.

Huggett, R. J. Systems Analysis in Geography. Oxford:Claremont; 1980.

Iberall, A. S. Toward a General Science of Viable Sys-tems. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1972.

Johannides, D. F. Containment Through Systems En-gineering: A Guide for Hospitals. Germantown, MD:Aspen Systems Co.; 1979.

Kailath, T. Linear Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pren-tice-Hall; 1980.

Kalman, R. E.; Falb, P. L.; Arbib, M. A. Topics inMathematical System Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1969.

Kaplan, M. System and Process in International Politics.New York: Wiley; 1957.

Klein, L. R.; Evans, M. K. Econometric Gaming. NewYork: MacMillan; 1969.

Klir, G. J.; Volach, M. Cybernetics. London: IliffeBooks; 1965.

Klir, G. ]. An Approach to General Systems Theory.New York: Van Nostrand; 1969.

Klir, G. J., Ed. Trends in General Systems Theory. NewYork: Wiley; 1972.

Klir, G. J., Ed. Applied General Systems Research. NewYork: Plenum; 1978.

Knight, K. Organizations: An Information Systems Per-spective. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth; 1979.

Knorr, K. E.; Verba, S., Eds. The International System:

Theoretical Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-sity Press; 1961.

Kohler, W. Gestalt Psychology. New York: Liveright;1929, and New York: New American Library; 1947(paperback ed.).

Krone, R. M. Systems Analysis and Policy Sciences: The-ory and Practice. New York: Wiley; 1980.

Kuhn, A. The Logic of Social Systems. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass; 1974.

Lange, O. Calosc i Rozwoj w swietle cybemetyki. Wars-zawa: PWN; 1962. English Tr., Wholes and Parts.Oxford: Pergamon; 1965.

Laszio, E. System, Structure, and Experience. CurrentTopics of Contemporary Thought Series, Vol. 1. NewYork: Gordon; 1969.

Laszio, E. Introduction to Systems Philosophy. NewYork: George Braziller; 1972a.

Laszio, E., Ed. The Relevance of General Systems The-ory. New York: George Braziller; 1972b.

Laszio, E. The World System—Models, Norms, Varia-tions. New York: George Braziller; 1973.

Lilienfeld, R. The Rise of Systems Theory. New York:Wiley; 1978.

Lowe, A. On Economic Knowledge. New York: Harper;1965.

Machlup, F. "Adolf Lowe's Instrumental Analysis." In:R. L. Heilbroner, Ed. Economic Means and SocialEnds. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1969:124-129.

Machlup, F. Methodology of Economics and Other So-cial Sciences. New York: Academic; 1978.

Mannheim, M. L. Fundamentals to Transportation Sys-tems Analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1979.

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Mattessich, R. Accounting and Analytical Methods.Homewood, IL: R. D. Irwin; 1964a. Reprinted In:Accounting Classics. Houston: Scholars Book Co.;1978.

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Mattessich, R. "The incorporation and reduction of valuejudgments in systems." Management Science. 21:1-9;September 1974.

Mattessich, R. "Normative versus positive systems: Onthe relation between normativity, teleology, and men-talistic apsects." Proceedings of the 8th InternationalCongress for Cybernetics. Namur, Belgium: Interna-tional Association for Cybernetics; 1977; 222-231.

Mattessich, R. Instrumental Reasoning and SystemsMethodology—An Epistemology of the Applied and


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1. Office use, ieft over, unac-counted, spoiled afterprinting

2. Returns from news agentsG. Total

Average No.copies of

each issueduring preced-

ing 12months

6250None

61966196

386234

16None6250

Actuai No. copies of singieissue pub-

lished near-est to filing

date6300None

62296229

566285

15None6300

11. i certify that the statements made by me above are correct andcompiete.

MARY CURTiS, Publisher


Documents

The Systems Approach: Its Variety of Aspects* · The Systems Approach: Its Variety of Aspects* Richard Mattessich Distinguished Arthur Andersen & Co. Professor, Faculty of Commerce