The Oblivion of Churchman's Plea for a Systems Approach to World Problems. III. The Fall of the Modern Constellation

Abstract

This is the third article in a trilogy devoted to inquiring about the historical rise and fall of the ideal involved in a systems approach to world problems, so clearly stated by Churchman at the end of the sixties. In the first part of this third article, the historical conditions for the extinction of the modern constellation are discussed. In the second part, a rough outline of what is left by that process of extinction is drawn. In that way, on the one hand, an explanation of the oblivion of Churchman's plea for a systems approach to world problems is completed and, on the other, Rorty's proposition to perform economic triage is comprehended and, thus, refuted.