Critical Systems Thinking

2Systems Thinking

For the astronomers and the physicists the world is, in popular words, continually “running down” to a state of dead inertness when heat has been uniformly distributed through it. For the biologists and sociologists, a part of the world, at any rate (and for us a very important part) is undergoing a progressive development in which an upward trend is seen, lower states of organisation being succeeded by higher states.

(Needham, 1941)

2.1 Introduction

This chapter begins by setting out the challenge faced by Systems Thinking (ST) if it is to provide a complementary approach to that of science. In essence, it needs to find ways of addressing issues of organised complexity. The nature of organised complexity is explored and consideration is given to the ‘wicked problems’ that it produces. ST offers two ways forward in the face of organised complexity. The first seeks general systems laws that are applicable to all forms of organised complexity – whether physical, biological, human or social. This is the route favoured in Bogdanov’s ‘tektology’, in ‘general systems theory’ (GST), and in cybernetics and ‘complexity theory’. It has not been as productive as was hoped, because ‘organisation’ takes on different characteristics at higher levels of complexity. There are emergent properties at these levels, producing behaviour that is only partially explainable using the theories and models applicable at lower levels. Boulding proposed an alternative way forward which ...