Reconstruction of Charles William Morris’ criticism of Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s project of General System Theory

Abstract

In 1937 at the Charles William Morris’ philosophical seminar at the University of Chicago, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the Austrian philosopher and biologist, red the lecture on the project of General System Theory that had to solve the problem of the unity of science. Morris criticized the Bertalanffy’s project and Bertalanffy had to delay the development of the project almost for a decade. The author of the article contemplates to reconstruct the Morris’ criticism of the Bertalanffy’s project of the General System Theory. The author analyzes Bertalanffy’s work “Significance and the Unity of Science” and shows that Bertalanffy introduced that the General System Theory goal was to define general prin ciples of the systems of all sciences to set homology between them. The author analyzes Morris’ work “Philosophy of Science and Science of Philosophy” and shows that Morris understood philosophies, sciences and arts as languages and thought that only philosophy as scientific empiricism, semiotic being its main component, could solve the problem of the unity of science. The author shows that the Morris’ basic argument against the Bertalanffy’s project could be that according to Morris the General System Theory was a simple language like logic or mathematics but not a meta-language that only could solve the problem of the unity of science.