VALUATION TERMINOLOGY

Charles François (2004). VALUATION TERMINOLOGY, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 3703.

Collection	International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics
Year	2004
Vol. (num.)	2(2)
ID	◀ 3703 ▶
Object type	General information, Human sciences, Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model

Many usual qualifying terms should be closely scrutinized from a systemic viewpoint because they introduce implicit cultural biases, which remain hidden to most of the users.

Examples are words like “acceptable, admitted, normal (or abnormal), recognized, relevant, satisfactory, useful (or useless)”, etc…

Any research, specially directed at human systems , should define clearly to whom, in what cases, in which places and times something is “acceptable”, etc…

In system's modelization of any type fuzzy valuations are at the same time very difficult to avoid, and in case of use, difficult to place in perspective and, still more so, to quantify when needed.

Many issues are thus obscured and, in cases, this can lead to serious errors and abuses.