Hierarchies and levels of reality

Rueger, Alexander; McGivern, Patrick

doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9572-2

Cited by 36 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A version of this perspective already occurs in Aristotle, but there is now an extensive modern literature on this, e.g. (Poli, 2001;Rueger & McGivern, 2010) and notably, in the specific context of general systems theory, a seminal paper by Kenneth Boulding (Boulding, 1956). Figure 2.…”

Section: The Nature and Scope Of Systems Sciencementioning

confidence: 97%

A Framework for Understanding Systems Principles and Methods

Rousseau

2018

INSIGHT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Systems engineering is increasingly challenged by the rising complexity of projects undertaken, resulting in increases in costs, failure rates, and negative unintended consequences. This resulted in calls for more scientific principles to underpin the methods of systems engineering. In this paper, it is argued that our ability to improve systems engineering's methods depends on making the principles of systemology, of which systems engineering is a part, more diverse and more scientific. An architecture for systemology is introduced, which shows how the principles of systemology arise from interdependent processes spanning multiple disciplinary fields, and on this basis a typology is introduced, which can be used to classify systems principles and systems methods. This framework, consisting of an architecture and a typology, can be used to survey and classify the principles and methods currently in use in systemology, map vocabularies referring to them, identify key gaps, and expose opportunities for further development. It may thus serve as a tool for coordinating collaborative work towards advancing the scope and depth of systemology

show abstract

Section: The Nature and Scope Of Systems Sciencementioning

confidence: 97%

A Framework for Understanding Systems Principles and Methods

Rousseau

2018

INSIGHT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A version of this perspective already occurs in Aristotle, but there is now an extensive modern literature on this, e.g., [42,43], and, notably, in the specific context of general systems theory, a seminal paper by Kenneth Boulding [44]. 3 It should be noted that systemists have published many statements under the rubric of "general systems principles" or "general systems laws" without these statements being actually useful for making judgements or taking action.…”

Section: The Nature and Scope Of Systems Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, very few of these concepts are general systems concepts, i.e., concepts describing universal attributes of systems as systems. modern literature on this, e.g., [42,43], and, notably, in the specific context of general systems theory, a seminal paper by Kenneth Boulding [44]. The system levels in the complexity hierarchy correspond to the subjects of concern of the mainstream specialised scientific disciplines, so it can be said that every specialised scientific discipline studies some kind of system.…”

Section: The Nature and Scope Of Systems Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

On the Architecture of Systemology and the Typology of Its Principles

Rousseau

2018

Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Systems engineering is increasingly challenged by the rising complexity of projects undertaken, resulting in increases in costs, failure rates, and negative unintended consequences. This has resulted in calls for more scientific principles to underpin the methods of systems engineering. In this paper, it is argued that our ability to improve systems Engineering's methods depends on making the principles of systemology, of which systems engineering is a part, more diverse and more scientific. An architecture for systemology is introduced, which shows how the principles of systemology arise from interdependent processes spanning multiple disciplinary fields, and on this basis a typology is introduced, which can be used to classify systems principles and systems methods. This framework, consisting of an architecture and a typology, can be used to survey and classify the principles and methods currently in use in systemology, map vocabularies referring to them, identify key gaps, and expose opportunities for further development. It may, thus, serve as a tool for coordinating collaborative work towards advancing the scope and depth of systemology.

show abstract

“…socio-cultural / ecological entity 4 further level: deme < species < monophyletic taxon < all life 5 further levels: action < group < civilization < culture < environment < biosphere < planet < solar system < galaxy < cosmos 6 further levels: population < community < biotic province < biosphere 7 further levels: gene pool < collection of gene pools < collection of collected gene pools < etc. 8 further levels: population < community < ecosystem < biosphere 9 further levels: population < community/biocoenosis < ecosystem < biome < biosphere/ecosphere Reece et al, 2014 atom (complex biological) Whereas the compositional account of levels is very intuitive and seems to be widely spread, many philosophers have criticized it for its lack of usefulness and coherence (Kim, 2002;Bechtel & Hamilton, 2007;Rueger & McGivern, 2010;Love, 2012;Potochnik & McGill, 2012), mainly criticizing that the world is too complex to be described with a single globally applicable scheme of levels of composition. Moreover, this compositional account of levels has the limitation that it does not allow the ordering of entities that are not part of the same part-whole hierarchy (Bechtel & Hamilton, 2007).…”

Section: The Compositional Account Of Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Levels and building blocks—towards a domain granularity framework for the life sciences

Vogt

2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The use of online data repositories and the establishment of new data standards that require data to be computer-parsable so that algorithms can reason over them have become increasingly important with the emergence of high-throughput technologies, Big Data and eScience. As a consequence, there is an increasing need for new approaches for organizing and structuring data from various sources into integrated hierarchies of levels of entities that facilitate algorithm-based approaches for data exploration, data comparison and analysis. In this paper I contrast various accounts of the level idea and resulting hierarchies published by philosophers and natural scientists with the more formal approaches of theories of granularity published by information scientists and ontology researchers. I discuss the shortcomings of the former and argue that the general theory of granularity proposed by Keet circumvents these problems and allows the integration of various different hierarchies into a domain granularity framework. I introduce the concept of general building blocks, which gives rise to a hierarchy of levels that can be formally characterized by Keet's theory. This hierarchy functions as an organizational backbone for integrating various other hierarchies that I briefly discuss, resulting in a general domain granularity framework for the life sciences. I also discuss the implicit consequences of this granularity framework for the structure of top-level categories of 'material entity' of the Basic Formal Ontology. The here suggested domain granularity framework is meant to provide the basis on which a more comprehensive information framework for the life sciences can be developed.PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2429v2 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access |

show abstract

Hierarchies and levels of reality

Cited by 36 publications

References 20 publications

A Framework for Understanding Systems Principles and Methods

A Framework for Understanding Systems Principles and Methods

On the Architecture of Systemology and the Typology of Its Principles

Levels and building blocks—towards a domain granularity framework for the life sciences

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About