Publication Details

Abstract

The notion of system and the notions closely attached to it concentrate the interests of scholars of most scientific branches, i. e. inclusive of philosophers, which is a regular consequence of the development of contemporary science that does not analyze separate objects any longer, but complicated and super-complicated formations — systems of mutually joined objects. As the author has been trying first of all to elucidate in his paper the relation of the system and the structure as philosophical categories and as the category of structure has been elaborated in philosophical literature incomparatibly more, he has concentrated first of all on the analysis of some definitions of the system. He has pointed out what differentiates the system from the whole and from the object and has concluded that from the methodological point of view it is more precise to speak about introducing the system on the object, about systematizing the object. It appears from the analysis of the relations of the objects as elements, parts of the system, that under the structure of the system a net of junctions among them is to be understood. Similarly as there is a structure of the system there is a structure of the object and similarly as we differentiate between the system and the object, we also have to differentiate the structure of the system from the structure of the object by means of which every object presents itself, because it does not exist out of relations, because its properties present themselves only in mutual operation of objects. The system and the structure are neither synonymous notions nor categories. Both these notions or categories belong to the basic categories of dialectical materialism. In spite of the dialectical connection between them, the structure appears to be an ontological notion, category, it exists in itself, independently of our consciousness, while the system appears to be a gnozeological notion, category, existing only in the sphere of consciousness. Contrary to the structure that is being investigated bacause it exists, the system on the object is being introduced so that the object may be investigated.