Tracing General Systems Theory to Enlightenment Philosophy: Reflections on Lambert's, Kant's and Bertalanffy's Legacies

ABSTRACT General systems theory played a major role in the history of the sciences and the humanities since the 1950s. But the origins of general systems theory are blurred. While the major initiator of 20th‐century general systems theory, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, acknowledged philosophical inspirations but ignored concrete precursors, subsequent scholars chose to ignore both. This study identifies an early formulation of general systems theory in Johann Heinrich Lambert's Systematologie (1767). An analysis of Lambert's systematology, contextualized by his philosophy, which includes historical and structural touch points with Kant's subsequent critical conception of systematicity, demonstrates that the essential ground for general systems theory had already been established as early as the 1760s. Bertalanffy's own theoretical development cannot be treated exhaustively here. Rather, this paper uses his approach and historical position, which is rooted in a cognate and partly continuous traditional European philosophical background inspired by Kant and others, as a 20th‐century comparative frame of reference to spot the true conceptual beginnings of general systems theory. This investigation corrects the historical record and shows that Bertalanffy and others did not invent the discipline but have in fact reinvented it in a new context and in a seemingly novel form.