The Cybernetic Laws of Social Progress PDF Download

Author: Arvid Aulin
Publisher: Pergamon
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Depicts the development of societal organization, welfare & political freedom as a gradual process of increased self-steering, with man as a self-steering actor, thereby rejecting the man-machine analogy.

Author: Arvid Aulin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description

Author: Rudolf F. Geyer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313074275
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
In an effort to shed light on recent developments in sociocybernetic research, this volume represents recent and advanced thinking in this rapidly developing field. The authors address the core problems in social science caused by increasing societal complexity and analyze the inadequacy of many of the methodological tools still used for grappling with nonlinear, self-organizing systems. Together, the 18 contributors propose elements of a new methodology based on sociocybernetic principles aimed at describing and explaining the growth of societal complexity, the contribution of autopoiesis of societal subunits to more societal complexity, and the new simulation-based methodology needed to observe complex social systems. This unique volume contributes to a greater understanding of sociocybernetics and its uses as a method for researching modern problems of increasing complexity and interdependence. The first part of the book deals with increasing societal complexity and contains chapters on its overall development, the complexity of brain-environment interaction loops, organizational change, the development of human values, and the increasing interpenetration of societal subsystems. The second part concentrates on a current issue in sociocybernetics: autopoiesis, or self-production. The chapters included in Part II concentrate on embodied cognition, on the applicability of autopoiesis to business firms, on its roots in Aristotelian philosophy, and on the possibility of societal control and steering in democratic societies. Part III, more focused on methodology, discusses the difficulties inherent in observing complex social systems. The chapters deal with the problems of cross-cultural comparative research, simulation of the evolution of social systems, longitudinal simulation of education systems, and the methodological difficulties associated with analyzing the unexpected complexities of mutually interacting nonlinear systems.

Author: Niklas Luhmann
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804726252
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 692

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Book Description
Germany's most prominent social thinker here sets out a contribution to sociology that aims to rework our understanding of meaning and communication. He links social theory to recent theoretical developments in scientific disciplines.

Author: Samuel Clark
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773564950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Book Description
Arguing that states emerged in Western Europe as powerful political-geographical centres rather than nation-states or national states, Samuel Clark examines and compares the centres and peripheries of these two large regional zones, focusing not only on England and France but also on Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Savoy, and the Southern Low Countries. This wide-ranging and multifaceted work shows how the state shaped the aristocracy and transformed its political, economic, cultural, and status power. From a theoretical perspective, State and Status is both innovative and significant; Clark is the first to link the anti-functionalist historical sociology of Western Europe with the functionalist or neofunctionalist tradition in sociology.

Author: Thomas L. Saaty
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483153967
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Analytical Planning: The Organization of Systems deals with systems and planning and suggests a methodological tool for integrating the two. This book presents the basic ideas behind complexity, systems, hierarchies, and prioritization and describes planning as a unique form of decision making with illustrations of some prominent philosophical and methodological approaches. It highlights some shortcomings of traditional approaches to planning and shows how these can be addressed by the systems approach. This monograph consists of seven chapters and opens with a discussion on the nature of complexity and describes an approach that facilitates the use of creativity and experience to structure complex problems. The next chapter explains the rationale for systems thinking and how reductionism works. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is then considered, along with its relationship to some of the properties of systems. The remaining chapters focus on ways of thinking about planning and philosophies of planning; strategic planning; and the applicability of the Analytic Hierarchy Process to benefit-cost analysis and resource allocation. This book is intended for managers, decision makers, and planners, as well as researchers and practitioners in applied mathematics and computer science.

Author: Niko Yahiel
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483149978
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Sociology and Social Practice: A Sociological Analysis of Contemporary Social Processes and Their Interrelationship with Science reviews the interaction of sociological knowledge and social practice, with emphasis on the role of the practical functions of sociological science in the various spheres of society. This treatise examines from the sociological standpoint some fundamental problems that have arisen in the process of building the new society in Bulgaria and how science can help solve these problems. This book is comprised of 10 chapters organized into three sections. After an introduction to the theoretical aspects of the relationship between sociological knowledge and social practice (political practice and policy-making in particular), the discussion turns to some topical and interrelated problems such as the scientific and technical revolution; the intellectualization of social practice; the intensification of socio-economic development; the efficiency of science; and the essence of the multiplier approach. The last section explores some key problems of science as a social institution and includes chapters that discuss the scientific manpower potential in Bulgaria; scientific-information activity; and the scientific community as a collective subject of scientific activity. This monograph will be useful to sociologists and social scientists.

Author: R. Tuomela
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9789027717030
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
It is somewhat surprising to find out how little serious theorizing there is in philosophy (and in social psychology as well as sociology) on the nature of social actions or joint act. hons in the sense of actions performed together by several agents. Actions performed by single agents have been extensively discussed both in philosophy and in psycho~ogy. There is, ac cordingly, a booming field called action theory in philosophy but it has so far strongly concentrated on actions performed by single agents only. We of course should not forget game theory, a discipline that systematically studies the strategic interac tion between several rational agents. Yet this important theory, besides being restricted to strongly rational acting, fails to study properly several central problems related to the concep tual nature of social action. Thus, it does not adequately clarify and classify the various types of joint action (except perhaps from the point of view of the agents' utilities). This book presents a systematic theory of social action. Because of its reliance on so-called purposive causation and generation it is called the purposive-causal theory. This work also discusses several problems related to the topic of social action, for instance that of how to create from this perspective the most central concepts needed by social psychology and soci ology. While quite a lot of ground is covered in the book, many important questions have been left unanswered and many others unasked as well.

Author: Gert H. Mueller
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761864393
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
The Logical Foundations of Social Theory describes Gert Mueller’s argument that physical, biological, social, moral, and cultural reality form an asymmetrical hierarchy of founding and controlling relationships that condition social reality rather than mechanically determining it. This book analyzes social stratification as labor, wealth and power, the moral order as solidarity, ideology and morality, and culture systems as art, science, and religion.

Author: George J. Klir
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475711689
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
One criterion for classifying books is whether they are written for a single purpose or for multiple purposes. This book belongs to the category of multipurpose books, but one of its roles is predominant-it is primarily a textbook. As such, it can be used for a variety of courses at the first-year graduate or upper-division undergraduate level. A common characteristic of these courses is that they cover fundamental systems concepts, major categories of systems problems, and some selected methods for dealing with these problems at a rather general level. A unique feature of the book is that the concepts, problems, and methods are introduced in the context of an architectural formulation of an expert system referred to as the general systems problem solver or GSPS-whose aim is to provide users of all kinds with computer-based systems knowledge and methodology. The GSPS architecture, which is developed throughout the book, facilitates a framework that is conducive to a coherent, comprehensive, and pragmatic coverage of systems fundamentals--concepts, problems, and methods. A course that covers systems fundamentals is now offered not only in systems ~cience, information science, or systems engineering programs, but in many programs in other disciplines as well. Although the level of coverage for systems science or engineering students is surely different from that used for students in other disciplines, this book is designed to serve both of these needs.