Processes of Emergence of Systems and Systemic Properties

by Gianfranco Minati, Mario R. Abram, Eliano Pessa

2009 · World Scientific

This book contains the Proceedings of the 2007 Conference of the Italian Systems Society. Papers deal with the interdisciplinary study of processes of emergence, considering theoretical aspects and applications from physics, cognitive science, biology, artificial intelligence, economics, architecture, philosophy, music and social systems. Such an interdisciplinary study implies the need to model and distinguish, in different disciplinary contexts, the establishment of structures, systems and systemic properties. Systems, as modeled by the observer, not only possess properties, but are also able to make emergent new properties. While current disciplinary models of emergence are based on theories of phase transitions, bifurcations, dissipative structures, multiple systems and organization, the present volume focuses on both generalizing those disciplinary models and identifying correspondences and new more general approaches. The general conceptual framework of the book relates to the attempt to build a general theory of emergence as a general theory of change, corresponding to Von Bertalanffy's project for a general system theory.

Fighting Words and Feuding Words

by Thomas R. Walsh

2005 · Lexington Books

Fighting Words and Feuding Words engages the powerful tools of Homeric poetic analysis and the anthropological study of emotion in an analysis of two anger terms highlighted in the Iliad by the Achaean prophet Calchas. Walsh argues that kotos and kholos locate two focal points for the study of aggression in Homeric poetry, the first presenting Homer's terms for feud and the second providing the native terms that designates the martial violence highlighted by the Homeric tradition.

Emergence of a Bureaucracy

by R. Burr Litchfield

2014 · Princeton University Press

Burr Litchfield traces the development of the patrician elite of Florence from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the growth of a bureaucratic state in Tuscany during this period, and the changing relationship of the patricians to the state apparatus. His discussion of this largely neglected period of Italian history shows that the elite of the Florentine Renaissance Republic continued as the main component of the urban office-holding aristocracy under the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, and that they had an important role in the transition from Renaissance communal institutions to those of a regional state. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.