The Knowledge Base of General Systemology

The search for a foundational general systems theory (GST*) formally became a scientific enterprise with the founding of the Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory in 1954. Many scientific advances have been made towards a GST*, but GST* is still incomplete and there is a rich ongoing debate about the nature, structure and value of GST*. In this chapter we argue that the general theory of a discipline has a generic structure, which can be inferred by attending to the process by which disciplines build up their knowledge base. We develop a model of this generic structure and then use it to envision the structure and scope of GST*. This provides a principled baseline for assessing the developmental status of GST*, planning work towards its completion, and defending the potential value of GST*.