General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications

"These considerations lead to the postulate of a new scientific discipline which we call general system theory. It's subject matter is formulation of principles that are valid for "systems" in general, whatever the nature of the component elements and the relations or "forces" between them...

"General system theory, therefore, is a general science of wholeness"...

Wholeness is not new, the Chinese and Greeks had their own versions, but what Bertalanffy did is make it an authentic science.


The best intent to transcend the mechanistic worldview   June 3, 1999
Edgar Paternina (Medellín.Colombia)
23 out of 30 found this review helpful

GST is certainly the best intent we have to transcend the mechanistic worldview from the point of view of the new science. And there is just one way to transcend that framework and it just by positing a new sphere to manage complexity: the sphere of life.Teilhard, Bergson, Bertanffy were "biologists" but also philosophers, great philosophers and this is probably why today the Science of Complexity is looking at Life, and why the new thinkers are more and more aware that if we want to understand organizations, human organizations, we must first understand life. So we find a clear turn in books about complexity and administration trying to learn from the lesson of life...this is the only way to enter the age of adaptation as Thomas Petzinger calls it. Our time owes to GST a great deal, and as so, GST stands as a monument to that whole movement toward the global nature of our civilization of the same kind of The Phenomenon of Man and Creative Evolution.


He changed modern population theory   April 21, 2007
R. Bagula (Lakeside, Ca United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Although he wrote a lot about the general theory of systems,
I think it is his approach to the problems of how living systems
interact with their environment in a catabolic manner
that makes him really important.
He has had impact from fields like biology to
fluid dynamics.
He set a standard for how we think about history
and with Lewis F. Richardson The Collected Papers of Lewis Fry Richardson (Collected Papers of Lewis Fry Richardson, Vol 2)and Isaac AsimovThe Foundation Trilogy
made a science possible.


General Systems Theory is DEEP   February 17, 2007
ep (ep)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Bertalanffy is one of the best educated men and deepest thinkers ever. General Systems Theory is a monument to his greatness. Keep a dictionary handy, and brush up on your Latin. This is the top of the intellectual mountain, where men no longer tread.