Ludwig von Bertalanffy on Philosophy

"What in the whole denotes a causal equilibrium process, appears for the part as a teleological event."

"What we call growth of even a simple organism is a tremendously complex phenomenon from the biochemical, physiological, cytological, and morphological viewpoints."

"While we can conceive of a sum as being composed gradually, a system as a total of parts with its interrelations has to be conceived of as being composed instantly."

"Biological communities are systems of interacting components and thus display characteristic properties of systems, such as mutual interdependence, self-regulation, adaptation to disturbances, approach to states of equilibrium, etc."

"Another recent development is the theory of formal organizations, that is, structures planfully instituted, such as those of an army, Bureaucracy, business enterprise, etc. This theory is framed in a philosophy which accepts the premise that the only meaningful way to study organization is to study it as a system."

"The rule is derived inductively from experience, therefore does not have any inner necessity, is always valid only for special cases and can anytime be refuted by opposite facts. On the contrary, the law is a logical relation between conceptual constructions; it is therefore deductible from upper laws and enables the derivation of lower laws; it has as such a logical necessity in concordance with its upper premises; it is not a mere statement of probability, but has a compelling, apodictic logical value once its premises are accepted"