Charles_françois

Charles François, born in Belgium in 1922, is a Belgian specialist in the field of cybernetics, systems theory and systems science.

Biography

François worked for the Belgian Foreign Service until 1987. After his education in Belgium François lived in Central Africa from 1945 to 1960 first as an administrative officer and later as a businessman. In 1952 he came in contact with cybernetics through Norbert Wiener\'s Cybernetics. In 1958 he joined the Society for General Systems Research (now: ISSS International Society for the Systems Sciences).

Since 1970 François has participated in numerous meetings of various Systems and Cybernetics Societies. He became a member of some boards and integrates the editorial boards of various journals on Systems and Cybernetics. Further he was the author of papers on systemic topics. François has lived in Argentina since 1963 and created the Argentine National Division of the ISSS in 1976, being presently its Honorary President. He is an Honorary Member of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR) and founding editor of the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

Work

Sociohistorical systems

According to François (1982) cybernetic concepts enable us to make a new start in understanding human systems. A new start is necessary because the human sciences until now have been the following these attitudes:

• A completely abstract approach, that led to numerous partial theoretical proposals without any significant projections into real life.
• A merely observational and descriptive approach which produces an enormous amount of “data”, but no coherent view of what is going on.
• Many different ideological approaches which explain to us how society should be, starting from a very biased view of how it is and leading to fierce struggles between opposing groups.

These ideological approaches have been culturocentric, and are generally unadapted to other cultural settings. In order to contribute to the improvement of this situation François has been shaping the basic concepts that could become instrumental to the definition of socio-historical objects of study and the discovery of the nature and operation of what can be called the “socio-historical system". Charles François (1982), A systemic study of socio-historical systems, paper.

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

The book International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics edited by Charles François (1997) is an encyclopedia for systems theory, cybernetics, complex systems and interdisciplinary applications in a variety of areas, such as engineering, biology, medicine and social science. This book is the first specialized glossary in this field, and gives an overview of more than 40 years of developments in the field of Systems and Cybernetics. This book offers a collection of more than 3000 keywords and articles on Systems and Cybernetics. Many items contain quotes from authors from the field.

Systemics in an historical perspective

Systemics and cybernetics, according to François (1999), can be viewed as a metalanguage of concepts and models for transdisciplinary use. At the turn of the century this field is still evolving and far from being stabilized. This is the result of a slow process of accretion through inclusion and interconnection of many notions, which came and are still coming from very different disciplines. The process started more than a century ago, but has gathered momentum since the Macy conferences in 1948 through the pioneering work of Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Heinz von Förster and W. Ross Ashby, among many others. Charles François (1999), "Systemics and Cybernetics in a Historical Perspective", in: Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Vol. 16, pp. 203-219.

See also

• International Federation for Systems Research
• International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

References

Publications

François has published some books and dozens of articles and papers:

• 1976, Cybernétique et Prospective, Namur : International Association of Cybernetics, 1976.
• 1978, Introducción a la Prospectiva Buenos Aires : Pleamar, 1978.
• 1985, El uso de Modelos Sistémicos-Cibernéticos como metodología científica, (Systemic-Cybernetic Models used as scientific methodology)
• 1986, Enfoques Sistémicos en el Estudio de las Sociedades (Systemic Approaches to the Study of Societies).
• 1992, Diccionario de Teoría Generale de Sistemas y Cibernética, Buenos Aires : GESI. The first work of its kind in Spanish (475 terms).
• 1997, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, edited by Charles François, München: K. G. Saur. The Academic board of this Encyclopedia includes members such as: John N. Warfield, Robert Trappl, Ranulph Glanville, Anthony Judge, Markus Schwaninger, Heiner Benking, Matjaz Mulej, and Gerhard Chroust. (2nd volume 2004)

Articles & papers, a selection:

• 1982, "A systemic study of socio-historical systems", paper 1982.
• 1999, "Systemics and Cybernetics in a Historical Perspective, ".
• 2000, Hidden long term systemic constraints in present day socio-economical global mutation of mankind, paper.
• 2002, Foreign Debt mechanism: The "Cow in the corral" paper.
• 2004, The need for an integrated systemic-cybernetic language for concepts and models in complex and vague subject areas:... lecture at the presentation of the 2nd volume of the second edition of the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, Humboldt University, Saur Library, Berlin, 2004.

External links

• Homepage from Charles François at the IFSR, with many links.

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