The main objective of this article is to revise some questions involving the history of science (particularly physiology and sociology) in reference to the concept of system, developed during the first decades of the XXth century by Vilfredo Pareto in sociology (1916/1917) and, in physiology, by Lawrence J. Henderson and Walter B. Cannon, both of them from Harvard University. The article argues that Pareto's sociological system did not avail itself of original analogies of other sciences. It also shows that L. J. Henderson identified in the social system put forward by Pareto the same epistemological foundations of complex systems. Besides, it suggests that Pareto's concept of system is very similar to the concept of homeostasis put forward by Walter B. Cannon in 1932.
Sociological history; Systems theory; Social theory; Systemic epistemology
