Unifying Paradigm Versus Adaptive Ecology: Deliberating the Futures of Systems Thinking

Zhichang Zhu

Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2025, vol. 42, issue 5, 1339-1352

Abstract: In this paper, I deliberate on two visions for the future of systems thinking: unifying paradigm versus adaptive ecology. Drawing on a wide range of literatures as well as the past century experience of modern systems thinking, I shall posit: (1) unconstrained proliferation and autonomy of intellectual specialisation is indispensable for enriching humankind's problem‐solving capacity, which is incompatible with ‘legitimate universality’ or ‘first principle’; (2) encompassing mechanisms across ‘systems of all types’ are limited in number and primitive in character, which sets severe limits to isomorphism, the foundational block of the ‘unity’ ambition; (3) driven by a problem‐solving teleology and enabled by distributed agency, responsive emergence and causation web mechanisms, systems thinking has, over the past decades, evolved into an adaptive intellectual ecology full of recursive diversity, which defies one‐paradigm pluralism à la ‘unification’ attempts; and (4) solutions to global problems come not from grand ‘unity’ in the abstract but from contingent interdisciplinary cooperations at the point of action. My conclusion: In comparison with unifying paradigm, adaptive ecology appears to be an inspiring and realistic vision for the future of systems thinking.

Date: 2025
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