System Engineering has the field of thoughts.
System Theory is philosophy. It is a concept above the system engineering. "System" in System Theory is abstract.
The first discussion of System Theory seems to be by Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General System Theory. It indicated the common theory in all. And main tool of it is analogy.
General System Theory is proposed in 1950s. I do not know the search for General System Theory now.
NEXT Analogy