IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017 - 87

Aumann's book on the history of cybernetics in the Federal Republic of Germany, which naturally concentrates
on later developments[9]. Finally, for a more general
(but mostly Anglophone) history of systems thinking the
reader is referred to Ramage & Shipp's excellent Systems Thinkers [10].
At the time the scholars discussed in this paper were
active, many biologists were beginning to broaden their
outlook away from the individual organism to groups of
organisms, the wider environment, and even the application of theoretical systems ideas to society in general.
The fact that they have become known only fairly recently certainly does not detract from the significance of
their work, ranging from the application of highly technological notions such as feedback towards the wider,
but much later, development of the concept of a sociotechnical system.

Acknowledgment
This is a revised and extended version of a paper presented at the conference Images of Europe. Past, Present, Future, ISSEIE2014, Porto, Aug. 4-8, 2014.

Author Information

FIGURE 10. The cover of Unemployment and Deflation in the

Body Economic.

The author is with the School of Computing and Communications, Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics, The Open University, U.K. MK40 3AA.
Email: chris.bissell@open.ac.uk.

References

It must be noted that much of the work discussed
here was unknown to later information and cybernetics pioneers, both in Germany and elsewhere. From
the early 1940s onwards there was a significant German "proto-cybernetics" movement - the major figure being Hermann Schmidt, predating Wiener in the
United States. Some of Wiener's seminal work was
slow to appear in German. His 1948 book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal
and the Machine was not translated into German until
1963, a decade after the translation in 1952 of his
Human Use of Human Beings [13] aimed at a less
specialized audience.
Schmidt's group, established in the early 1940s, had
interests in flight control and ship stabilization, precision engineering, process control, biological questions
relating to the regulation of temperature, blood pressure
and circulation, pulse rate, movement and posture,
metabolism, and the economic, socio-political, and cultural implications of the emerging control field. This
later history, however, is not within the scope of this
paper, and has been considered by the author in some
detail elsewhere [8]. The subject matter has also been
considered, albeit cursorily, in introductory sections in
DECEMBER 2017

∕

[1] V. Henn, "Materialen zur Vorgeschichte der Kybernetik," Studium
Generale, vol. 22, pp. 164-190, 1969.
[2] E. Pflüger, Die teleologische Mechanik der lebendigen Natur.
Bonn: Verlag Max Cohen & Sohn, 1877.
[3] F. Lincke, "Das mechanische Relais," Zeitschrift des VDI, vol. 23,
pp. 509-524, 577-616, 1877.
[4] J. Von Uexküll, Theoretische Biologie. Berlin: Paetel Verlag,
1920. English translation Theoretical Biology. London, U.K.: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner & Co., New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1926.
[5] J. Von Uexküll, Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: Springer, 1921.
[6] J. Von Uexküll, Staatsbiologie. Berlin: Paetel Verlag, (Supplement
to Deutsche Rundschau), 1929.
[7] F. Dittmann, "Die Rolle der Biologie bei der Herausbildung des
frühen kybernetischen Denkens in Deutschland," Informatik 2009 -
Im Focus das Leben (Lecture Notes in Informatics), S. Fischer, E. Maehle, R. Reischuk, Eds. Gesellschaft für Informatikpp, pp. 777-787.
[8] R. Wagner, "Über die Zusammenarbeit der Antagonisten bei
der Willkürbewebung," Zeitschrift für Biologie, vol. 83, pp. 59-93,
120-144, 1925.
[9] Anon. [R. Wagner] Arbeitslosigkeit und Deflation im Wirtschaftskörper unter dem Gesichtspunk biologischer Gesetzmäßigkeiten.
Wien, Leipzig: E. Haim, 1932.
[10] C. Bissell, "Herman Schmidt and German proto-cybernetics,"
Information, Communication and Society, vol. 14, pp. 156-171, 2011.
[11] P. Aumann, Mode und Methode. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag,
2009.
[12] M. Ramage and K. Shipp, Systems Thinkers. London: Open University/Springer-Verlag, 2009.
[13] N. Weiner, Human Use of Human Beings. U.S.A.: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017