International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

Kybernetes

ISSN: 0368-492X

Article publication date: 1 December 1998

38

Citation

Vallée, R. (1998), "International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics", Kybernetes, Vol. 27 No. 9, pp. 1092-1093. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1998.27.9.1092.2

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited


This encyclopaedia, presented as a dictionary, has 423 pages and gives the definition of about 3,000 words. It has been conceived by Charles François, honorary president of the Argentine National Division of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, author of Cybernétique et Prospective, (Association Internationale de Cybernétique, Namur, 1976), Introducción a la Prospectiva (Pleamar, Buenos Aires, 1978) and Diccionario de Teoría General de Sistemas y Cibernética (GESI, Buenos Aires, 1992).

In the introduction, the author praises Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Norbert Wiener and other founders, presents his purpose and tells the difficulties encountered. There are 25 figures and a bibliography with around 2,000 references (the author with most citations is Illya Prigogine) and the presentation of 19 journals devoted to systems or cybernetics (Kybernetes, Revue Internationale de Systémique, Cibernetica, Cybernetics and Human Knowing,...). The main societies, or federations, with interest in systems or cybernetics may be found in the dictionary itself (Collège de Systémique de l’AFCET, Association Internationale de Cybernétique, International Society for the Systems Sciences, World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics, International Federation for Systems Research, Union Européenne de Systémique...). This work involved a tremendous effort, lasting many years, a wide culture, the command of several languages and contacts with many correspondents. The main sources are original texts, books and articles, in English, French, Spanish and, for Russian, translations.

It is obviously difficult to review a book of this kind, but we can say that none of the main themes of systems or cybernetics has been forgotten and that each of them is exposed with both rigor and clarity. Cybernetics, and close concepts, are the subject of seven presentations concerning both first and second order cybernetics. The word system, and connected expression, may be found almost 140 times. Let us remark that synergetics, close to cybernetics and systemics, is not forgotten. The idea of information is presented under 20 different aspects, the notion of variety, including that of “requisite variety”, is quoted 14 times and entropy nine times. Chaos, fractals, complexity, organisation (with “organisational” and “operational closures”), autopoiesis, epistemology (including the concepts of “observation operator” and “epistemo‐praxiology”) give an occasion for important developments with numerous quotations. More generally, systems and cybernetics are presented in a very open and modern way.

This book, the only one of its kind, up until now, will enable the beginner to grasp the most important and necessary notions and the confirmed researcher to get more precise information. It is, by its very nature, transdisciplinary, it must interest, as we have said, not only students and specialists but also all those who have to deal with biology, psychology, sociology, linguistics and, of course, control and communication. More generally, every philosophical mind will find there a material quite useful to his reflections.

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