The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory.
Robert Pirsig
Context
Quoted in Learning Systems Thinking, Ch. 2.
It's interesting to encounter such a philosophical citation in a text oriented around software engineering, a call to picture our mental model of rationality itself.
This reminds me of Demming's system of profound knowledge, in which he identifies the study of human psychology as part of quality assurance. Similarly, it seems that knowledge workers in the context of complex systems might find useful insights in the study of logic, epistemology, and neuroscience.