General System Theory

Abstract

This chapter explores the general system theory (GST) that turns out to be the name for systems science in statu nascendi from which many ramifications followed in the course of the history of systems science. The complex systems approach as the most recent development of the new paradigm seems to have more in common with the original ideas than other ramifications and more than today acknowledged. This holds for epistemological, ontological and ethical aspects of philosophical implications as well. In its aiming for generalizations, GST is thus heading towards a state of science called in preset days “trans-disciplinarity.” The term “trans-disciplinarity” is used to define a concept that goes beyond the meaning of multi- and even interdisciplinarity. While multi-disciplinarity would mean the unrelated coexistence of mono-disciplinary accounts and inter-disciplinarity the casual establishment of relations between mono-disciplines without having feedback loops that have a lasting impact on their repertoire of methods and concepts, trans-disciplinarity comes into play when each discipline is engaged in the collaborative undertaking of constructing a common base of methods and concepts, of which its own methods and concepts can be understood as kind of instantiations. Trans-disciplinarity does thereby not mean the abolition of disciplinary knowledge but grasping for a bigger picture. In fact, GST and systems science, aware of the aims set out by GST, are the trans-disciplinary science per se.