The historical meaning of present system thinking

Abstract

The historical meaning of present system thinking (Fuenmayor Arocha, Ramsés Leonardo)

Abstract

Two logically opposed interpretations of the meaning of current (soft and critical) systems thinking are drawn: thinking about the holistic power structure that constitutes the ground for the possibility of a situation and thinking how to accommodate conflicting parties into a given order. The epochal coexistence of these two apparently logically opposed modes of thinking are interpreted under an historical-ontological perspective. It is shown how the failure of the project of the Enlightenment has led to the constitution of a postmodern order dominated by instrumental thinking and absolute relativism, which sometimes disguises itself under the mask a few key notions of the project of the Enlightenment that rapidly become nothing but "plastic words" in-forming the mass-media publicity game.

A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Fourth International Conference of the United Kingdom Systems Society (Hull, 1995) as a plenary paper.

This article was published in Systems Research, Vol 14 Nº 4, 1997; pp. 235-348.