Re: Do Systems = Structures?

I think "systemic," analysis, as opposed to "systematic," is the more
accurate term to describe "world-systems" or "historical systems"
analysis.  (Systematic analysis may or may not make for good analysis of
systemic processes!)

The conception of "structures" in Wallerstein's work is another way of
referring to the processes of a "system" which are what define any
system as "systemic."  

Systems are formed of structures (structural processes): patterns,
cycles, trends and historical developments that have empirically
measurable regularity.  Structures are thus the recurring and integrated
processes that define a "system" as such.  But systems are also
historical, in part, because the regularities change over time and place
(TimeSpace) due to the contradictions among the systemic processes
(among the regularities).  Consequently systems have an eventual end or
demise in TimeSpace.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu
> [mailto:wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of francesco ranci
> Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 5:50 AM
> To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> Subject: Re: Do Systems = Structures?
> 
> 
> Just a semantic and methodological note. Both “system”
> and “structure” stand for mental activities that we
> can perform on anything. In the same way, I can see my
> own skin as the “beginning” or as the “end” of my body
> - or possibly as neither one of them. If I take my
> skin as a “system”, I am driven to deal with its
> overall functions, while if I consider it as a
> “structure” I’m rather driven to deal with its
> components and their own functions. From a
> methodological point of view, it seems more useful to
> investigate “systems” before getting into “structures”; i.e. 
> to consider societies as systems before considering them as 
> structures. Even though, most likely, every time one finds 
> out something interesting, using one or the other word, it 
> will be useful to look for some related findings coming in 
> from the use of the other. Hence, it does look right to me 
> that some of followers of Wallerstein’s systematic analysis 
> are getting into “structures”, while the opposite change that 
> happened between Braudel and Wallerstein looks to me more 
> like a paradigm shift, so to speak. The “systematic” stage 
> prior to Braudel and the Annales school would then be the 
> traditional historian or historians. And, as a consequence, I 
> have to end up saying that the Annales school’s was not a 
> paradigm shift, or not as much as Wallersteins’s was. At 
> least from the point of view suggested by their use of the 
> such terms as “system” and “structure”. In the very broad 
> terms of general phylosophical trends, we could have had 
> system theory roaring in the ‘50s and structuralism booming 
> in the ‘60s, AI in the ’70s and connectionism in the ‘80s, 
> cognitive science’s explosion in the ’90s and, now, the embodied mind.
> 
> Francesco Ranci
> 
> --- Boris Stremlin <bstremli@binghamton.edu> wrote:
> > On Fri, 29 Nov 2002, Milo Jones wrote:
> > 
> > >
> > > Could someone please hazard for me an explanation
> > of whether the
> > > "Systems" within WST are "Structures" as the term
> > is understood by
> > > Structuralists?
> > 
> > Not exactly.  For Wallerstein, (historical) systems
> > are entities which are
> > durable, but which are nevertheless finite, having discernible
> > beginnings and ends.  This notion of systematicity draws upon
> > Braudel's concepts of
> > "histoire structurelle" and "longue duree", which
> > are counterposed to the
> > trans-historical "very long term", "sheltered from
> > accidents, conjunctures
> > and breakdowns, the time of qualitative mathematics
> > and of Claude
> > Levi-Strauss" (see Wallerstein, _The Capitalist
> > World Economy_, p.270;
> > Braudel, _History and the Social Sciences_). 
> > Wallerstein also speaks of
> > structures (e.g. the "structures of knowledge"), but
> > they are structural
> > in the Braudelian, not the Levi-Straussian sense.
> > 
> > Having said that, it should be noted that
> > Wallerstein eschews all talk of
> > a world-systems theory (WST), but many others who
> > use the concept do not
> > (e.g. Chase-Dunn, but also to some extent Gunder
> > Frank and Arrighi).  Some
> > of the latter explicitly associate their notions of
> systematicity with
> > the "very long term", which would make it closer to the "structures"

> > of structuralists.
> > 
> > --
> > Boris Stremlin
> > bstremli@binghamton.edu
> > 
> 
> 
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