Sociology and Modern Systems Theory.

Abstract

processes. Until this is realized, Buckley maintains, arguments about sociological analysis will remain at the 'sophomoric' level. Peter Medawar, talking about Spencer, has pointed out that philosophers create systems because it gives them a nice warm comfortable feeling inside, and it is easy to see how all existing sociological theory can be knitted into the empty naturalistic metaphysics of systems theory, with the consequent illusions of scientific progress, intellectual omniscience and academic security. But too many analytical and empirical sacrifices are made on the way. First, one set of inferences from the concept of system will not do for all physical, biological and social phenomena. For some, inferences predicting entropy will be all right; for others, and certainly for social systems, inferences predicting the opposite of increasing complexity, heterogeneity and interdependence will be more accurate. Buckley does not make this clear. Second, it will not do to make the simple distinction between open and closed systems. Both types are impossible extremes, and instruments for making finer discriminations in between are required. Third, decisions must be made about what is system and what is environment. Fourth, the muddle in systems analysis over what level of entity is being discussed has to be confronted. Fifth, there must be more logical sophistication about what kinds of explanation are being proferred. Buckley mounts an obscure, elliptical attack on conventional causality, confuses functional and teleological propositions, and yet rejects the former and subscribes to the latter. In so doing he suggests that a system is both the sum of individual purposes and something more than this, but dismisses as irrelevant the question of how individual purposes are generated. Sixth, and related to this, it is essential to expose the metaphysic about human nature that lies underneath systems theory, because it denies the distinction between belief