BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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META 1)2)

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A prefix used to indicate a higher level of complexity or abstraction, referring to models, languages, or systems.

This prefix, mainly diffused by J.van GIGCH and his collaborators, has been occasionally criticized by some users on the ground of its supposed philosophical connotations and arguing that it could be replaced by "supra-" or "super- ".

It is, however, widely used and does not seem to entail semantic confusion. Moreover, its meaning is solidly grounded in B. RUSSELL's and A.N. WHITHEHEAD's Theory of logical types.

E. SCHWARZ observes that it has frequently a self-referential meaning: "Examples: Meta-knowledge, as knowledge on knowledge; meta-mathematics, as mathematics of the mathematics; meta-communication, as communication about communication" (1993, p.7).

Meta- can also imply a transition from one state or process to another, as for example in metabolism; or some kind of generalization, as when systemics is spoken of as a metalanguage.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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