General Systems Theory (GST) was born as an attempt to convergence in a world where the unity of science had been lost and different disciplines had drifted apart. It was gradually accepted that systems are wholes which cannot be understood through analysis in as much as their primary properties derive from the interactions of their parts. Thus awareness grew that everything in the universe which seems to exist independently, was in fact part of an all-embracing organic pattern. No single part of this pattern was ever really separated from another. It was possible to catch a glimpse of a universality of systemic order and behavior which characterized both living and non-living systems (Skyttner, 2006).
In effect, GST offered a potential for description and integration of disparate theories into a single framework. Based on this skeleton, many sociologists such as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim developed major theoretical approaches to an analysis of the world to study of social facts, relations and actions. This field of systems thinking came to be known as social system theories, where a social system "consist in a plurality of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a physical or environmental aspects, actors who are motivated in terms of tendency to the "optimized of gratification" and whose relation to their situations, including each other is defined in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols (Talcott, 2005)".
Rudiments of this approach are based on the early days of the structural functional theory as a perspective that essentially came to define the discipline of sociology. Comte (1798-1857), the social theorist first to use the term sociology, attempted to gain legitimacy for this emerging field by linking the social system and biological organisms. Comteian philosophy envisaged the society as a system of interrelated parts in which no part can be understood in isolation from the whole. A change in any part is seen as leading to a certain degree of imbalance, which in turn results in changes in other parts of the system and to some extent to a reorganization of the system as a whole (Wallace & Wolf, 1999). To all intents and purposes, this conceptualization of society consists of understanding the functions that various structures serve for society as a single entity.
Yet, this approach did not address how each part of the system contributes to the functioning of the whole. Drawing on this argument, Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) developed the concepts of structure and function that lie at the core of structural functional theory. In “The Inductions of Sociology”, Spencer described the nature and functioning of societies or “social systems” both as wholes per se, and as made up of parts or ‘subsystems’ (sustaining, distributing, and regulating). He found commonalities among all societies (e.g. regulatory and sustaining–distributing subsystems), classified societies into types (according to size and structural complexity, and according to the ratio between military and economic activities), noting important laws of coexistence (what things typically appear together) and sequence (what things typically follow, as effects, from what other things), and analyses (genetically, functionally, and cross-culturally) basic human institutions (kinship, ceremonials or customs, the polity, religion, the professions, and the economy) (Carneiro & Perrin, 2002). Ultimately, for Spencer understanding society consisted of understanding the functions that various structures serve for society as a whole.
While rejecting many of the positions of Comte and Spencer, Durkheim (1858-1917) focused on the interrelationships among the parts of society and their contributions to the functioning of the entire system. His basic argument was that the human rational being is fundamentally a creation of social relations. This point of view stands against all forms of individualism, and comprises the heart of sociology as a discipline. For example, Durkheim discussed the function of religion in society: “Before all, it is a system of ideas with which the individuals represent to themselves the society of which they are members, and the obscure and intimate relations which they have with it. This is its primary function” (Durkheim, 1915). Essentially the core of this early functionalist doctrine examines; why a structure or social form exists and what functions that a structure performs for society as a whole.
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