{"title":"The concept of hierarchy in general systems theory.","authors":"W Gasparski","doi":"","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The paper reviews main ideas related to the concept of hierarchy as they are discussed in contemporary general systems theory. After presenting a dictionary definition of the concept, the author examines the intuitive idea of hierarchy quoting Mario Bunge's notion of level structure. Then relationship between two other concepts: a system and a hierarchy is characterised on the bases of Bowler's, Bunge's again, Klir's, and the author's studies. Finally, the paper is concluded that hierarchy is not an otological concept but epistemological one.</p>","PeriodicalId":77401,"journal":{"name":"Studies in human ecology","volume":"11 ","pages":"141-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"1994-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Studies in human ecology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The paper reviews main ideas related to the concept of hierarchy as they are discussed in contemporary general systems theory. After presenting a dictionary definition of the concept, the author examines the intuitive idea of hierarchy quoting Mario Bunge's notion of level structure. Then relationship between two other concepts: a system and a hierarchy is characterised on the bases of Bowler's, Bunge's again, Klir's, and the author's studies. Finally, the paper is concluded that hierarchy is not an otological concept but epistemological one.