A number of writers have argues that Soft Systems Methodology embodies a distinctly "subjective" philosophical approach and (or) yield a system methodology based on a "subjectivist" epistemology, and as such it is distinct from "objective" methodologies. It has also been argued that Soft System Methodology avoids, or attempts to avoid, the "reductionism" inherent in traditional approaches to study of natural phenomenon. In this paper it is argued that such argument contain a number of conceptual and historical confusions, and that whilst the advocates of the developed form of Soft Systems Methodology in fact subscribes to a subjective mode of enquiry, such a mode has its history firmly grounded in the natural sciences. It is also argued that the Soft System Methodology advocates (in fact) subscribe to the thesis of epistemological reductionism, and this thesis will be contrasted with that of epistemological holism.

This is the whole item.

Date created

• 1994

Type

• Document

Processing Activity

• Processing documentation available at: https://wiki.albany.edu/display/SCA/Processing+Ingested+Digital+Files

License

• Creative Commons BY-NC-ND Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International

  
  Contact Us for questions or additional rights.

ITEM CONTEXT

Part of

fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd

Scope and Contents

Part of

c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1

Scope and Contents

Part of

23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8

Scope and Contents

Collection

System Dynamic Society Records

Scope and Contents

Collecting area

• This collection is part of the University Archives