C. West Churchman Quotes

American philosopher and systems scientist (1913-2004)

Charles West Churchman (29 August 1913 – 21 March 2004) was an American philosopher and systems scientist, known for his pioneering work in operations research, system analysis and ethics.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alternative Names: Charles West Churchman • C. W. Churchman

From Wikidata (CC0)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

We are always obliged to think about the larger system. If we fail to do this, then our thinking becomes fallacious.

Lindblom (1959) and Churchman (1967) make it clear that the assumption of synoptic or complete rationality in planning systems is not only inadequate in a methodological sense, but illegitimate in an ethical or professional sense.

The problem of systems improvement is the problem of the 'ethics of the whole system'.

However a systems problem is solved—by a planner, scientist, politician, antiplanner, or whomever—the solution is wrong, even dangerously wrong. There is bound to be deception in any approach to the system.

The theory of the nature of mathematics is extremely reactionary. We do not subscribe to the fairly recent notion that mathematics is an abstract language based, say, on set theory. In many ways, it is unfortunate that philosophers and mathematicians like Russell and Hilbert were able to tell such a convincing story about the meaning-free formalism of mathematics. In Greek, mathematics simply meant learning, and we have adapted this... to define the term as "learing to decide." Mathematics is a way of preparing for decisions through thinking. Sets and classes provide one way to subdivide a problem for decision preparation; a set derives its meaning from decision making, and not vice versa.

It would be a good thing, if the systems planner's germination was moral outrage and not just a mild felt need. In other words, I do not think we should view the major problems of the world today with calm objectivity. We shouldn't first ask ourselves for a precise and operational definition of malnutrition. We should begin with 'kids are starving in great numbers, damn it all!