The term ‘system’ traverses the depth-psychology corpus along several distinct but intersecting axes, each carrying significant theoretical weight. In the semiological tradition represented by Benveniste, ‘system’ designates a structured field of signification in which signs derive value from relational opposition: language stands as the interpretant of all other semiological systems, uniquely capable of generating and sustaining secondary systems. Thompson and the enactive biology tradition deploy ‘system’ in the technical sense of dynamic-systems theory—a collection of related entities whose state changes over time—while simultaneously insisting that what counts as a system is always observer-relative and heuristic. This epistemological caution about system-boundaries becomes politically charged in Simondon, who distinguishes ensemble (structural unity) from system (metastable, energetically active unity possessing information). In clinical and somatic psychology, ‘system’ refers primarily to the autonomic nervous system and its subsystems—sympathetic, parasympathetic, polyvagal—understood as hierarchically organized regulators of affective and social behavior (Porges, Ogden, Dana). Agazarian’s General System Theory application to group therapy adds another register: isomorphic structure across system levels makes intervention at any one level ramify throughout the whole. The tensions within the corpus cluster around two poles: whether systems are objectively given or observer-constituted, and whether systemic organization is mechanistic or irreducibly purposive.
No system apart from a language carries the possibility for the signs of the said system to form sets constituting new units
Benveniste argues that language is uniquely privileged among semiological systems because only it can recombine its own signs to generate new signifying units, making it the interpretant of all other systems.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012thesis
A semiological system is always, in principle, capable of generating one or several other semiological systems.
Benveniste establishes a generative hierarchy among semiological systems, in which primary systems furnish structural models that enable derivative systems of transference to exist.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012thesis
None of the semiological systems, such as the road signs in Saussure, finds within itself the justification of its signifying power. They are all in a relationship with a language; the language plays the role, with respect to them all, of semiological interpretant.
Benveniste contends that non-linguistic semiological systems lack self-sufficient signifying power and require language as their hierarchically superior interpretant.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012thesis
the term system does not admit of precise definition. In general, a system is a collection of related entities or processes that stands out from a background as a single whole, as some observer sees and conceptualizes things.
Thompson establishes that ‘system’ is an observer-relative heuristic concept rather than a precise ontological category, making system-boundaries context-dependent and interest-relative.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007thesis
system, autonomy, and heteronomy are heuristic notions—they are cognitive aids or guides in the scientific investigation and characterization of observable phenomena and patterns of behavior.
Thompson argues that the concept of system is epistemologically heuristic, implicitly referencing the interpretive stance of an observer community rather than denoting an objective entity.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007thesis
a system, a metastable unity consisting of a plurality of ensembles between which there is a relation of analogy and an energetic potential… the system perseveres in its metastable being due to the activity of information that characterizes its systemic state.
Simondon distinguishes the system from the mere ensemble by its metastability and informational activity, arguing that Gestalt theory misattributed systemic properties to totalities that lack genuine energetic tension.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
Organizational closure refers to the self-referential (circular and recursive) network of relations that defines the system as a unity, and operational closure to the reentrant and recurrent dynamics of such a system.
Thompson articulates Varela’s concept of organizational and operational closure as the defining feature of autonomous systems, distinguishing self-referential systemic unity from material openness to the environment.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007supporting
it is the internal organization of the system that controls the interactive relations
Thompson, following Moreno and Barandiaran, argues for an asymmetry within autonomous systems whereby internal self-organization is ontologically prior to and regulative of external interaction.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007supporting
purposiveness is a constitutive property the whole system possesses because of the way the system is organized.
Thompson, developing Varela’s notion of immanent purposiveness, argues that teleological properties emerge from systemic organization as a whole rather than from internal components or external determinants.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007supporting
How is it that there are semiological systems? How many are there? Are they always the same systems or different systems? And if different, in what way? Is there a relation amongst them, and if so, what is it?
Benveniste identifies the taxonomy and interrelation of semiological systems as the foundational unanswered question that Saussure left open, which his own lectures undertake to address.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
the social engagement system regulates the sympathetic nervous system, facilitates engagement with the environment, and helps us form positive attachment and social bonds.
Ogden applies Porges’s polyvagal framework to show that the social engagement system hierarchically regulates more primitive autonomic systems, with traumatic override producing pathological arousal states.
, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting
each action system is also organized by particular beliefs and emotions—mental action tendencies—so the same movement or type of locomotion can take on very different qualities depending on which action system and corresponding beliefs are mobilized.
Ogden argues that action systems integrate somatic and cognitive-emotional levels such that the meaning and quality of any given behavior is determined by which system is currently dominant.
, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting
all systems possess a fundamentally common structure and because of isomorphy, you cannot help but alter one part of a system when intervening on another level of that system.
Flores summarizes Agazarian’s General System Theory application to group therapy, emphasizing that isomorphic systemic structure means any intervention necessarily propagates across all levels of the system.
, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997supporting
By rapidly reengaging the vagal system, mammals can inhibit sympathetic input on the heart and rapidly decrease metabolic output to self-soothe and calm.
Porges demonstrates that the vagal system functions as a rapid regulatory override of the sympathetic system, instantiating hierarchical autonomic control as the physiological basis of self-regulation.
, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, 2011supporting
The autonomic nervous system shapes the way you experience your life. Beliefs, behaviors, and body responses are embedded in the autonomic hierarchy.
Dana synthesizes the polyvagal framework to argue that the autonomic nervous system as a hierarchical system is the foundational substrate within which psychological experience, belief, and behavior are embedded.
, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection A Guide for, 2018supporting
no mechanistic model could represent all the relevant features of these systems, and hence new sorts of models would need to be developed.
Thompson, engaging Rosen’s critique of autopoiesis, argues that living systems exceed mechanistic modeling capacity, demanding formally richer representational frameworks.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007supporting
the linguistic sign is put on the same plane as the non-signifying signs of other systems.
Benveniste identifies the problematic consequence of Saussure’s relative-oppositive theory: it risks collapsing the distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic sign systems by treating all signs as equivalent.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
The sociability system is a much larger, or broader, system than attachment and does not pertain solely to behavior that is directed toward only one or two significant attachment figures.
Ogden differentiates the sociability action system from the attachment system proper, locating social bonding within a broader systemic structure encompassing communal and tribal relational behavior.
, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting
The practical advantage of this system is that it produces less house distortion in the higher latitudes than the Campanus method.
Sasportas uses ‘system’ in the technical astrological sense to denote competing house-division methods, noting their differential accuracy as a pragmatic criterion for preference.
, The Twelve Houses: An Introduction to the Houses in Astrological Interpretation, 1985aside
All this order and system the goddess had bestowed upon you earlier when she founded your society
Plato employs ‘system’ in the Timaeus to denote the divine gift of ordered civic and intellectual organization, situating systematic knowledge within a cosmological and political frame.
, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997aside