Borislav Gradinarov
Papers of BAS, Humanities and Social Sciences
Vol. 2, No 1-2, 2015
PHILOSOPHY
SOCIAL SCIENCES IN FRONT OF THE PARADIGM OF SYSTEMS THINKING
Borislav Gradinarov
Abstract: The article analyzes the new challenges faced by the social sciences in an attempt to defend their right to provide adequate knowledge of their object of study, and what is more important, to formulate more accurate predictions about its behaviour and change. The increasingly explicit penetration of information technology in the deep structures of modern civilization creates a fundamentally new situation in the research of society as well. Separation of the different scientific fields becomes counterproductive and the current methodological arsenal shows more visible deficits. A new paradigm is being formed in which apparently will be implemented research of society in the future -the paradigm of systems thinking. It enables and requires adequate knowledge of complex objects like all objects of social sciences, to be organized so that their functioning as system dynamic integrity to come to the fore. Systems thinking is a common conceptual framework, a set of attitudes, knowledge, methods and tools, united by the idea that when a particular social area has to be explored, it is necessary to take account of the whole and to understand the processes by which the parts of reality are linked together.
Key words: social sciences, systems thinking, digitization, complex objects, system integrity