Schnieder, E.; Müller, J. R.:
Risk and Safety as System-Theoretic Concepts - A Formal View on System-Theory by Means of Petri-nets.
In: European Safety and Reliability Association, Hrsg.: ESREL 2008 - European Safety & Reliability Conference , S. 2665-2672, Valencia, Spain, September 2008.
In the traditional scientific ”devide and conquer” method, systems are broken into distinct parts which are examined separately. By contrast, the system-theoretic approach focuses on systems as a whole. The underlying assumption is that systems can only be treated adequately in their entirety. This paper focuses on systems and what one can know or recognise about them. So, system-theory as well as the theory of knowledge are adressed. In addition the correspondences between the non-formally but well distinguished concepts of system-theory and formal concepts of Petri net-theory are identified. On the basis of these correspondences some of the essential concepts of system-theory are defined in a formal way. In this context, special attention is paid to risk and safety. Unlike common definitions, they are treated as systemconcepts and are defined in a corresponding way.