Toward the New Theory on Social System(<Special Issue>Rethinking Systems Theory)

Abstract

Nowadays, it is said that our societies are too complicated to predict their changes and the occurrences. The difficulty of understanding our societies implies that the theory explaining the social systems should be improved as the societies are more complicated. To comprehend such a complex society, in this paper, I insist on the two points as follows. First, it is impossible to separate the social facts into the contingent and the necessary. Here, the two studies are examined; one is "the garbage can model" (March and Olsen; 1976), and the other is "the sociology of event" (Morin; 1969). Both studies refer to the relations between the contingent and the necessary in the social system, and suggest that the actual social system sustains its order under the influence of the contingent factors. From this point of view, the new theory on social system needs both the necessity and the contingent. Second, the contingency in our society consists of the multiple factors which have nothing to do with each other apparently. This is significant to the new theory on social system, because the complexity of the current society is owing to the complicated connections that we can't see through at a glance. Therefore, to examine the contingent in the social facts makes us comprehend what our social system is.