7 — Systems Theory’s Ontic Temptation: When “Systems” Become Things They Never Were

Systems theory is the friendliest of the mid-century ontologies.

It wants to be holistic.

It wants to be relational.

It wants to acknowledge complexity, interdependence, and emergence.

And yet—almost inevitably—it falls into the oldest trap:

It turns systems into things.

Not explicitly. Not intentionally.

But structurally, in its models, diagrams, language, and explanatory patterns.

Systems theory cannot stop itself.

Let’s unpick why.

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1. It Treats “Systems” as Ontic Units Rather Than Construals

Every systems theory—from von Bertalanffy to second-order cybernetics—begins by identifying:

• a boundary,

• components within the boundary,

• relations between the components,

• inputs and outputs across the boundary.

In other words: a system.

But “system” is already a perspectival abstraction: a way of cutting the relational field so that certain patterns become tractable.

Systems theory forgets this and slides into speaking as though systems are:

• real entities,

• distinguishable in the world,

• separable from their environment,

• identifiable independent of construal.

This is ontic drift: the moment when a description masquerades as a thing.

Relational ontology does not allow such drift.

A “system” is a construal of potential, not a metaphysical object.

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2. Boundaries Are Treated as Located, Not Enacted

Systems theory marks boundaries with diagrams, lines, and conceptual edges.

Those boundaries are then treated as located in the world.

But boundaries are never located.

They are enacted through perspective.

What a systems theorist calls a boundary is simply a construal of relevance—a perspectival filter on the relational field.

Relational ontology:

The boundary is the cut.

Systems theory:

The boundary is the thing the cut reveals.

The second formulation cannot escape reification; the first never risks it.

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3. Inputs and Outputs Reintroduce Hidden Dualism

By relying on input–output relations, systems theory forces a split between:

• the system, and

• the environment.

Even when systems theorists protest that the boundary is arbitrary or observer-dependent, they still retain the conceptual machinery that requires the distinction to function.

This recreates the external–internal dichotomy—precisely the dichotomy relational ontology dismantles.

In relational terms:

There is no environment beyond the cut;

the environment is the unselected remainder of potential.

Once you see this, input–output diagrams read more like 1950s state-machine engineering than ontology.

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4. Feedback Loops Are Treated as Mechanisms, Not Construals of Constraint

Feedback is the heartbeat of systems theory.

But feedback systems are not structures in the world.

They are patterns we construe when certain relational orientations matter to us.

Feedback loops exist only because a model construes:

• a variable,

• a dependency,

• a constraint,

• a recursive effect.

Change the cut, and the loop disappears.

The loop is not ontological;

the loop is perspectival.

Systems theory tends to forget this and treats feedback as though it is a mechanism rather than a meaning-laden construal.

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5. Systems Theory Talks “Relation” but Thinks “Entity”

This is its deepest contradiction.

Its vocabulary is relational:

• flow

• interdependence

• complexity

• hierarchy

• adaptation

• networks

But the scaffolding beneath this vocabulary is still entity-based.

A system is a thing that operates on things.

A system is a locus of effects.

A system is a container with dynamics.

In other words: systems theory wants relation but defaults to an ontology of things.

Relational ontology reverses the priority:

Relation is primary.

“Systems” are what relations look like when viewed through a patterned cut.

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6. Its Holism Is Representational, Not Ontological

Systems theory prides itself on holism.

But its holism is descriptive, not structural.

It says:

• “Include more variables.”

• “Don’t isolate components artificially.”

• “Model the whole system.”

But all of this still assumes the “whole system” is a discoverable feature of the world rather than a constructive enactment.

Holism becomes a representational ambition, not an ontological grounding.

Relational ontology offers a far more radical holism:

holism as the indivisibility of potential prior to any cut.

This is holism without wholes.

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7. The System Is Not Found; It Is Made

Here is the pivot on which the critique turns:

Systems are not out there waiting to be mapped.

Systems are the effect of a construal that selects, limits, and orients potential.

Nothing in the world is “a system” until a perspective makes it so.

This does not invalidate systems-thinking;

it simply puts it in its proper place:

Systems theory is a second-order construal toolkit,

not an ontology.

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The Systems-Theoretic Mood

If reductionism gives us certainty,

and emergentism gives us elevation,

systems theory gives us manageability.

It turns the relational field into something diagrammable,

navigable,

computable.

But the price of manageability is ontic reification.

Most systems theorists forget the perspectival cut that makes their system possible.

Relational ontology remembers.

It always remembers.