Ludwig von Bertalanffy Forerunner of Evolutionary Systems Theory

Ludwig von Bertalanffy is known as founding father of the General System Theory (GST). When Ludwig von Bertalanffy created his GST amidst the last century, he was able to overcome the deep cleft between the controversial theoretical approaches to biology – mechanicism and vitalism. He did so by formulating laws of organisation ruling biota and after generalising them he successfully applied them to different domains such as medicine, psychology, psychotherapy. Methodologically, Bertalanffy revived synthesis, ontologically, he advocated perspectivism, and, ethically, he was humanist. His main concern was the fate of the human civilisation and the new way of thinking necessary for the survival of mankind. Evolutionary systems theory thus is the most recent elaboration of Bertalanffy’s original GST-ideas. “Unity through diversity” is the motto that holds for evolutionary systems theory, too – epistemologically, ontologically, and ethically, if it takes advantage of categories of dialectical philosophy already existing in philosophia perennia and modifies them to suit the modern findings.