| This unique
selection of essays, from the Founder of General Systems Theory, spanning four
decades, reveals a breadth of vision coupled with penetrating logic and based
upon solid technical and experimental competence. It
is only the truly great scientist who can transcend his field, having mastered
its techniques and theories, and take in broader horizons. Modern science is technical
in nature and specialized in form. Most men never complete the Herculean task
of mastering the techniques of their discipline and keeping up with the flow of
specialized literature. Only the exceptionally great mind can rise above this
- men such as Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Dobzhansky, Piaget, Maslow. Von
Bertalanffy is of their number. These men turn to philosophy not as an escape
from rigor and detail, but as a means of assessing the meaning and significance
of what they have done and are trying to do. It is from such men that we receive
more than theories; we are given perspectives, or paradigms. In
this volume, the reader will find evidence not only for judging for himself what
General System Theory is in the eyes of its originator, but also a link to the
mental processes which led to its formulation. He will be taken on an intellectual
voyage of breathtaking scope - from the mysticism of Nicholas of Cusa to the spheres
of art, philosophy, theories of culture, and the more prosaic realms of contemporary
biology and medicine. A man who can write on a medieval mystic as well as on modern
transport equations in cell biology is a rarity today; and the man who can bring
such wide-ranging topics into the focus of a single master-concept that illuminates
their commonalities without forcing them into the Procrustean bed of some armchair
philosophy is truly unique. Such a man was von Bertalanffy. |
