The Review of Checkland's Soft System Thinking

Checkland's Soft System Thinking is an important milestone in western system movement history because it brings three important paradigm shifts.The first shift is that the system thinking is developed from the general system thinking to applied systems thinking.It helps system thinking get rid of the plight that it gains the universality at the cost of content.The second shift is that the applied system thinking is transferred from Hard System Thinking to Soft System Thinking.It makes phenomenology become the philosophy basis of system thinking.The third shift is that the social paradigm of applied system thinking is diverted from functionalism to the interpretive tradition.It enables the interpretation of human activity become the main method to improve real problematic situation.This paper also indicates that extreme subjectivism and conservative system concept are two important shortages for Soft System Thinking.