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Topic description / abstract:

Given the variety of systematic approaches and methodological tools, it is important to consider the problem of methodological adequacy using a particular method to obtain a non-trivial result. The concept of adequacy is often considered intuitively clear but is usually one of the vaguest. This leads to difficulties in solving many practical problems in various fields of knowledge. I propose criteria of adequacy methods and validate applying the Parametric General System Theory as an adequate method for analysing complex systems. Parametric General System Theory (PGST) methodology allows a qualitative analysis of objects where quantitative methods are not always appropriate. PGST was developed in the 1960s-1970s by Ukrainian philosopher and researcher Avenir Uyomov. PGST is still successfully used in various socio-humanitarian fields (Uyomov 2016) to analyse complex systems where using system theories based on mathematical tools such as those advocated by W. Ross Ashby (Ashby 1962), John von Neumann (Neumann 1958), Russell L. Ackoff (Ackoff 1972), Ilya Prigogine (Prigogine 1984), is not adequate. Parametric General System Theory proposes a procedure for transforming any object into a substratum of some structure corresponding to a fixed concept. Also, PGST allows us to talk about system-specific characteristics of the subject of study: attributive and relational system parameters.  

Biographical note:

Ievgeniia Ivanova – PhD, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen (UK), 2023, Visiting fellow at the University of Stirling (UK), 2023-2024. From 2012 to 2022, she held senior lecturer positions at the Odesa National Polytechnic University (Ukraine), National Medical University (Ukraine), and as an associate professor at the National University "Odesa Maritime Academy" (Ukraine). Ievgeniia’s research interests cover interdisciplinary areas such as philosophy and methodology of knowledge, epistemology, and philosophy of social science using a systems approach to research complex intellectual, value, and social objects. She popularises science and has many popular science publications in different media, and she is a member of the international movement of young scientists and science fans, Share Your Knowledge «15х4». Dr Ivanova is also an author at The Conversation (UK) and Editor-in-chief of an online magazine about culture, urban study, and contemporary art, Prostranstvo (Ukraine). Her recent publications include research on Museums as Complex Systems in the Face of the War, Museum and Society, Vol 21, No 2 (2023) and System-descriptive analysis of GPT chat imitation strategies XI Uyomov readings, Odesa (2023).