Walter Buckley

Systems Research for Behavioral Science

A Sourcebook

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Systems Research for Behavioral Science will be of interest to those in any discipline concerned with developments in science. It is addressed principally to the student of human behavior as that study is approached from the social side.Previously, the study of human behavior was the general area of science that had been slowest to respond to the exciting challenge of the modern systems outlook. Yet it is behavioral science that stands to gain the most from insights into the workings of more complex systems. The editor presents not only a fair selection of systems research in behavioral science, but also provides an extensive selection of important statements of general principles, including several already considered classics. Hence, this sourcebook may function in part as a principles text, exposing the initiate to original pioneering statements as well as later work inspired by them, and alerting the sizeable number of underexposed scholars who are over-familiar with the few terms such as feedback, boundary, input, and output, that there are much greater depths to plumb than meet the eye in semi-popular accounts of cybernetics. This volume is an overview of thinking that reflects a trend toward the system point of view. Some of the chapters are philosophical: they discuss the significance of the trend as a development in the contemporary philosophy of science. Some are inevitably detailed and technical. Still other chapters discuss the relevance of concepts that are central in the system approach, to particular fields of research. The picture that emerges is far from that of a unified theory. It is an open question whether much progress can be made by attempts to construct a "unified theory of systems" on some rigorous axiomatic base.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Routledge
• Seitenzahl: 552
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. November 2008
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 254mm x 178mm x 29mm
• Gewicht: 1025g
• ISBN-13: 9780202362809
• ISBN-10: 0202362809
• Artikelnr.: 23884537

Autorenporträt

Walter Buckley

Inhaltsangabe

1: General Systems Research : Overview
1: General Systems Theory-The Skeleton of Science
2: General System Theory-a Critical Review
3: Cybernetics in History
2: Parts, Wholes, and Levels of Integration
4: Parts and Wholes in Physics
5: The problem of Systemic Organization in Theoretical Biology
6: Units and Concepts of Biology
7: Levels of Integration in Biological and Social Systems
3: Systems, Organization, and the Logic of Relations
8: Thoughts on Organization Theory
9: Certain Peculiarities of Organisms as a "System" from the Point of View of Physics, Cybernetics, and Biology
10: Definition of System
11: A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity
12: The General and Logical Theory of Automata
13: Principles of the Self-Organizing System
4: Information, Communication, and Meaning
14: What is Information Measurement?
15: Variety, Constraint, and the Law of Requisite Variety
16: The Promise and Pitfalls of Information Theory
A: Entropy And Life
17: Order, Disorder, and Entropy
18: Life, Thermodynamics, and Cybernetics
19: Communication, Entropy, and Life
20: Thermodynamics and Information Theory
21: The Entropy Concept and Psychic Function
22: From Stimulus to Symbol: The Economy of Biological Computation
B: Behavior And Meaning
23: The Application of Information Theory in Behavioral Studies
24: A Behavioristic Analysis of Perception and Language as Cognitive Phenomena
25: The Informational Analysis of Questions and Commands
26: Towards a Behavioral Theory of Communication
5: Cybernetics:Purpose, Self-Regulation, and Self-Direction
A: Cybernetics and Purpose
27: Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology
28: Comments on a Mechanistic Conception of Purposefulness
29: Purposeful and Non-Purposeful Behavior
30: Purposeful and Non-Purposeful Behavior: A Rejoinder
31: Purposive Behavior and Cybernetics
32: Purpose and Learning Theory
B: Homeostasis and Evolution
33: Self-Regulation of the Body
34: On the Parallel between Learning and Evolution
35: Purpose, Adaptation and " Directive Correlation "
36: Regulation and Control
37: The Second Cybernetics: Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes
6: Self-Regulation and Self-Direction in Psychological Systems
38: Feedback Theory and the Reflex Arc Concept
39: Plasticity In Human Sensorimotor Control
40: A Cybernetic Approach to Motivation
41: Ego Psychology, Cybernetics, and Learning Theory
42: The Open System in Personality Theory
43: Note on Self-Regulating Systems and Stress
44: The Concept of Stress in Relation to the Disorganization of Human Behaviour
45: Towards an Information-Flow Model of Human Behaviour
46: Plans and the Structure of Behaviour
7: Self-Regulation and Self-Direction in Sociocultural Systems
47: Toward a Cybernetic Model of Man and Society
A: Social Control: Internal Variety and Constraints
48: Social Control and Self-Regulation
49: Conformity-Deviation and the Social Control Concept
50: Variety and Constraint in Cultural Adaptation
51: A Behavioural Theory of Drug Taking
B: Social Control: Organizational Goal Seeking
52: A Systems Analysis of Political Life
53: The Cybernetic Analysis of Change in Complex Social Organizations
54: Feedback Problems of Social Diagnosis and Action
55: Control as an Organizational Process
56: The Cybernetics of Competition: A Biologist's View of Society
57: Is Adaptability Enough?
C: Decision Processes and Group Structure
58: Critiques of Game Theory
59: Society as a Complex Adaptive System