Systems thinking
Although systems ideas can traced back to Aristotle, Plato (who thought that kybernetes, or the art of statesmanship, applied to the state as well as ships), and the European Enlightenment, systems thinking as a general theory first emerged in the 1950s. Since than academics have developed a bewildering number of theoretical and practical variants on the basic theme: Jackson (2003) identifies 10 different systems approaches divided into types A, B, C and D—hard systems thinking, systems dynamics: the fifth discipline, organizational cybernetics, complexity theory, strategic assumption surface and testing, interactive planning, soft systems methodology, critical systems heuristics, team syntegrity and postmodern systems thinking—as well as two more metacategories, total systems intervention and critical systems practice.