[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Response to paper “Systems Thinking” by D. Cabrera et al.: Systems thinking from a critical systems perspective

## Details

**Authors** Reynolds M

**Year** 2008

**Publisher** Evaluation and Program Planning 31(3):323-325

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Secondary disciplines** Public Policy

**Reading level** technical

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2008.04.004) 
10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2008.04.004

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A conceptual response from the critical systems tradition, comparing DSRP with Reynolds' own triadic conception of understanding, practice and responsibility. Not an empirical test.

### What they found (results)

Reynolds concludes that Cabrera et al. have opened an important and overdue dialogue about what systems thinking is, and credits them with identifying meaningful parameters for it — while arguing that critical systems thinking requires attention not only to understanding systems but to practice and responsibility.

## Commentary

### In short

Constructive theoretical critique. Reynolds treats DSRP as belonging to a legitimate family of systems-thinking frameworks and engages its architecture rather than dismissing it. His emphasis falls on purposeful action, responsibility, boundary judgement and the relation between understanding and intervention — so the response challenges DSRP to account more explicitly for the normative and practical dimensions of practice.

### In more detail

Reynolds examines DSRP through a critical-systems lens, distinguishing systems as epistemological constructs from situations in the world and considering the consequences of boundary-making. He sets the four-element architecture against a triadic framework of understanding complex interrelationships, purposeful intervention, and responsibility for the judgements and boundaries involved.

He engages the individual concepts — System, Relationship, and especially Perspective — while asking how DSRP handles the inevitable selectivity of system construction. His central extension is that systems thinking cannot be about understanding alone: practitioners also intervene, and bear responsibility for the boundaries, values and consequences of intervening.

### Response

Reynolds engages the framework from the critical systems tradition and argues that systems practice requires attention to practice and responsibility as well as to understanding. An objection about scope rather than structure.

**Patterns it shows** D

**How to cite this** Reynolds M (2008). Response to paper “Systems Thinking” by D. Cabrera et al.: Systems thinking from a critical systems perspective. Evaluation and Program Planning 31(3):323-325.