The Moscow Methodological Circle (MMC) was a scientific organisation set up by

Georgy Shchedrovitsky Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky (; 23 February 1929 – 3 February 1994) was a Russian philosopher and methodologist, public and cultural figure. The creator of the system-thinking methodology, the founder and leader of the Moscow methodological c ...

to examine problems from an inter-disciplinary point of view, looking at the various methodological approaches of each discipline to yield what they described as "systemic thinking activity". The MMC started out as an informal group meeting in a pub on

Gorky Street Tverskaya Street ( rus, Тверская улица, p=tvʲɪrˈskajə ˈulʲɪt͡sə), known between 1935 and 1990 as Gorky Street (), is the main radial street in Moscow. The street runs Northwest from the central Manege Square in the direc ...

which included the mathematician

Alexander Zinoviev Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev ( Russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Зино́вьев; 29 October 1922 – 10 May 2006) was a Soviet philosopher, writer, sociologist and journalist. Coming from a poor peasant family, a ...

, the sociologist

Boris Grushin Boris Andreevich Grushin (; 2 August 1929, in Moscow – 18 September 2007, in Moscow) was a well-known Soviet and Russian philosopher, sociologist and historical and sociological scientist. He is generally seen as the pioneer of public opinion pol ...

and the philosopher

Merab Mamardashvili Merab Mamardashvili ( ka, მერაბ მამარდაშვილი; September 15, 1930 – November 25, 1990) was a Georgian philosopher. Biography He was born in Gori (Eastern Georgia). In 1955, he graduated from the Faculty of ...

. They attracted the attention of the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

but were tolerated. The MMC developed an approach to methodological thinking, which featured these principles: *

holism Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258 The aphorism "The whole is greater than t ...

and reflexivity * practical orientation which uses

systems thinking Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts.Anderson, Virginia, & Johnson, Lauren (1997). ''Systems Thinking Ba ...

as the means for organising processes of resolving

wicked problem In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fix ...

s by multi-professional and transdisciplinary teams * reflexivity as practical

recursive Recursion occurs when the definition of a concept or process depends on a simpler or previous version of itself. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in m ...

orientation of thinking to itself whereby it is able to re-construct and re-direct itself; *the “methodological turn” from thinking about systems as objects to develop the process of thinking systemically

Legacy

The MMC has had a lasting impact on Russian systems thinking particularly through the Methodological School of Management. This is acknowledged by

Viktor Khristenko Viktor Borisovich Khristenko (; born 28 August 1957) is a Russian politician who was chairman of the board of the Eurasian Economic Commission from 1 February 2012 to 1 February 2016. He was First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia from 31 May 199 ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moscow Methodological Circle Systems thinking