Presents an “in memoriam” tribute to Heinz von Foerster.
Abstract
Purpose
Presents an “in memoriam” tribute to Heinz von Foerster.
Design/methodology/approach
Outlines his work.
Findings
Introduces his inspiring contributions in the applied sciences and to the more general researches on the theoretical and practical implications of the cybernetic epistemology.
Originality/value
Gives insights to the importance of the work of von Foerster.
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The paper serves as an introduction to the special issue on Heinz von Foerster. Major episodes of his life are sketched and related to his scientific convictions regarding…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper serves as an introduction to the special issue on Heinz von Foerster. Major episodes of his life are sketched and related to his scientific convictions regarding transdisciplinary research and radical constructivist. In the second part the contributions to the issue are summarized. Finally, the relevance of Foerster's work is discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
The arguments are based on the scientific literature.
Findings
Foerster argued against reductionist science and in favor of transdisciplinary research in order to trigger further scientific developments.
Practical implications
By using transdiciplinary and choosing the constructivist perspective, science will increase its productivity. This should be reflected in science policy.
Originality/value
By pointing at the variety of his scientific output and his influence on many colleagues and students, the paper is in support of Foerster's non‐reductionist worldview.
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Based on the reception of the principle of self-organization, the core of Heinz von Foerster's operational theories, I hypothesize how Heinz von Foerster's theory can be an…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the reception of the principle of self-organization, the core of Heinz von Foerster's operational theories, I hypothesize how Heinz von Foerster's theory can be an orientation model for the epistemological problem of complexity. I have chosen this study to demonstrate complexity as an epistemological problem. This is because the question of how order arises - the core problem of complexity - is an epistemological question for which Heinz von Foerster developed an epistemology of self-organization. I do not present new research because HvF already had the complex organization of systems in mind. Rather, I build a critical approach to complexity on the research and work on operational epistemology in HvF.
Design/methodology/approach
This article aims to provide an orientation for a philosophical and epistemological understanding of complexity through a reading of Heinz von Foerster's operational theory. The article attempts to establish complexity as an epistemological phenomenon through the following method: (1) a conceptual description of the science of complexity based on the turn to thermodynamic time, (2) a genealogy of complexity going back to the systemic method, and (3) Heinz von Foerster's cybernetic approach to self-organization.
Findings
Based on the reception of the principle of self-organization, the core of Heinz von Foerster's operational theories, the conclusion is drawn that complexity as a description is based on language games.
Research limitations/implications
The results present complexity not as an object of science, but as a description that stands for the understanding of complex description.
Social implications
The hypothesis that complexity is a question of description or observation, i.e. of description for what language serves, has enormous social implications, in that the description of complexes and the recognition of their orders (patterns) cannot be left to algorithmic governmentality, but must be carried out by a social agency.
Originality/value
HvF's operational epistemology can serve as an epistemological model for critical complexity theory.
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To provide illumination of how systems tend to produce an output nobody expected. It is in these moments that observers may learn something about their own expectations.
Abstract
Purpose
To provide illumination of how systems tend to produce an output nobody expected. It is in these moments that observers may learn something about their own expectations.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper discusses two cases in the history of art: faked Vermeer paintings and a test Heinz von Foerster did in the art department at the University of Illinois.
Findings
McLuhan's notion “collide‐oscope” is applied to the way Heinz von Foerster (ab)uses images in his own texts; furthermore it is applied to the way the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) was organized. The formal structure of the “collide‐oscope” offers a model of perception.
Originality/value
Provides a discussion of a fundamental message of cybernetics – that we cannot escape collisions and disturbances. They are its essence.
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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the influence of the late Heinz von Foerster in the life of an admirer and friend who remains a leader in the field of family therapy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the influence of the late Heinz von Foerster in the life of an admirer and friend who remains a leader in the field of family therapy.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is autobiographical. The method is (loosely) process recall and personal theoretical reflection. Objectives are achieved by organizing major tenets of von Foerster's constructivism into personal categories of meaning.
Findings
Findings included a deep philosophical influence on the author's professional life; an abiding impact on his personal life; and a durability of von Foerster's ideas across disciplines, time, and the ever‐changing theories and politics of the mental health profession.
Originality/value
This paper adds value to the social sciences in general, and to the field of family therapy in particular, because it highlights the interconnectedness of person and profession and the confluence of the messenger/message. Some might say this is cybernetics in vivo. There may be little that is “new” in this paper in terms of theoretical constructs, but the autobiographical nature of the reflections may be its most valuable contribution to others struggling with such concepts.
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Christian Fuchs and Wolfgang Hofkirchner
The main purpose of this paper is to consider knowledge production as a social self‐organization process, to clarify ethical implications of such an approach, and to relate it to…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to consider knowledge production as a social self‐organization process, to clarify ethical implications of such an approach, and to relate it to the thinking of Heinz von Foerster.
Design/methodology/approach
The method employed is the one of dialectical constructions, i.e. existing contradicting approaches on knowledge research are identified and classified and a constructive synthesis of these approaches is made.
Findings
Since Heinz von Foerster's pioneering work, information‐generating systems are considered to be self‐organizing systems. We see knowledge as only a particular kind of information: it is the manifestation of information in the social realm. Thus, the creation of social information is due to the self‐organization of social systems. Heinz von Foerster has given us some indications of how knowledge and self‐organization could be applied to society. In this paper, we try to sketch a position of our own while taking into consideration Heinz von Foerster's relevant ideas.
Practical implications
The research results in this paper imply that a knowledge‐based society can only survive if it is designed in a participatory and socially and ecologically sustainable way. Hence a practical implication is that participation and co‐operation need to be advanced in order to guarantee human development.
Originality/value
The innovative aspect of the paper is that it suggests that all social self‐organizing systems are knowledge‐producing systems and that considering knowledge as a co‐operative process implies responsibility for solving the global social problems. It combines knowledge research and systems thinking based on ideas on self‐organization by Heinz von Foerster in order to describe social systems.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the heuristics course co‐taught by Heinz von Foerster, Herbert Brün, and Humberto Maturana (1968‐1969) influenced cybernetic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the heuristics course co‐taught by Heinz von Foerster, Herbert Brün, and Humberto Maturana (1968‐1969) influenced cybernetic research in the USA.
Design/methodology/approach
The author accessed the archived material from three sources: the Herbert Brün Library, the University of Illinois Library, and the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) and interpreted these materials in light of the cybernetics literature, and the publications of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC).
Findings
The heuristics course had major consequences in von Foerster's evolving critique of education, and in Brün's work towards founding a School for Designing a Society. von Foerster radically reoriented the BCL toward unconventional course proposals. He also began to critique objectivity and positivism, shifting the foundations of cybernetics and proposing a meta‐cybernetics. The year that von Foerster retired, the BCL and the ASC ceased to function. When the ASC returned in the 1980s it took on new emphases, including education and design. It appears von Foerster was pivotal in the shift of emphasis.
Originality/value
The findings add new dimensions to the story of the decline of the BCL in the 1970s, and the re‐emergence of the ASC in the 1980s with new emphases (such as design) that are not traditionally found in scientific research.
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Some of Heinz von Foerster's central topics of reflection (the crucial role of the observer, the admission of the autonomy of the knowing subject, the rejection of all absolute…
Abstract
Purpose
Some of Heinz von Foerster's central topics of reflection (the crucial role of the observer, the admission of the autonomy of the knowing subject, the rejection of all absolute conceptions of truth, the significance of paradoxical and circular figures of thought, etc.) are of consequence to university education and teaching in many different ways.
Design/methodology/approach
The author crucially describes the central ideas of Heinz von Foerster and related authors on education, learning and teaching.
Findings
The author shows that the concepts developed by Heinz von Foerster suggest a paradigmatic re‐orientation; the concept of knowledge transfer must be replaced by the stimulation of self‐directed learning geared to the reality of students; learning environments must be created that enable students to recognise and experience ready‐made answers primarily as questions, and solutions primarily as problems. The constructivist understanding of the multiplicity of worlds and realities is particularly well suited for university teaching to support intellectual curiosity, fascination, and cooperative reflection.
Originality/value
Heinz von Foerster's brand of subversive constructivism inspires the dismantling of stifling hierarchies of knowledge, encourages dialogue‐oriented learning, relies on the autonomy and intellectual self‐sufficiency of the individual, and stimulates the delineation of ideal‐type role‐models and interaction patterns of different kinds.
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To discuss the concept of cybernetics, and to point out its complexities.
Abstract
Purpose
To discuss the concept of cybernetics, and to point out its complexities.
Design/methodology/approach
Cybernetics can be seen as a scientific concept of harnessing complexity as a feedback phenomenon and a project aimed at establishing a new control science and adaptive technology based on the formalization of complexity. Today, we still do not have adaptive or complex computers.
Findings
Cybernetics has failed both as a concept and a project, and is becoming a case for historians. But before it is classified as just a short scientific episode between the atomic bomb and cyberwar, a closer look will show that it was not only a military sponsored project driven by the cold war of the 1950s but also a rebellious movement inspired by the visions of the 1960s. Heinz von Foerster more than anyone else represented this human face of cybernetics.
Originality/value
Considers some of the thought‐provoking ideas of Heinz von Foerster in the history of cybernetics.
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The paper discusses possible implications of Heinz von Foerster's notion of second‐order cybernetics for management thinking. The purpose of this paper is to outline challenges of…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper discusses possible implications of Heinz von Foerster's notion of second‐order cybernetics for management thinking. The purpose of this paper is to outline challenges of as well as prospective further developments for management theory that emanate from second‐order cybernetics.
Design/methodology/approach
As a conceptual paper, the paper tries to develop its findings through theoretically applying von Foerster's insights to management thinking's conventional assumptions. When looking for applications of von Foerster's approach within the social sciences, at least in german‐speaking countries one sooner or later comes across Niklas Luhmann's system sociology. Hence, Luhmann's version of the theory of the observer is introduced and its take on organization and management is briefly outlined. Drawing upon von Foerster's and Luhmann's reflections, possible implications for management thinking are presented – ideas that might be disagreeable for “classical” management science but might set out a path for further developments of management thinking.
Findings
What difference might second‐order cybernetics (and autopoietic systems sociology) make for management thinking? As a conclusion, deliberately poignant statements are formulated, calling for a higher degree of self‐reflection, for critical readings of conventional texts, for more complex descriptions of organizations and for a more modest, low‐key take on management theory's endeavours.
Originality/value
Whereas first‐order cybernetics has been fairly well‐received in management theory, second‐order cybernetics, which poses troubling questions to conventional epistemologies, remained relatively unpopular. Acts of “observing observers” reclaim these questions, possibly leading to valuable insights for researchers and reflected practitioners alike.