From Systems to Society https://bit.ly/2yXGImr	Pragmatic Empirical Constructive-Model Realism
“Exceptionally useful” “Makes EA more powerful, coherent and usable.” “The most important work on EA and applied System Theory today.” “Way beyond any other EA/system engineering/human factors/systems theory resource.” More comments	Models <create and use> <represent> Thinkers <observe & envisage> Phenomena
To open an article/essay/chapter, click and OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW. I have withdrawn my books from Amazon, because the Linkedin articles below are better.	Home page

From Systems to Society
Vol. 1 A Philosophy of the Mind and Systems	Vol. 2 Economics and Social Politics
· Preface · Biological emergentism · An emergentist view of systems Part 0: Describing reality 1. Description as typification 2. A naturalistic type theory 3. A description theory 4. Semiotic triads 5. Describing systems 6. Abstraction in describing systems Part 1: Thinking and communicating 1. A philosophy of the mind 2. Kant’s theory of the mind 3. A naturalistic theory of the mind 4. Luhmann's theory of social communication 5. A naturalisitic theory of social communication 6. Seven other views 7. Do Large Language Models think? Part 2: Systems 1. Introduction 2. What is a system? 3. General system theory in the 21st century 4. Viewing an enterprise a system 5. Viewing an economy as a system 6. Viewing a social entity as a system 7. Limits to growth forecasting Part 3: On self-organizing systems 1. Agency in systems and society 2. Second order systems thinking 3. Second order cybernetics 4. Agent-based and complex adaptive systems Part 4: The philosophy of systems thinking 1. The trouble with philosophers 2. The philosophy of systems thinking 3. Systems, physics and philosophy	Preface: Critical thinking about systems thinking Part 5: On economics 1. Introducing macroeconomics 2. Viewing an economy as a system 3. 15 principles of economic systems 4. The equity-efficiency trade off 5. Modern monetary theory Part 6: On wealth disparity 1. Fairness and unfairness in society 2. Wealth disparity - over the centuries 3. Wealth disparity - in the 21st century 4. Wealth disparity - the top one percent 5. Wealth disparity - debunking claims 6. Wealth disparity - ways to measure it 7. Wealth disparity - ways to reduce it Part 7: On social politics 1. The truth, and epistemic drift 2. The family, and epistemic drift 3. The battle of ideas 4. Is sociology falsifiable? 5. Marxism 6. Critical theory 7. Critical race theory 8. Feminism 9. Identity Politics 10. Post structuralism / modernism 11. A closing polemic Part 8: Global politics 1. The rise of the West and the rest 2. Decolonization Incentives & purposefulness
A Systems Thinker’s view of Enterprise Architecture	A Systems Thinker’s view of Description and Reality	A Systems Thinker’s view of Systems Thinkers
How we describe human and computer activity systems	How we describe reality, and a philosophical basis for systems thinking.	Comparing and contrasting systems thinkers’ ideas, with new insights.
EA history EA method history Zachman’s framework What TOGAF is and is not ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 EA today Positioning EA today An architecture value stream Architect roles EA and systems thinking Intro to the system thinking triad System theories System theories and EA Service-orientation in EA and BA EA vision and reality EA domain insights Enterprise business architecture Enterprise data architecture	Intro to the system thinking triad Who we are Typology How we describe things How we relate things How we assess truth How we typify things Structural and behavioral views Domain knowledge Domain knowledge Vocabularies and grammars Taxonomic trees Ontological concept graphs Causality Determinism and probability Consciousness and free will Causal analysis Systemology Entity and event modeling The systems thinking triad ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Semiotics The problem of universals Semiotic and other triads	Preface Foundations System thinking approaches Bertalanffy’s ideas - GST System description and reality (triad) Maturana’s ideas Dynamical systems thinking Ashby’s ideas - cybernetics Closed system diagrams Forrester’s ideas Meadows’ ideas Senge’s ideas Activity systems thinking Event-driven systems Business architecture Abstraction from detail Soft systems thinking ideas Ackoff’s ideas Beer’s ideas More about particular concepts Purpose Hierarchies of knowledge Information Feedback Self-organization Change Complexity

You may read and share a link to this site provided you accept that for organisational use a small licence fee is due.

If you like the site, please declare your appreciation in an appropriate social or professional medium.

It is illegal to print, copy or present pages of this web site except as explained in access and usage rights.

Below, highly questionable research and notes made while stumbling to the above
TOGAF as applied system theory Premises of EA and TOGAF EA and philosophy Quality assurance systems (a rant)	Old notes for philosophy for mathematicians More things to know about systems What is not a system? Disambiguating terms	Ackoff’s ideas Ashby’s cybernetics Ashby’s law of requisite variety Beer’s ideas Bertalanffy’s ideas
Systems		Philosophy	continued…
Thinkers before systems thinking Systems in general Social systems thinking – intro Critical system thinking etc Systems thinking vocabulary Systems science or poetry? The physics of systems System coupling varieties	Boulding’s ideas Checkland’s ideas Clemson’s ideas Forrester’s ideas Meadows’ generalizations Von Foerster’s ideas Maturana’s ideas Luhmann’s ideas Snowden’s ideas System change varieties System stability and change	The problem of universals System philosophy Knowledge and truth A critique of realism Existence in space and time Relativity v quantum mechanics Ontology and phenomenology Logical positivism (Wittgenstein) About life Relevance of the above to EA	Description and reality The 9 propositions idealism Insights from the idealism triangle System theory as idealism Philosophical position statement Insights from description theory The psychology of description The philosophy of description Principles for a vocabulary Data and reality – after Bill Kent
On complexity science	General, information and description	Cybernetic ideas
Complexity science Complexity measurement Complex adaptive systems Complexity explained? – part 1 Complexity explained? – part 2	On description On types and fuzziness On information On information & communication Information feedback loops Other information theories Mental models and how brains work The evolution of description The evolution of description The evolution of types and logic The magic number seven Research for description theory	Cybernetics intro Second order cybernetics Self-organising systems Third generation cybernetics More on dynamics Applying cybernetics to business	Goal-directedness Hierarchical v network organisation Chaos and non-linear behaviour Agility
	Types	More sociological thinking
Entities and identities Homeostasis and control Hierarchies and lattices. Idealisation in system theory “the real machine” the eternal golden braid Abstraction varieties and typology	A type theory The evolution of types Types in different disciplines How things instantiate types Types and instances Types and meta types Taxonomies and ontologies Types and instances – analysis Set and type theory Systems as complex types	Bausch’s overview More sociological perspectives Ackoff’s system classes	Marx and Engels’ ideas System types People types
More musings	The schism		References
The practical terminology challenge Enterprise state data Modelling madness. Functionality and Logicality Granularity and Modularity Composition and Generalisation Systems as abstractions UML types and instances Modelling the passage of time	The schism in systems thinking EA, GST and social system Social entities v. social systems Actors, roles and assignments System thinkers dictionary - draft System thinking ontology – draft	Introducing system ideas Holism and emergent properties Encapsulation The primacy of behavior Determinism and hysteresis The elements of systems Primacy of views Terms and concepts in system Anatomy of the reference model Formalising system description	References More references Types and sets references Laszlo and Krippner references