Tenets/Working Hypotheses

Most philosophies or worldviews or theories have a series of statements that describe their underlying propositions. A simple statements of all of these identified assumptions or working hypotheses gives a summary of the content of the body of knowledge. The word “tenet” comes from the Latin word “tenere” which means “to hold.” So the tenets of a theory are the axioms that give rise to the theory.

In the SoSPT, because it attempts to be a true “science” of systems, we also describe the tenets as “working hypotheses” that are continually being examined by experiments on natural systems and application in human systems, improved, modified if necessary, and expanded. The important point is that they are modifiable and not to be taken as tenets sometimes are as truths or held on faith alone.

Excerpt from Systems Processes and Pathologies: Creating An Integrated Framework for Systems Science: Guiding Tenets

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