C. West Churchman Quotes

The enemies will be asking reasonable questions, like Isn't politics the way matters are really decided, and isn't the rational systems approach simply one political device, to be used when politically expedient? Or isn't morality essentially inexpressible in terms of concepts and words, and doesn't this essentially ineffable quality of our lives lead us humans to decide the way we do? Or, isn't religious imagery really the basis of all our perspectives and concepts, including the perspective of the systems approach? And what is it that carries the values we humans cherish? It is not the ego or the mind, but, say our basic aesthetic feeling, which cannot be conceptualized. And finally, and most generally, why is a rational, holistic approach desirable for the human species, especially since it so often gets out of hand, missing the vital essence of the specific and individual, the here and now, encompassing "everything" to the exclusion of every thing?

We have overwhelming evidence that available information plus analysis does not lead to knowledge. The management science team can properly analyse a situation and present recommendations to the manager, but no change occurs. The situation is so familiar to those of us who try to practice management science that I hardly need to describe the cases.

Analysis of the mathematical form and underlying principles of games was made by von Neumann " as early as 1928. In this early work von Neumann was not so much interested in executive-type problems as he was in the logical foundations of quantum mechanics. It was not until 1944, when von Neumann and Morgenstern published their now well known Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, that the mathematical treatment of games "took fire."

For the scientist a model is also a way in which the human though processes can be amplified. This method often takes the form of models that can be programmed into computers. At no point, however, the scientist intend to loose control of the situation because off the computer does some of his thinking for him. The scientist controls the basic assumptions and the computer only derives some of the more complicated implications.

Suppose we consider, not the rationality of holism, but its spirituality. Holism traditionally says that a collection of beings may have a collective property that cannot be inferred from the properties of its members.

It is only natural to expect that improvement can occur in certain sectors of the system without our having delved deeply into the characteristics of the whole system. Thus, for example, there is a tradition in Western thought that parts of the whole system can be studied and improved more or less in isolation from the rest of the system. So deeply ingrained is this concept of social improvement in Western thought that we naturally think it proper to subdivide our society into functional elements. We think it proper that each element develop its own criteria of improvement and that the elements be as free as possible from the interference of the other parts of the social structure... Men have neglected a very serious problem in defining improvement. The problem is very simple: How can we design improvement in large systems without understanding the whole system, and if we the answer is that we cannot, how is it possible to understand the whole system?

The concern of OR with finding an optimum decision, policy, or design is one of its essential characteristics. It does not seek merely to define a better solution to a problem than the one in use; it seeks the best solution... [It] can be characterized as the application of scientific methods, techniques, and tools to problems involving the operations of systems so as to provide those in control of the operations with optimum solutions to the problems.

Common to all these enemies is that none of them accepts the reality of the "whole system": we do not exist in such a system. Furthermore, in the case of morality, religion, and aesthetics, at least a part of our reality reality as human is not "in" any system, and yet it plays a central role in our lives. To me these enemies provide a powerful way of learning about the systems approach, precisely because they enable the rational mind to step outside itself and to observe itself (from the vantage point of the enemies).

The idea of a ‘system approach’ is both quite popular and quite unpopular. It’s popular because it sounds good to say that the whole system is being considered, but it’s quite unpopular because it sounds either like a lot of nonsense or else downright dangerous – so much evil can be created under the guise of serving the whole.

No science has ever been born on a specific day. Each science emerges out of a convergence of an increased interest in some class of problems and the development of scientific methods, techniques, and tools which are adequate to solve these problems. Operations Research (O.R.) is no exception. Its roots are as old as science and the management function. Its name dates back only to 1940.

The ultimate meaning of the systems approach . . . lies in the creation of a theory of deception and in a fuller understanding of the ways in which the human being can be deceived about (her) his world, and in the interaction between these different viewpoints.

The design of my philosophical life is based on an examination of the following question: is it possible to secure improvement in the human condition by means of the human intellect? The verb 'to secure' is (for me) terribly important, because problem solving often appears to produce improvement, but the so-called 'solution' often makes matters worse in the larger system (e.g., the many food programs of the last quarter century may well have made world-wide starvation even worse than no food programs would have done.) The verb ‘to secure' means that in the larger system over time the improvement persists.
I have to admit that the philosophical question is much more difficult than my very limited intellect can handle. I don't know what 'human condition' and 'human intellect' mean, though I've done my best to tap the wisdom of such diverse fields as depth psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, public health, management science, education, literature, and history. But to me the essence of philosophy is to pose serious and meaningful questions that are too difficult for any of us to answer in our lifetimes. Wisdom, or the love of wisdom, is just that: thought likes solutions, wisdom abhors them.

The individuation process, as the way of development and maturation of the psyche, does not follow a straight line, nor does it always lead onwards and upwards. The course it follows is rather “stadial”, consisting of progress and regress, flux and stagnation in alternating sequence. Only when we glance back over a long stretch of the way can we notice the development. If we wish to mark out the way somehow or other, it can equally well be considered a “spiral”, the same problems and motifs occurring again and again on different levels.

A system may actually exist as a natural aggregation of component parts found in Nature, or it may be a man-contrived aggregation – a way of looking at a problem which results from a deliberate decision to assume that a set of elements are related and constitute such a thing called ‘a system.

The systems approach is not a bad idea