Systematics of selected basic concepts in logistics

In general, the starting point for all considerations is human needs, and their satisfaction has its source in action (activity). Both the satisfaction of material and non-material needs – which has been particularly highlighted in the last decades – causes an eternal interest in the features and properties of things and people. The latter order is not accidental, as until now attention was paid mainly to the production and satisfaction of human material needs.

It is understandable that the features and properties of the object of work place specific requirements on action; they can cause the direction of action or its abandonment. This means that it stems from the features and properties of the object of work – or more broadly – the object of action, because we must take into account both production and non-production processes, a specific susceptibility to or for action. This susceptibility is a specific ease of being acted upon; susceptible means easily yielding to something.
However, it must be stated – unfortunately – that with the immense universality of using the term susceptibility, we are dealing with the same misunderstanding of it, unawareness of its essence and meaning.

1. ACTION AS A FUNCTION OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE OBJECT OF ACTION
Let us pay attention to E. Lissowska’s thought that “The technology of performing various processes and their components is a function of the knowledge of the object of work”. We can speak about susceptibility and its types in relation to any type of activity, process, system, enterprise, region, country, or phenomenon in general.
Generally speaking, we can consider susceptibility with respect to almost everything; to man, as the perpetrator of action, and to everything in his environment, except for the forces of nature. If we eliminate from the considerations of activity the forces of nature with so-called extraordinary effects, such as lack or excess of rainfall, tornadoes, hurricanes, whirlwinds, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and others, it becomes fully understandable that susceptibility refers to man. After all, the source of human action and nature is not the same, i.e., a need, and therefore there is no equivalence of these concepts: source of human action = need, extraordinary effects of the forces of nature = features and properties of nature.
The susceptibility of what is subject to the influence of the forces of nature must – of course – be taken into account in order to be able to prevent their negative effects. The action of nature is usually the result of a coincidence of circumstances, sometimes unfavorable to man. (…)

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