Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook

General systems theory seeks to classify systems by the way that their components are organized (interrelated) and to derive the "laws", or typical patterns of behaviour, associated with identifiable classes of systems. The impetus for this general theory evolved as a reaction to the failure of mechanistic, physical-analytical approaches to deal with problems in biology -- problems which seemed to arise primarily as a function of the complexity of living organisms. The analytic methods of classical physics simply have not been able to deal with the complexities of even the simplest living organisms, not to mention their inappropriateness for human behaviour, analysis, and complexes of living organisms such as families, institutions, communities, or nations. The methods of systems theory seek to facilitate prediction and control of the behavior of complex organisms. Modern systems research subsumes cybernetics, information theory, game theory, decision theory and something more narrowly defined as systems theory itself. This long (525 double-columned pages) book is a compilation of 59 papers which were selected from a wide variety of periodicals and books. The publication dates range from 1939 to 1968. Some of the chapters are primarily philosophical, others are technical and, therefore, may appeal to specialized interests of the reader, although none of the papers involve excessive mathematical complexity.