Blindness and Seeing in Systems Epistemology: Alfred Locker’s Trans-Classical Systems Theory

• Main Author: Locker, Markus Ekkehard
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2016
• Subjects: System; Observer; Systems theory; System allology; Ganzheit; Philosophy; Religion
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/theology-faculty-pubs/61; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10699-016-9502-y
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Appreciating the undeniable value of General Systems Theory (GST), Alfred Locker considers the question whether or not GST is able to go beyond a mere scientific point of view. Locker’s own systems theoretical approach, Trans-Classical Systems Theory, proposes not only to include usual observations into a systems view, but likewise their theoretical presuppositions. Locker hereby creates two levels of observation; an ortho- and a meta-level, where otherwise incommensurable viewpoints are united into whole. In this way, Locker is able to articulate a holistic systems theory of seeming opposites, like, for example, creation and evolution.