| My dissertation provides a brief overview of the historical emergence of "systems theory" as an organizing concept in the mid-twentieth century and discusses its social implications. Focusing on the Society for General Systems Research (currently the International Society for the Systems Sciences) as a unique episode in the evolution of systems thought and practice, I address recent critiques of systems theory that portray it primarily as a form of technocratic ideology. I argue that these critiques do not acknowledge the diversity in systems approaches and fail to recognize the potentially progressive implications of such concepts as self-organization for social thought and practice.;Founded in 1954, the society grew out of associations formed at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, reflecting the intensified concern with interdisciplinary approaches to understanding human behavior that was triggered by the cold war. In relating the history of this group in the context of the broader development of systems ideas, I begin with a summary of the development of systems concepts in engineering and management, organismic biology, cybernetics and information theory, and ecology and social theory. In order to clarify the motivating vision of the society and the ways in which it diverged from other developments, I examine in depth the work of its founders, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard, James G. Miller, and Anatol Rapoport, and then highlight relevant and significant trends in the evolution of the society.;While related to contemporary developments in systems engineering, systems analysis, and cybernetics, the general systems community encompassed a broader scope of vision, incorporating a concern with values, and fostering efforts toward more participatory decision-making processes and the inclusion of multiple perspectives in the analysis of specific situations. The collective efforts of the founders and members of the SGSR embody a far more nuanced understanding of complex systems than is generally recognized in critiques of systems thinking that focus on the tendency toward manipulative control in some of the technological and managerial applications of systems analysis. |
