Albert Hanken
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Albert Frederik Gerhard Hanken (9 October 1926,
Hillegersberg Hillegersberg is a neighbourhood of Rotterdam, Netherlands. Primarily a green residential area with lakes, canals and parks, it was incorporated into the city of Rotterdam in 1941. History Hillegersberg was named after Hildegard van Vlaandere ...
, –
Amstelveen Amstelveen () is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands with a population of 92.353 as of 2022. It is a suburban part of the Amsterdam metropolitan area. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the historical villages o ...
, 21 December 2016) was a Dutch mathematician, inventor, and Emeritus Professor of
systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
at the
University of Twente The University of Twente (Dutch: ''Universiteit Twente''; , abbr. ) is a public technical university located in Enschede, Netherlands. The university has been placed in the top 170 universities in the world by multiple central ranking tables. ...
, known for his contributions to the field of systems theory and social analysis. Geyer, Felix, and
Johannes van der Zouwen Johannes "Hans" van der Zouwen (born 1939) is a Dutch sociologist, and Emeritus Professor of Social Research Methodology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, known for his pioneering work with Felix Geyer in the field of sociocybernetics. In t ...
.
Cybernetics and social science: theories and research in sociocybernetics
" Kybernetes 20.6 (1991): 81–92.


Biography

Hanken studied mathematics and physics at the
University of Twente The University of Twente (Dutch: ''Universiteit Twente''; , abbr. ) is a public technical university located in Enschede, Netherlands. The university has been placed in the top 170 universities in the world by multiple central ranking tables. ...
and the
VU University Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...
, and received his PhD in 1954 at the
Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
with the thesis, entitled "A method and a model for the analysis and description of car-following performance." From 1955 to 1967 Hanken studied and worked in the United States. Early 1960s he worked for the Industrial Nucleonics Corporation in Ohio, where he developed and patented several measuring systems. From 1965 to 1967 he taught systems engineering at the
Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
. In 1967 he moved back to the Netherlands to teach systems theory at the
University of Twente The University of Twente (Dutch: ''Universiteit Twente''; , abbr. ) is a public technical university located in Enschede, Netherlands. The university has been placed in the top 170 universities in the world by multiple central ranking tables. ...
and the
Eindhoven University of Technology The Eindhoven University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven), abbr. TU/e, is a public technical university in the Netherlands, located in the city of Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its BSc a ...
. From 1974 to 1986 he was Professor of Systems Theory at the University of Twente, specifically focussing on systems concepts and methods in the social sciences. Among his students were
Ton de Leeuw Antonius Wilhelmus Adrianus de Leeuw (Rotterdam, 16 November 1926 - Paris, 31 May 1996) was a Dutch composer. He occasionally experimented with microtonality. Life and career Taught by Henk Badings, Olivier Messiaen and others, and in his youth i ...
, Walter Kickert and Nic Kramer. Hanken made an important contribution to the introduction and spreading of systems theory in the Netherlands. In 1970 with
Gerard de Zeeuw Gerard de Zeeuw (born 11 March 1936) is a Dutch scientist and Emeritus professor Mathematical modelling of complex social systems at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is known for his work on the theory and practice of action rese ...
he cofounded the
Dutch Systems Group The Dutch Systems Group, or ''Netherlands Society for Systems Research'' or ''Systeemgroep Nederland'', is a society in the Netherlands for systems theory, and its applications. Systems theoretical problems the society focuses on are, for example ...
. After his retirement in 1986 Hanken published several books on
Eastern philosophy Eastern philosophy or Asian philosophy includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philosophy; which are dominant in East Asia, ...
and
mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
. Hanken died at home in Amstelveen and was buried at
Zorgvlied Zorgvlied is a village in the Dutch province of Drenthe. It is a part of the municipality of Westerveld, and lies about 23 km west of Assen. The municipality received its name by the former villa "Zorgvlied". History From 1819 to 1823, t ...
.


Work


''Cybernetics and Society,'' 1981

In his 1981 "Cybernetics and Society: An Analysis of Social Systems," Hanken explains, that there are different ways to analyse societies as a social systems. A common approach is to see society as a network of interacting persons or groups, called
actors An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lite ...
. In those days these actors were "usually represented by either stimulus response or normative models."Hanken (1981, intro) The problem with these analysis-techniques of social systems was, according to Hanken, that they were not detailed enough. They didn't "include a number of essential psychological attributes." In his work he proposed to extend the existing methods, and presented a new framework to make this possible.


Classification of social systems

Hanken (1981) argued that in the social systems can be classified in three main types: * Autocratic systems * Collective systems, and * Democratic systems This systems differ in ways of decision-making, social interaction, dominance relationship, principles of coordination, communication, bargaining, coalitions, etc. The social system itself can be pictured with three types of subsystems:Hanken (1981, p. 6) * The system S * The environment E, and * The decision-maker D Furthermore, these systems contain five essential variables: the control variables, the input variables, the state variables, the output variables, and the information variables.


Reception

In the sociocybernetics of the 1980s, it was an ongoing question what constitutes social systems. In his 1981 ''Cybernetics and Society,'' Hanken stated that social systems consists of
actors An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lite ...
, inline with Tom Baumgartner in his 1978 paper entitled "An actor-oriented systems model for the analysis of
industrial democracy Industrial democracy is an arrangement which involves workers making decisions, sharing responsibility and authority in the workplace. While in participative management organizational designs workers are listened to and take part in the decisi ...
measures." Other scientists in those days defined the components of social systems simply as individuals, or communications. In summarizing the different approaches in cybernetics on evaluation processes Levin-Rozalis (2010) stated that developments has led to "relativist and subjective perceptions of knowledge."Levin-Rozalis, Miri. "Cybernetics: A possible solution for the “knowledge gap” between “external” and “internal” in evaluation processes." Evaluation and program planning 33.4 (2010): 333–342. Is this matter Hanken (1981) had shown that "two actors in the same system will not absorb the same information from sources either outside or inside the system, nor will they perceive or weight it in the same way."


Selected publications

* Hanken, A. F. G., and H. A. Reuver. "Introduction to Systems Analysis (Inleiding tot de Systeemleer)." Stenfert Kroese, 1973. * Hanken, Albert FG
''Cybernetics and Society: An Analysis of Social Systems.''
Vol. 6. CRC Press, 1981. * Hanken, Albert FG, and H. A. Reuver. ''Social systems and learning systems.'' M. Nijhoff, 1981, Vol. 4. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. * Hanken, Albert FG. ''Balanceren tussen Boeddha en Freud,'' Utrecht : Het Spectrum, 1994. * Hanken, Albert FG. ''De mystiek ontsluierd,'' Budel : Damon, 2002. * Hanken, Albert FG. ''Religie zonder god.'' Eburon Uitgeverij, 2007. * Hanken, Albert FG. ''Mysticism without Mystery.'' Eloquent Books, 2010.


Articles, a selection

* Hanken, A. F. G., and B. G. F. Buijs. "Systems analysis and business models." ''Annals of Systems Research.'' Springer US, 1971. 9–16. * Hanken, A. F. G., and J. C. Zadoks.
Kunst, kitsch of kunde: het vraagstuk van de integratie en de integriteit der wetenschappen
" (1978).


Patents

* Hanken, Albert FG.
Measuring system
" U.S. Patent No. 3,044,297. 17 July 1962. * Hanken, Albert FG.
Measuring system for determining the mass of a dielectric material utilizing a capacitive probe at two frequencies
" U.S. Patent No. 3,155,900. 3 November 1964. * Hanken, Albert FG.
Backscatter thickness measuring gauge utilizing different energy levels of bremsstrahlung and two ionization chambers
" U.S. Patent No. 3,412,249. 19 November 1968. * Hanken, Albert FG.
Multiple energy detection for mixture analysis
" U.S. Patent No. 3,452,192. 24 June 1969.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanken, Albert F.G. Dutch systems scientists 1926 births 2016 deaths University of Twente alumni Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni Ohio State University alumni Georgia Tech faculty Academic staff of the University of Twente Academic staff of the Eindhoven University of Technology Scientists from Rotterdam 20th-century Dutch mathematicians 21st-century Dutch mathematicians 20th-century Dutch scientists 21st-century Dutch scientists