Post-doc researcher at the Centre for Social Ontology Kate Forbes-Pitt leading the general discussion at the workshop on 14th of January 2012 (photo: Wolfgang Hofkirchner). The blackboard shows the agenda of contested concepts

They met with the BCSSS board members and other members of the Center to start the discussion on what systems thinking is for in the age of global challenges, which belongs to the Center’s core activities. This gathering was the first international meeting the Center could organise.

One focus was on how academic contributions to the systems movement can be revisited. Since Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s birthday could be celebrated this year for the 110th time, it goes without saying that the discussion revolved around the elaboration and the impact of General System Theory.

BCSSS Symposium “Systems thinking: what’s it for?” (photo: Günther Ossimitz)

Read more here.

The death mask of Ludwig von Bertalanffy with which the Center was presented by Michel Saint-Germain, Professor emeritus at the Université d’Ottawa (photo: Günther Ossimitz)

Unpacking the boxes. From the left: Manfred Drack, Gerd Müller, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Birgit Zehetmayer (photo: Gerd Müller)

One of the files (photo: Gerd Müller)

Gisèle Bertalanffy (photo: Michel Saint-Germain)

• Andrée Piecq, President of the European Union for Systemics (UES)

• Gerhard Chroust, Secretary General of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR)

• Raúl Espejo, Director-General of the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC)

• Matjaz Mulej, President of the International Academy of Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (IASCYS)

• Pierre Bricage, Secretary General of IASCYS

• Wolfgang Hofkirchner, President of the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS)

In the first of two meetings instigated by Wolfgang Hofkirchner and Matjaz Mulej and organised by Pierre Bricage, Wolfgang Hofkirchner presented his ideas about the next European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR) which the BCSSS under his chairmanship will organise in April 2012. He invited all organisations to contribute to he success of the conference. The IFSR committed to support the Conference in several ways. The WOSC is already partner of the event.

It was also agreed to make efforts to coordinate information about systemic conferences and to organise a collection of abstracts of most/all published systemic articles at least from systemic  journals. This collection could possibly be done automatically. It was felt that the IASCYS could be the appropriate neutral platform for the collection of such information and for making it available to the systems community. The IFSR offered the use of its web-site to host such information.

It was recognised that language is a problem also in the systems community. UES caters mainly to French speaking scientists, while the IFSR has a large majority of English speaking associations. It was also recognised that here is a strong community of Spanish-speaking systemists, especially in Latin America. Furthermore it is also of high importance to take into account the large systems communities in China  and Japan.

The second meeting discussed the role of the IASCYS, originally founded by the IFSR, in view of the newly established cooperation with UES and WOSC. It was the common consensus that the nomination procedure for the IASCYS should better reflect the new cooperation.

With respect to systems conferences (there are supposedly some 40 every year) the role of world-wide conferences was discussed. It was observed that the bi-annual EMCSR conferences, the three-annual conferences of both UES and WOSC together with some other could complement one another by coordinating them and sharing some topics and ideas. This would provide to the general audiences the feeling of a certain continuity between these various conferences.

The aim of the research project — which is performed in co-operation with the BCSSS — is to compare earlier and modern system approaches in biology in order to establish a basis for integration. In the kick-off meeting the components for such an integration were explored. Accordingly, the major issues and ideas of earlier and recent accounts were discussed in detail. For comparison of the different system approaches, the primary goal was to set up lists of aims, motivations, domains, problems, open questions, concepts, methods, and assumptions.

Participants: Tobias Breidenmoser (University of Rostock), Manfred Drack (University of Vienna), Wolfgang Hofkirchner (Vienna University of Technology), Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr (Stellenbosch University), Gerd Müller (University of Vienna), Carlos Sonnenschein (Tufts University), Ana Soto (Tufts University), Anders Strand (University of Oslo), Olaf Wolkenhauer (University of Rostock).

• Public Lecture

David Pouvreau, author of “The Dialectical Tragedy of the Concept of Wholeness – Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s Biography Revisited” (2009), speaks about

General systemology as founded and developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy
An hermeneutical system

on Wednesday, 9 November 2011, 18.00 c.t.,

in the historical lecture hall used by Ludwig von Bertalanffy himself:

Lecture Hall 42 (last floor, staircase 7, entrance at the arcade in the Arcade Court), Main Building, University of Vienna, Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring 1, 1010 Vienna

• Symposium
Systems thinking: what’s it for?

Ten years after BAC 2001 – Bertalanffy’s Anniversary Conference – which was organised by Wolfgang Hofkirchner and Elohim Jiménez-López at the Vienna University of Technology and which prepared the ground for the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, the BCSSS invited distinguished systems theorists to reflect on the development of systems theory – its history and future.

Today, multiple crises challenge the sustainable development of civilised life on earth. What are the foundations of systems thinking that are required for succesfully intervening in the course of evolution of humanity?

Programme

• Presentations by

Elohim Jiménez-López, Vice-President, BCSSS (Austria)
Renewed Bertalanffian systems may overcome the perversity of the civilized (?) homosphere generated by the crisis of human values

Alexander László, Giordano Bruno Globalshift University (USA)
The Humanistic Bases of Systems Thinking

Magnus Ramage, The Open University, Milton Keynes (UK)
Bertalanffy amid the seven schools: multiple traditions within systems thinking

Helena Knyazeva, Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia)
The Contribution of the Russian Scientific Schools to the Development of Systems Thinking

Rainer E. Zimmermann, Munich University of Applied Sciences (Germany)
Ground & Existence Revisited: On Morin’s Approach to Systems

Joseph Brenner, International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (Switzerland)
Of Logic and Systems: Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Stéphane Lupasco

Birgit Zehetmayer, University of Vienna (Austria)
Bertalanffy’s anthropological vision today

Matjaž Mulej, President, International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (Slovenia)
Promotion of systemic/cybernetic behavior by ISO 26000 on social responsibility

• Discussion involving (alongside the presenters)

Manfred Blachfellner, Internationaler Controller Verein (Austria)
Stefan Blachfellner, B original Business and Communication Design (Austria)
Rainer Born, Johannes Kepler University of Linz (Austria)
Ockie Bosch, The University of Queensland (Australia)
Pierre Bricage, General Secretary, International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (France)
John Collier, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (South Africa)
Yagmur Denizhan, Boğaziçi University (Turkey)
José María Díaz Nafría, University of León (Spain)
Iryna Dobronravova, Kiev Shevchenko National University (Ukraine)
Raúl Espejo, Director-General, World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (UK)
Manfred Füllsack, University of Vienna (Austria)
Andreas Hieronymi, Training, Beratung und Coaching (Switzerland)
Helmut Löckenhoff, independent (Germany)
David Pouvreau, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (France)
John Raven, independent (UK)
Michel Saint-Germain, Université d’Ottawa (Canada)
Pamela Vesterby, independent (USA)
Vince Vesterby, independent (USA)

as well as BCSSS Board Members and other members of the Center

• Video: Interview with Gisèle Bertalanffy (interviewer: Michel Saint-Germain)

Date

10 November 2011, 9.00- (open end)

Venue

Lounge, Weingut am Reisenberg, Oberer Reisenbergweg 15, 1190 Wien (two coffee breaks, lunch and dinner as well as refreshments included): http://www.weingutamreisenberg.at/

Bus transfer

Will be organised from and to the Hotel de France, Schottenring 3, 1010 Wien (departure at the hotel at 8.30, departure from the venue at 22.00).

Registration

The symposium open to members of the Center is fully booked and cannot offer any more places.

A task force was built up including besides the President, the Secretary and the Treasurer of the Center, Günther Ossimitz and Franz Ofner. The next conference will be held, as always, in the week after Easter according to the Austrian calendar. A new website was set up. See emcsr.net.

• Prof. emeritus Mario Augusto Bunge from McGill University in Montreal, Canada; he was born in Argentine and recently held a remarkable speech at the 4th Regional Congress of the Latin American Association of Systemics (ALAS) in Buenos Aires; he is a philosopher of science and system theorist dealing with a broad range of topics in a broad range of domains; he is a famous proponent of the systemic emergent materialism which need not only be applied to the mind-body problem; he is known as a severe critic of both reductionism and holism
• Prof. emeritus Klaus Kornwachs; he is a philosopher of technology who had been working at the Brandenburg University of Cottbus, Germany; educated in physics, mathematics and philosophy, he taught cybernetics beginning in 1974, did research in open systems and information and founded in 1988 the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Systemforschung e.V.; currently he is teaching at Ulm University
• Prof. Gerald Midgley; after spending some time as Science Leader for the Systems Thinking, Action Research and Social Science group at the Christchurch Science Center in New Zealand, he is back to UK and serves as Director of the Centre for Systems Studies at the Business School of the University of Hull; besides other publications he authors, he is editor of a four volume anthology of “Systems Thinking” with Sage
• Prof. Rainer E. Zimmermann; educated as physicist and philosopher, he taught many years philosophy at the University of Kassel and is still teaching philosophy at the Munich University of Applied Sciences; he is Life Member of Clare Hall at Cambridge; he is famous for representing onto-epistemology, has been working on self-organisation and evolutionary systems; since 2006 he has been concerned with the systems thinking of Edgar Morin

Bunge, Kornwachs, Midgley and Zimmermann consort with László and Morin who have been the first members elected by the Board. The Scientific Council gives the Bord advice in matters of activities of the Center.

Applications are invited for Post-Doctoral Research Scholarships for 2012. The successful applicants will be expected to engage in full-time post-doctoral studies on an approved research programme under the supervision of a member of the academic staff in one of the Schools of the University.

Call open until 30 September 2011.

Further information:

John Collier: Collierj [at] ukzn.ac.za