Overview cont-
1.7 Overview :A Unified Field Theory for Rhetoric
Burke is not the only thinker trying to displace the hegemony of scientistic, mechanistic thinking. Not surprisingly, systems thinking was also taking place in the biological sciences, another field in which mechanistic methodology is not apt. Biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy was interested in the same sort of problems that occupy Burke: how a system evolves, develops and adapts. He became interested in studying systems as systems, not as components or ultimate constituents (e.g., molecules or atoms). He began comparative studies of different types of systems, looking for principles that systems in general share. Not unlike Burke, exploring some of these principles, such as wholeness, evolution, transcendence and harmony, made Bertalanffy vulnerable to the charge of mysticism.
Not coincidentally, then, some striking parallels exist between Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory and Burke's approach in both concepts and even terminology. While no specific reference to General Systems Theory is to be found in Burke, some indirect influence is evident in Burke's use of J.H. Woodger's biological theories, which were influenced by Bertalanffy. Bertalanffy appears unaware of Burke, though his followers are not. It may be that General Systems Theory and Burke's theory developed along parallel lines because both were reacting against the constraints of positivism, and that both were interested in complex phenomena. It may also be that the general shift from simple Newtonian mechanical models to more complex organic models would account for the parallels. In any case, the precision of General Systems Theory makes Burke's intuitive account more understandable and more impressive. (Burke is much stronger than General Systems Theory on culture, symbol, and the function of symbolic action, so the two are mutually elucidating.)
Bertalanffy traces General Systems Theory development from Aristotle through Dionysus the Aeropagite, Nicholas of Cusa, Hegel, to current ecological, sociological, engineering, and psychological theory. Bertalanffy holds that General Systems Theory can deal with multiple variable problems in a way that classical science cannot (1972 23). At its most fundamental, General Systems Theory asserts the only way to understand a system is by looking at it as a system; the state of the whole must be studied before the coordination of its parts. Units which compose complex systems are defined as entities that retain sufficient identity over time and in different places to have a name (a phrase which could easily have come from Burke).
One of the most important characteristics of systems is that they can produce a standard behavior under different conditions; this behavior is maintained not through "a rigid concatenation" of units, but despite its absence (Weiss 13). The "Poetry Exchange" Burke speaks of (a kind of prototype for quality space) has all the attributes of an organic system: composed of heterogenous units of different classes, which are not mixed at random; rather, they can be mapped in a field pattern (such a pattern being almost invariably hierarchically structured). The field pattern retains configuration at equilibrium, and returns to it after a disturbance (Weiss 23).
In much the same way as biological systems, a cultural system reconfigures itself after an epistemological crisis, a phonological system changes but always remains a system, or an individual's cognitive classification system reorients itself after the "slight wounding of the intellect," as the Renaissance defined metaphor. Moreover, there must be interrelations between the mental, linguistic and cultural systems, as Burke was well aware. Burke's career has been devoted to understanding symbolic action, which the dissertation will argue is the manipulation of the quality space. More precisely, symbolic action is the transformation and extension of the interpretive system of associated concepts. Transformation, growth and relationship can only be understood in terms of systems. This is why the refinement and clarification made possible by General Systems Theory is central to the present work. Once the reader is familiar with this theory, the systemic basis of the Burkean corpus will be much more readily discernable in the following chapters.