Ackoff's Best: His Classic Writings on Management

Another important consequence of the commitment to causal thinking derives from the acceptance of a cause as sufficient for its effect. Because of this a cause was taken to explain its effect completely. Nothing else was required to explain it, not even the environment. Therefore, Machine-Age thinking was, to a large extent, environment-free; it…

So

The concept of the universe that derives from the exclusive use of analysis and the doctrines of reductionism and determinism is mechanistic. The world was…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

in this book considerable attention is given to learning and adaptation. However, because control of change is preferable to responsiveness to it,…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Renaissance men confronted nature with awe, wonder, and childlike curiosity. They tried to unravel its mysteries much as…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Children given something they do not understand-a radio, a clock, or a toy-are almost certain to try to take it apart to see how it works. From an understanding of how the parts work they try to extract an understanding of the whole. This three-stage process-(1) taking apart the thing to be understood, (2) trying to understand the behavior of the p

as the rate of change increases, the complexity of the problems that face us also increases. The more complex these problems are, the more time it takes to solve them.

to say we are experiencing a change of age is to assert that both our methods of trying to understand the world and our actual understanding of it are undergoing…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Now, if everything in the universe is caused, then each cause is itself the effect of a previous cause. If we start tracing back through the chain of causes do we come to a beginning of the process? The answer to this question was also dictated by the belief in the complete understandability of the universe. It was yes. Therefore, a first cause was

The doctrine of determinism gave rise to yet another critical question to which philosophers of the Machine Age devoted much of their time. How can we explain free will,…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.