Los estudios y trabajo sobre la complejidad son crecientes en el mundo. Sin embargo, no existen trabajos que de manera explícita consideren las implicaciones políticas del estudio sobre los fenómenos complejos no lineales. Este texto explora las más importantes consecuencias políticas de las ciencias de la complejidad y se propone llenar en forma parcial este vacío. El texto argumenta que las consecuencias políticas de la complejidad incluyen a las políticas públicas que incumben a la política en sentido amplio y fuerte. (...) Tres ejes articulan el argumento: primero, una presentación de lo que son las ciencias de la complejidad y sus derivaciones; luego, la consideración de las consecuencias políticas de la complejidad, que es el núcleo, y por último, se subrayan las interrelaciones entre revoluciones científicas y revoluciones políticas. Al final, se extraen algunas conclusiones. Studies and work on complexity are increasing all over the world. However, there is not one study that explicitly considers the political implications of understanding and explanations of non-linear complex phenomena. This paper explores the most important political consequences of the sciences of complexity and intends to fill a gap in the literature. I shall claim that the political implications of complexity do include policies but they encompass mainly politics in the largest and strongest sense of the word. This argument is supported by three main ideas: firstly, the sciences of complexity are introduced and several derivations are sketched out; secondly, the political implications are considered and; thirdly, the inner relationships between scientific and political revolutions are highlighted. Finally, several conclusions are drawn. (shrink)

Context: The problems that are most in need of interdisciplinary collaboration are “wicked problems,” such as food crises, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development, with many relevant aspects, disagreement on what the problem is, and contradicting solutions. Such complex problems both require and challenge interdisciplinarity. Problem: The conventional methods of interdisciplinary research fall short in the case of wicked problems because they remain first-order science. Our aim is to present workable methods and research designs for doing second-order science in domains (...) where there are many different scientific knowledges on any complex problem. Method: We synthesize and elaborate a framework for second-order science in interdisciplinary research based on a number of earlier publications, experiences from large interdisciplinary research projects, and a perspectivist theory of science. Results: The second-order polyocular framework for interdisciplinary research is characterized by five principles. Second-order science of interdisciplinary research must: 1. draw on the observations of first-order perspectives, 2. address a shared dynamical object, 3. establish a shared problem, 4. rely on first-order perspectives to see themselves as perspectives, and 5. be based on other rules than first-order research. Implications: The perspectivist insights of second-order science provide a new way of understanding interdisciplinary research that leads to new polyocular methods and research designs. It also points to more reflexive ways of dealing with scientific expertise in democratic processes. The main challenge is that this is a paradigmatic shift, which demands that the involved disciplines, at least to some degree, subscribe to a perspectivist view. Constructivist content: Our perspectivist approach to science is based on the second-order cybernetics and systems theories of von Foerster, Maruyama, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, coupled with embodied theories of cognition and semiotics as a general theory of meaning from von Uexküll and Peirce. (shrink)