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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VALIDATION 3)4)

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The (mostly consensual) process of recognizing the soundness of a theory, method, concept or model.

Validation is always referred to a prior system of values or concepts, accorded within an epistemic community through explicit or implicit consensus.

"Truth" or "reality" can never be guaranteed in an absolute way by any theory, concept or model, even if constantly and carefully re-validated (see "ontologic skepticism").

J. WARFIELD enounced a "Law of Validation": "The validity of science depends upon substancial agreement within the scientific community of meaning at its highest grade, i.e. meaning attained through definition by relationship". As observed by WARFIELD himself. this "is a necessary, but not in general sufficient condition for scientific validity". One of the main difficulties is that "… interpretations are crucially dependent on language. The language itself is one of the implicit aspects of systems thinking and of science in general" (1988, p.337).

Other problems are:

- Consensus on new concepts or models can be long delayed by a dominant paradigm (Remember WEGENER about continental drift and MILANKOVICH about climatic cycles).

- Consensus is frequently more easy on abstract formalizations and models – logical or mathematical – than on practical applications.

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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