In his treatise “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” (1701), Descartes states regarding the first of his rules, the principle of systems thinking applied to sciences.
Whenever men notice some similarity between two things, they are wont to ascribe to each, even in those respects to which the two differ, what they have found to be true of the other.
Thus they erroneously compare the sciences, which entirely exist in the cognitive exercise of the mind, with the arts, which depend upon an exercise and disposition of the body.
They see that not all the arts can be acquired by the same man, but that he who restricts himself to one, most readily becomes the best executant, since it is not so easy for the same hand to adapt itself both to agricultural operations and to harp-playing, or to the performance of several such tasks as to one alone.
Hence they have held the same to be true of the sciences also, and distinguishing them from one another according to their subject matter, they have imagined that they ought to be studied separately, each in isolation from all the rest. But this is certainly wrong.
This was much before modern management concerned itself with the subject, and in this context Russ Ackoff provides an apt overview:
Compliments of the Author 