ANTAGONISM PRINCIPLE
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 125 ▶ |
| Object type | Methodology or model |
- “Every system results from two antagonistic forces mutually binded” (S.LE PEUTREC & M. COURANT, 1994, p. 1550)
The principle was originally proposed in France by S. LUPASCO (who constructed a “logic of contradiction” — 1947): “It is antagonism, i.e. the coexistence of forces that attract o repel each other, or conflict with this attraction, that constitutes the fundamental mechanism, sine qua non of the physico-chemical objects, with more or less strong domination of some of them over the others… It is the nucleus where the antagonistic forces become most strongly equilibrated that constitutes the most resistant system, the one… most difficult to disintegrate” (1972, p.100)
Under this somewhat philosophical guise, it is easy to recognize C. LAVILLE's, or K. DE GREENE's, or D. Mc NEIL's views about interacting fields, or vortexes, or toroids, or H. SABELLI's theory of processes, all of which are basically dynamic.
LUPASCO, significantly, used the words “attract” and “attraction”, long before attractors became a pass-word in so many systemic models.
In systems, we may observe the antagonism principle, for instance in environment-system antagonism, or inside of a system, the construction-destruction antagonism.
According to LUPASCO, the principle is rooted in a reflexive combination of the 2nd Principle of thermodynamics , that prescribes the increase of entropy , and PAULI's exclusion principle . LUPASCO gives as examples the development of an embryo, or the shaping of a hurricane; still another important research on the subject has been d'ARCY W. THOMPSON's on “Growth and Form”(1916)
LUPASCO also stated that “the antagonism principle appears…as the formation principle of any system, as well as the bedrock of systems logics”(1982)