Wisdom, Knowledge, and Management:: A Critique and Analysis of Churchman's Systems Approach

The Systems Approach and Its Enemies (C. West Churchman, 1979) is one of Churchman’s most significant works. In this particular writing he displayed two main tendencies, that he was a Skeptic and that he showed Socratic Wisdom. In this book the editors seeks to follow up on these two themes and reveal how modern authors interpret Churchman’s ideas, apply them to their own line of thinking and develop their own brand of Systemics.

John P. van Gigch is the Series Editor for the Book Series Churchman’s Legacy and Related Works which he was instrumental in getting started. van Gigch knew West Churchman as well as his family personally. Churchman wrote an Introduction for van Gigch’s Applied General System Theory which was published in 1974, with a Second Edition in 1978. van Gigch remained close to West Churchman after the latter retired from the University of California-Berkeley. Right to the end, they celebrated several of West’s birthdays together.