The Contribution of the Systems Sciences to the Humanities

Abstract

This article presents the systems sciences as a field of inquiry and discusses the way in which it has evolved in relation to the humanities. Following a brief historical overview and assessment of the systems sciences by considering their origins and foundations in general system thinking, the review highlights the key players and the major trends in the field, and leads to a consideration of the ways in which it complements and contrasts the methods of human-related studies generally pursued in the humanities. It discusses the potential for the systems sciences to enrich descriptive, instructional, and explanatory orientations of contemporary Geisteswissenschaften through the inclusion of normative considerations. The normative component of the systems sciences is considered within an evolutionary framework that presents holism as a methodology for understanding the dynamics of complex real-world' (ontological) systems and suggests action imperatives for their viable and sustainable design over time. Through the tools metaphor, modeling and simulation, interactive design and other praxes, systems scientists investigate the goals and ends of systems and their interactions within environments shared with, and provided for, one another. In this way social systems in general, and human activity systems in particular, can be described as a function of their degree of purposefulness in terms of the role of human values in concrete circumstances. Through the tools of systems analysis and design, systems science represents the world of symbols, values, social entities, and cultures as embedded in an embracing order of hierarchies that bridges the gap between C. P. Snow's Two Cultures' of the sciences and the humanities. The use of modeling in systems sciences provides the language of design and the means by which creativity is applied in the course of inventing, making, assessing, and implementing the designs. In this way it lends to the humanities the capability to deal with increasing systemic complexities, rapid societal changes, and design decisions that affect the sustainable evolution of human societies within the wider context of their life support systems. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.