Risk is an intrinsic part of our lives. In the future, the development and growth of the Internet of things allows getting a huge amount of data. Considering this evolution, our research focuses on developing a novel concept, namely Holistic Risk Assessment (HRA), that takes into consideration elements outside the direct influence of the individual to provide a highly personalized risk assessment. The HRA implies developing a methodology and a model. This paper is related to the epistemological positioning of this (...) research. We consider this research as an artificial science under the constructivism paradigm. We also introduce the positioning of this research in the complexity science paradigm. We end this paper by presenting a methodology based on an adapted Design Thinking Model. (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemic status of biology from the standpoint of the systemic approach to living systems based on the notion of biological autonomy. This approach aims to provide an understanding of the distinctive character of biological systems and this paper analyses its theoretical and epistemological dimensions. The paper argues that, considered from this perspective, biological systems are examples of emergent phenomena, that the biological domain exhibits special features with respect to other domains, and that biology as a discipline (...) employs some core concepts, such as teleology, function, regulation among others, that are irreducible to those employed in physics and chemistry. It addresses the claim made by Jacques Monod that biology as a science is marginal. It argues that biology is general insofar as it constitutes a paradigmatic example of complexity science, both in terms of how it defines the theoretical object of study and of the epistemology and heuristics employed. As such, biology may provide lessons that can be applied more widely to develop an epistemology of complex systems. (shrink)

Throughout most of the 20th century, analytical and reductionist approaches have dominated in biological, social, and humanistic sciences, including linguistics and communication. We generally believed we could account for fundamental phenomena in invoking basic elemental units. Although the amount of knowledge generated was certainly impressive, we have also seen limitations of this approach. Discovering the sound formants of human languages, for example, has allowed us to know vital aspects of the ‘material’ plane of verbal codes, but it tells us little (...) about significant aspects of their social functions. I firmly believe, therefore, that alongside a linguistics that looks ‘inward’ there should also be a linguistics that looks ‘outward’, or one even that is constructed ‘from the outside’, a linguistics that I refer to elsewhere as ‘holistic’ though it could be identified by a different name. My current vision is to promote simultaneously the perspective that goes from the part to the whole and that which goes from the whole to the parts, i.e., both from the top down and from the bottom up. This goal is shared with other disciplines which recognize that many phenomena related to life are interwoven, self-organising, emergent and processual. Thus, we need to re-examine how we have conceived of reality, both the way we have looked at it and the images we have used to talk about it. Several approaches now grouped under the label of complexity have been elaborated towards this objective of finding new concepts and ways of thinking that better fit the complex organisation of facts and events. (shrink)

As a sort of intellectual provocation and as a lateral thinking strategy for creativity, this chapter seeks to determine what the study of the dynamics of biodiversity can offer linguists. In recent years, the analogical equation "language = biological species" has become more widespread as a metaphorical source for conceptual renovation, and, at the same time, as a justification for the defense of language diversity. Language diversity would be protected in a way similar to the mobilization that has taken place (...) to protect endangered species. Nevertheless, one must be careful when uncritically transferring conceptualizations and theoretical frameworks from one field to another, since obviously, these two phenomena are quite different in the real world. The dialogue with bioecologists starts by asking about the formation of diversity, i.e., about specialization. Here, one can observe the similarity between the processes of linguistic and genetic fragmentation, in the sense that both phenomena have a (socio)geographical basis for dispersion and consequently, for the loss of their original compact nature and their intercommunication. The self-organizing and creative properties of human beings favor the development of specific varieties for each subset, varieties that continue to evolve constantly, through the unceasing "languaging" of humanity. Regarding the continuity of species or languages, one can also observe the decisive role of intragroup relations. The staying power of linguistic varieties will increase in direct proportion to the intensity of the relationship among the components of the subset. On the other hand, if exotic elements are introduced, especially if these elements are aggressive in nature, the alteration of the ecological niche may turn out to be fatal for the continuity of the previously existing forms. This suggests to us the need to make an in-depth study of what the minimal contextual conditions would be so that a set linguistic group could be assured a sustainable continuity within a framework of linguistic contact. What type of minimum (socio-)ecological niche would a language have to have if we wished to ensure its habitual reproduction? A proposal is made here to explore the ideas of "exclusive functions" and "non-hierarchical functional distribution" for codes in situations where there is high contact and a danger of disuse. As regards change, this phenomenon is seen as an inherent element in the tendency of life to create new developments, which may or not be accompanied by an adaptation to changing environmental conditions. It is pointed out that, similar to what happens in biology, much of linguistic innovation stems from a systemically reorganized mixture of solutions from different codes. An important research question would be, however, to determine why some of these innovations disappear and others survive and extend throughout the community. The big question mark, as Mufwene points out, is, then how to manage to understand how "the evolution of language proceeds by naturally selecting from among the competing alternatives available through the idiolects of individual speakers". Extinction, whether it be of languages or of species, is caused in most cases "by a combination of demographic processes and environmental changes", as Brown points out. Thus, the environment plays a fundamental role in the direction of evolution, since the "the survival of the fittest is, in actuality, the survival of those who fit into the context (Allen and Hoekstra)". This allows us to see the great degree of importance of political-economic contexts in the case of languages. In the same way, migratory movements are also one of the major variables determining the extinction of biodiversity and language diversity. Species and habitat form the basic unit of existence, and this is the major point of departure for understanding the problem of the preservation and recovery of species or languages. Given the increase in the degree of linguistic contact, the continuity of language diversity depends on determining, as exactly as possible, as Prigogine, the physicist, would say, what precise conditions of imbalance may prove to be stable. The great challenge is not so much avoiding contact but managing it. And "restorative ecology" can also be of help to us here. Being able to reach sustainable solutions for language diversity implies a profound knowledge of the dynamics for determining the ways in which language is used in contact situations. The general conclusion is that linguistics is still terminologically and conceptually ill prepared to deal with the dynamic character of human languages. The world and our objects must be conceived of as elements in a state of flux, as changing systems in an unstable equilibrium. With respect to language policy, it would be necessary to make an effort to manage to establish some general principles regarding the linguistic organization of the human species that would make it possible for local linguistic diversity and communication on a planetary scale, which must necessarily take place, to be compatible with each other. To succeed, it will be necessary to continue promoting an autonomous socio-ecological perspective devoted to the comprehension of language phenomena. Such a perspective would be based on a paradigm of complexity, and would, at the same time, place human beings at the center of its theoretical underpinnings. (shrink)

The 'complexity' approach can be positive and very helpful for General Linguistics theory because departs from: a) the idea that knowledge or meaning can exist without a being who produces them, b) the fragmented and reductionist view of reality and its too mechanistic oriented images, c) the 'linear' causality models, d) the tendency to dichotomise the categories about reality, e) the 'third excluded' Aristotelian principle (binary logic: if something is here it is not there), f) the disappearance of the mind (...) in some 'higher' social sciences, g) an inadequate approach of the relationships between the whole and its parts, and, h) a perspective on creativity too much based on logic and not on 'artistic' intuition and imagination in science. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary analogies and metaphors are potential useful tools for thinking and creativity. The exploration of other conceptual philosophies and fields can be rewarding and can contribute to produce new useful ideas to be applied on different problems and parts of reality. The development of the so-called 'sustainability' approach allows us to explore the possibility of translate and adapt some of its main ideas to the organisation of human language diversity. The concept of 'sustainability' clearly comes from the tradition of thinking (...) that criticises the perspective of economic development that overlooks almost totally the natural environment -the precise context where this development takes place -and which thus leads it to a final end devoid of resources and clearly harmful for the life of human beings. Against this economicist view, which is blind to its very important side effects, some academic and activist enclaves have proposed the perspective of 'sustainable development' or 'lasting development'. In other words, they have theorised, constructed, and begun to practice an economic and urbanistic development respectful of, integrated into, and in keeping with the dynamics of nature. Such perspective provides a way of improving the material aspects of human life while at the same time not damaging other environmental aspects still more necessary and fundamental for the quality —and even for the simple possibility- of human existence. In fact, the view is a synthesis of possible opposed patterns. It does not renounce material and economic improvement, but nor does it exclude a fully healthy environment that is appropriate for the continuation of the species. If we now try to transfer and to apply this way of thinking to the linguodiversity reality, are there useful analogies and metaphors to be made? We believe there are, and ones that can be used to good advantage, and linked, moreover, to the traditions of thought that have always been present but perhaps even more so these last years with the drive to develop the thinking we are calling ‘eco-linguistic’. From the outset, we would underscore the will to connect apparent ‘opposites’ in an integrative conceptualisation, such as the very syntagm ‘sustainable development’. On the sociolinguistic plane, our debate should probably be about our ‘opposites’, which could be on the one hand the expansion of the dominant languages and, on the other hand, the maintenance and development of human linguistic diversity. (shrink)

This book aims to contribute to the overall, integrated understanding of the processes of language contact and their evolution, be they the result of political or economic (dis)integrations or migrations or for technological reasons. Via an interdisciplinary, holistic approach, it also aims to aid the theoretical grounding of a unified, common sociolinguistic paradigm, based on an ecological and complexical perspective. This perspective is based on the fact that linguistic structures do not live in isolation from their social functions and must (...) be situated in relation to the sub- and supra-systems that determine their existence if we are to understand their fortunes. It is a contribution in understanding and promoting the processes of linguistic revitalization in the world, combining at the same time the maintenance and development of diversity while ensuring the intercommunication of human species. (shrink)

El trabajo argumenta el significado que ha de tener la centralidad de la vida en la construcción de un nuevo modelo de convivencia social basado en el "Buen Vivir", tal como hoy ya aparecen en las constituciones de Bolivia y Ecuador. Se enfrenta críticamente aquellas posturas que niegan la centralidad del ser humano para afirmar la de la naturaleza en esos nuevos modelos sociales.

As figurational sociologists and sociolinguists, we need to know that we currently find support from other fields in our efforts to construct a sociocultural science focused on interdependencies and processes, creating a multidimensional picture of human beings, one in which the brain and its mental and emotional processes are properly recognized. The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century physics, the contributions made by biology to our understanding of living beings, the conceptual constructions built around the theories of systems, self-organization and complexity, all (...) these implore that we reflect on social sciences paradigms in the light of the great changes in these other disciplines. The application of metaphors or theoretical images of complexity and figurational sociology in understanding language and socio-communication phenomena is of great use, since language is not an ‘object’, but a ‘complex’; it exists simultaneously in and among different domains. ‘Languaging’ and interaction are co-phenomena. The former exists within the latter, and the latter within the former. By visualizing, for instance, the different levels of linguistic structure not as separate entities but rather as united and integrated within the same theoretical frame, by seeing their functional interdependencies, by situating them in a greater multidimensionality that includes what for a long time was considered ‘external’ – the individual and his or her mind-brain, the sociocultural system, the physical world, etc. – and expanding in this way our classical view, we should be able to make important, if not essential, theoretical and practical advances. (shrink)

Most studies on the choices, motivations and behavior of investors consist of segmentations focused on socio-demographic characteristics such as age, income, education level, etc. Such approaches seem to simplify, even mutilate, reality by aggregating data about observable variables and considering investors as homogeneous groups. These perspectives are inspired by a scientific approach that consists of separating in order to better understand the observed phenomena. By considering individual as a “homo economicus”, that is to say, a rational and autonomous individual who (...) makes decisions motivated by material gains, these studies fail to recognize all the complexity that shapes human behavior. This paper argues that to understand the behavior and choices of investors in regards to socially responsible investing, we must consider social investors as complex individuals. In addition, we should take into account influence that the institution may exercise throughout the role of advisors and SRI promotion strategies. Our research builds on a multidimensional approach that explores to what extent demographic, environmental, social and governance issues, the trade-offs between financial return and social values, the attitudes and the role of the institution influence the decisions of individual social investors. Moreover, it adopts a more open approach by exploring the characteristics and behaviors of individual social investors in relation to those of conventional investors. Our research provides evidence from the Desjardins Fund. Qualitative and quantitative data gathered by Desjardins from online surveys are subjected to bivariate and multivariate analyses and are complimented by ten semi-structured interviews with managers, analysts, and advisors who provided further insight into SRI investment behavior and choice. The results show that while demographic characteristics still remain important in understanding the behavior and attitudes of social investors, it is their social values, ESG issues, financial return considerations and the role played by the institution in mediating investment decisions that are significantly associated with SRI portfolios. Our research highlights the complexity surrounding the phenomenon of SRI and has several implications both in terms of theory and practice. (shrink)

The article assumes that Lipman’s paradigm of ‘Philosophy for Children’ as a ‘Community of Inquiry’ is very useful in extending the range of philosophical practices and the benefits of philosophical community reflection to collective life as such. In particular, it examines the possible contribution of philosophy to the practical and ethical dynamics which, nowadays, seem to characterise many deliberative public contexts. Lipman’s idea of CI is an interesting interpretative key for such contexts. As a result, the article highlights the possibility (...) of understanding a CI essentially in terms of an ethics of responsibility. (shrink)

This text examines the socio-professional guidance of Comorian migrants residing on La Réunion Island. It mainly questions the process whereby guidance is constructed as a professional situation. To apprehend the complexity of the process, we have drawn on an ethnographical procedure (Woods, 1990) based on a dual source of data—that of the guide and that of the guided—as well as a micro-sociological approach (Thomas, 1923 ; Goffman, 1993 ; Lapassade, 1997) allowing us to link the concepts of situation definition and (...) conflict in situation definition. Finally, the article mobilizes an intercultural approach (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2003 ; Clanet, 1990 ; Camilleri, 1993) which, in reference to a threefold subjectivist, interactionist and situational perspective, aims to shed light on the dimensions of guidance that are otherness and heterogeneity. Ce texte traite de l’accompagnement socioprofessionnel des migrants comoriens résidant dans l’île de La Réunion. Il questionne principalement le processus de construction de l’accompagnement en tant que situation professionnelle. Pour appréhender la complexité de ce processus, nous avons convoqué une démarche ethnographique (Woods, 1990) privilégiant une double entrée : celle de l’accompagnateur et celle de l’accompagné, une approche microsociologique (Thomas, 1923 ; Goffman, 1993 ; Lapassade, 1997) permettant d’articuler les concepts de définition de la situation et de conflit de définition de la situation et enfin une approche interculturelle (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2003 ; Clanet, 1990 ; Camilleri, 1993) visant à élucider, en référence à une triple perspective : subjectiviste, interactionniste et situationnelle, les dimensions altéritaire et hétérogène de l’accompagnement. (shrink)

The professional situation is considered a major interface of practicum training, here conceived as a School of conjunction, a school where one learns to make links, a foundation for the engineering of professionalization. The notion of situation is here developed based on the study of a data corpus elaborated during an experience with a practicum training model centred on writing and the construction of the professional situation by a subject-actor-author of the situation, in interaction with others, in the context of (...) nurse training. The analysis and interpretation of data brings to light a complex and unique unit, constructed in the space-time of a professional practice, a process during which several states succeed one another. The critical moment in action characterizes this unit; it is central to the process, mobilizing reflection in action, internal deliberation, and action-related decision. La situation professionnelle est identifiée comme interface majeure de la formation en alternance conçue ici comme une Ecole de la conjonction, une école où l’on apprend à relier, fondement d’une ingénierie de professionnalisation. La notion de situation est approfondie à partir de l’étude d’un corpus de données constitué au fil de l’expérimentation d’un modèle de formation en alternance centrée sur l’écriture et la construction de la situation professionnelle par un sujet-acteur-auteur de la situation, en interaction avec autrui, dans le contexte de la formation en soins infirmiers. L’analyse et l’interprétation des données permettent de mettre en évidence une unité singulière complexe, construite dans l’espace-temps d’une pratique professionnelle, un processus au cours duquel plusieurs états se succèdent. Le moment critique dans l’action la caractérise ; il occupe la place centrale du processus, mobilisant réflexion dans l’action, délibération intérieure et décision d’action. (shrink)

Today a change is imperative in approaching global problems: what is needed is not arm-twisting and power politics, but searching for ways of co-evolution in the complex social and geopolitical systems of the world. The modern theory of self-organization of complex systems provides us with an understanding of the possible forms of coexistence of heterogeneous social and geopolitical structures at different stages of development regarding the different paths of their sustainable co-evolutionary development. The theory argues that the evolutionary channel to (...) the observed increasing complexity is extremely narrow and only certain discrete spectra of relatively stable self-maintained structures are feasible in complex systems. There exists a restricted set of ways of assembling a complex evolutionary whole from diverse parts. The law of nonlinear synthesis of complex structures reads: the integration of structures in more complex ones occurs due to the establishment of a common tempo of their evolution. On the basis of the theory, we can see not only desirable but also attainable futures. (shrink)

If we consider human thought as the, so far, ultimate, if not supreme, stage in the evolution of life on Earth, we must also try to understand the evolutionary conditions that allowed it to emerge, and that leads us to look again at living organization.Whatever the origins of life (cf. the text of Jacques Reisse, p. 53), it is clear that the oldest living organization, that of a protobacteria, is extremely complex in its functional and complementary association of extremely diverse (...) macro-molecules, and that this complexity includes in particular: a) the organization of exchanges with an environment from which it draws both matter-energy and organization ; b) a permanent process of self-reorganization through the replacing of molecules that have deteriorated and through the production of new ones; c) the organization of the self-reproduction of the creature through division. An organization of this kind includes a quasi-informational dimension (the hereditary message inscribed in the genes and the capacity to extract information from the environment), a quasi-computational dimension (the processing of data, via indices or quasi-signs from the interior and exterior), and a communicational dimension (internal RNA-protein communication and external communication with its congeners). In short, from the beginning, a living being is the product/producer of a self-eco-organization the nature of which is at the same time computational, informational, and communicational. In other words, within every living organization, there is a cognitive dimension, but this cognitive dimension is undifferentiated within it. (shrink)

Beginning by offering an overview on legal aesthetic humanisms as a specific embodiment of critical discourse, and discussing the ways the recreation of juridical experience, rationality, and culture underpinning such a criticism, leaving behind monolithic views on textuality, judgment, and subjectivity, positively contributes to unsettling the main assumptions underlying typical understandings of law’s autonomy—mostly those of formal specification of juridical “sources” and “scientific” isolation of legal thought—, this paper argues that simply reproducing aesthetic heterodoxy as the epitome of a humanist (...) ‘alternative to law’, without first debating the very orthodox-heterodox binomial, ends up overlooking the discursive and methodological specificity of law, as a particular experience of practical and normative validity. In this way, it introduces, from an axiological-normative and juridically oriented standpoint, a different—jusaesthetic—argument for re-examining the relationship between law’s praxis, nomos, and community. (shrink)

‘Complexics’ denotes the meta-transdisciplinary field specifically concerned with giving us suitable cognitive tools to understand the world’s complexity. Additionally, the use of the adjective ‘complexical’ would avoid the common confusion caused by the adjective ‘complex’, which belongs to everyday usage and already has its own connotations of complication and confusion. Thus, ‘complexical’ thinking and ‘complexical’ perspective would provide clearer terms, be freer of confusion, and refer more precisely to epistemic elements in contrast to the ‘complexity’ typical of many phenomena of (...) reality. In short, the world would be ‘complex’, but our way of looking at the world would be ‘complexical’. As a meta-transdiscipline, ‘complexics’ would carry on the perspective of cybernetics: “Cybernetics deals with all forms of behaviour insofar as they are regular, or determinate, or reproducible. The materiality is irrelevant… The truths of cybernetics are not conditional on their being derived from some other branch of science. Cybernetics has its own foundations” (Ashby, 1956:1). Thus, it has a distinctly transdisciplinary mission to provide concepts, schema and possibilities of thinking and representation able to express the multidimensional and systemic interwovenness and interdependence of the many, highly significant phenomena of reality that have these characteristics. On the level of theory, complexics needs to provide a set of principles, concepts and conceptual landscapes that can be applied transversally to distinct areas of knowledge and phenomena of reality, enabling us to gain a much firmer grasp of the complex aspects of their existence than we currently have. For this reason, our aim needs to be, as Morin says, not “to reduce complexity to simplicity, [but] to translate complexity into theory” (1994:315). (shrink)

Vulnerability has become a popular though controversial topic in bioethics, notably since 2000. As a result, a common body of knowledge has emerged distinguishing between different types of vulnerability, criticizing the categorization of populations as vulnerable, and questioning the practical implications. It is argued that two perspectives on vulnerability, i.e., the philosophical and political, pose challenges to contemporary bioethics discourse: they re-examine the significance of human agency, the primacy of the individual person, and the negativity of vulnerability. As a phenomenon (...) of globalization, vulnerability can only be properly addressed in a global bioethics that takes the social dimension of human existence seriously. (shrink)

A presente obra assume-se como um projeto genuinamente interdisciplinar de reflexão ética, interrogando os seus fundamentos e explorando as suas interseções com diversas áreas das Ciências Humanas e Sociais. Reunindo especialistas de distintas áreas, oriundos de países diferentes, o livro tem como fio condutor um diálogo polifónico com o pensamento ético contemporâneo, enraizando-se na tradição crítica que procura refundar a racionalidade prática na construção humana de sentido e, por conseguinte, refutar o niilismo e o relativismo axiológico absoluto.

This article intends to show that ideology is always organized systemically by undertaking the opposition between conformity and diversity as its fundamental criterion. In order to underpin this hypothesis, the present article examines the inner structure of five classic ideologies, that can be understood as ideal ideological types. The analysis reveals that ideologies do not form a system because at the core of any ideology there is a key-concept not determined nor influenced by the key concepts of other ideologies.

The position adopted in this paper is inspired by Edgar Morin’s paradigm of complexity and his critique of scientific and philosophical forms of reductionism. This paper is based on research focusing on the diversity of conceptions of critique developed in academic discourses. It aims to challenge the fragmentation and the reduction framing the understanding of this notion in educational sciences. The reflection begins with the introduction of some of Morin’s assumptions concerning the paradigm of complexity. The next section provides a (...) definition of the idea of critique and explores some limits associated with contemporary references framing this notion. Theories of critique are at the core of several educational theories. Based on the literature identified in French-speaking and English-speaking critical traditions in education, several factors determining the way the idea of critique is reduced in education are highlighted. Stressing the tacit character of those variables challenges the limits of traditional conceptions of critique in contemporary education. The position adopted denounces therefore the fact that the current development of theories of critique in education does not provide a framework considering more systematically their conditions of emergence, their own limitations, as well as the antagonistic, complementary and contradictory relationships, which connect them to one another. Based on this position, this paper finally suggests that a distinction be made between “hypocritique” and “hypercritique” as a semantic artifact, stressing the importance of challenging existing theories of critique in education according to the level of complexity that one may attribute to them. (shrink)

This study aims to map out the relationships that make up green innovation initiatives in Brazilian industry. The sample comprised 100 managers at manufacturing companies, most of them operating in the business of farm machinery and equipment and steel structures. To develop this study, Medeiros et al. study, mapping critical factors that drive the success of green product innovation and the paradigm of complexity, was used as a reference study. Based on the results, it was possible to identify that the (...) operational dynamic of the factors and variables that affect market success do not happen in an isolated or fragmented way; they occur systematically with different contingencies and structured basic and intermediate skills in order to meet the expectations of consumers, laws, and environmental legislation. Initially, the technological expertise factor was noted as very important for sustaining green product innovation. Furthermore, since proactive leaders are an important factor for successfully developing environmentally sustainable products, it must be added to technological expertise as the foundation for developing green innovation. After defining the basis for green product innovation, the intermediary conditions necessary for using the available technology appropriately were mapped out. In this sense, variables such as “elimination of cultural barriers,” “capacity for critical reflective analysis,” and “experimentation” are also very important. In addition, some of the variables of the cross-functional collaboration and market knowledge factors were a part of the structure that organizations need to transform potential into developing green products, which is the basis for the third level of the model. The fourth level of the model has the “meeting consumer expectations” and “following law and legislation” factors, which make up the main goals for developing environmentally sustainable products according to a number of surveys that were conducted. (shrink)

Peut-on entrevoir des liens fructueux entre la psychologie positive et la spiritualité en contexte psychothérapeutique? La thématique de cet ouvrage intéressera des chercheuses et des chercheurs, des cliniciens et des cliniciennes, des étudiantes et des étudiants des domaines de la psychothérapie et de la relation d’aide, ainsi que toute personne soucieuse de mieux comprendre la complexité de l’être humain. Tout au long de ce collectif, la lectrice ou le lecteur trouvera une pensée tissée serrée, sous forme parfois d’essais théoriques, de (...) réflexions issues d’observations cliniques, de recherches empiriques (réalisées ou en cours), de réflexions basées sur l’expérience professionnelle ou de recension critique de la documentation scientifique. Dix auteurs et auteures oeuvrant en tant que psychologues cliniciens ou cliniciennes, psychothérapeutes, intervenants ou intervenantes dans le domaine de la relation d’aide, et dont plusieurs sont également professeurs et chercheurs, ou professeures et chercheuses dans des universités ontariennes ou québécoises, présentent leurs réflexions originales, en solo ou en collaboration. Ce sont Christian R. Bellehumeur, André Belzile, Cynthia Bilodeau, Alexandre Brien, Laure-Marie Carignan, Stéphanie Larrue, Buuma M. Maisha, Judith Malette, Lucie Mandeville et Lise Séguin. (shrink)

The contemporary use of the term ‘complexity’ frequently indicates that it is considered a unified concept. This may lead to a neglect of the range of different theories that deal with the implications related to the notion of complexity. This paper, integrating both the English and the Latin traditions of research associated with this notion, suggests a more nuanced use of the term, thereby avoiding simplification of the concept to some of its dominant expressions only. The paper further explores the (...) etymology of ‘complexity’ and offers a chronological presentation of three generations of theories that have shaped its uses; the epistemic and socio‐cultural roots of these theories are also introduced. From an epistemological point of view, this reflection sheds light on the competing interpretations underlying the definition of what is considered as complex. Also, from an anthropological perspective it considers both the emancipatory as well as the alienating dimensions of complexity. Based on the highlighted ambiguities, the paper suggests in conclusion that contributions grounded in contemporary theories related to complexity, as well as critical appraisals of their epistemological and ethical legitimacy, need to follow the recursive feedback loops and dynamics that they constitute. In doing so, researchers and practitioners in education should consider their own practice as a learning process that does not require the reduction of the antagonisms and the complementarities that shape its own complexity. (shrink)

La tesis central del presente texto es que la emergencia del nuevo paradigma de los movimientos sociales es verificada por la fuerza creciente de la idea de red social al interior de las ciencias sociales. Sin embargo, entendemos que el reconocimiento más amplio de este nuevo paradigma es impedido p..

El desarrollo de la neurociencia ha permitido, en las últimas décadas, espectaculares avances en torno al mejor conocimiento de diferentes prácticas humanas desde las bases neurofisiológicas del funcionamiento cerebral. A pesar de que aún nos encontramos en la «prehistoria» del descifrado funcional del más complejo órgano que conocemos en el universo, es un momento adecuado para hacer un balance operativo, desterrando algunas falsedades y aprovechando algunos datos consolidados para su aplicación a la enseñanza y a la praxis de la escritura (...) creativa. De manera sintética, abordaremos algunas claves sobre la creatividad en general, para centrarnos en la creatividad verbal estética, tanto en su expresión oral como a través de los cambios cerebrales que se operan en el proceso de aprendizaje de la lectura. Reflexionaremos acerca de la complejidad de nuestras representaciones mentales vinculadas, por ejemplo, con el discurso poético verbal, ofreceremos algunas indicaciones sobre la importancia de la escritura como potenciador de nuestra reserva cognitiva, destacando algunas orientaciones prácticas para potenciar la creatividad en la experiencia de esa misma escritura. Insistiremos en la importancia de la emoción y la atención, así como en la interconexión entre inteligencia racional e inteligencia emocional en los ámbitos de la escritura y la lectura. Finalizaremos con un análisis de las nuevas prácticas de lectura y escritura desarrolladas en el tercer entorno, nuevas narrativas construidas en el nuevo paradigma tecnológico que han posibilitado nuevos ámbitos creativos para la escritura, insistiendo en los conceptos de ‘transmedialidad’, ‘literacidad digital’, ‘hipertextualidad’, ‘multimodalidad’ y su incidencia en nuestra actividad cerebral. (shrink)

Most writers now recognize that mental health policy and the mental health system are extremely resistant to real changes that reflect genuine biopsychosocial paradigms of mental disorder. Writers bemoaning the intransigence of the mental health system tend to focus on a small analytical level, only to find themselves mired in the rationalities of the existing system. Problems are acknowledged to be system-wide, yet few writers have used a method of analysis appropriate for systemic problems. Drawing upon the General System Theory (...) (GST) analytical perspective, this article advances a systematic approach to understand the mental health system and to facilitate the development of reform strategies that recognize the system's complexity and changing nature. The article first discusses the failure of major reform efforts in the mental health system and the limitations of mainstream analysis of mental health politics and policies with respect to the objectives of analysis and reform. This article describes how systems thinking has thus far influenced the study of the mental health policy and politics system, and argues that a systemic perspective is profitable for reconceiving the mental health system, enabling a fresh basis for the development of reform strategies. The mental health system should be seen as a social system influenced by larger political and economic dimensions, not just as a 'delivery system' scientifically constructed by neutral experts. Furthermore, the policy planning process should be viewed as part and parcel of a mental health system modeled as complex and dynamic. The systemic perspective outlined here should help both to clarify the value-based objectives that we hold for the system and, consequently, to plan for the strategic reforms that have so far eluded us. (shrink)

A colleague of Roland Barthes at the CNRS in the 1950s and cowriter and friend of Cornelius Castoriadis until the latter's death, Edgar Morin has until recently been too little known in the English-speaking world. In an oeuvre that spans half a century, attempting to combine in ongoing dialogue the `humanities' and `sciences', Morin has written on scientific method, fundamental anthropology, politics, contemporary life and popular culture. He is an advocate of `complex' thought, thought which does not reduce, rationalize and (...) mutilate phenomena under examination, which emphasizes the interaction between researcher and researched, and participation as a way of being in the world. This article particularly focuses on his work on death and cinema, suggesting a strong continuity between his early studies and his more recent writing on complexity and ecology. The radically democratic complexion of Morin's writings, his emphasis on a human empathy that can incorporate notions of unity and difference, make him a thinker of great relevance for today. (shrink)

This article leans on researchs which we led as coordinator and speaker of the course “intervention in Educational Midler” within the framework of a master’s degree “Education Teaching, Education Training”set up by the ESPE. The analysis of pratices by becoming a dynamic space, allowed to spot and to illustrate the simultaneity of three times occurring in the process of professionalization of the students. The object of this contribution is to operate a putting in the day for the links between this (...) simultaneity of the times and the method and posture adapted by the trainer. The results of this research exposed two axes of questioning in which we wish to continue will be discussed: which epistemology may be used by the trainer to create an open space several timesframes? What is an epistemology of training relationship? (shrink)

We often forget that art and science are not dissociated, nor indeed antagonistic, but rather allow a creative interplay to emerge from which arises the generation of new forms of knowledge. According to Parkinson, “the analogy between the new painting and the new physics consists in that elements formerly held as cognitive or conceptual a-prioris enter as constitutive factors in the very structure of the edifices of art and science”. How exactly does it work? If for us nowadays it’s relatively (...) easy to think of the mimetic moment of art as a prelude to geometry, it is not so trivial to claim how higher-order representational symbolic epistemic structures arise from the lifeworld, or simply how both interact together. The aim of this paper is to stake out the complexity of processes going from the lifeworld and, before that, from the life of pictorial language, to h.o.r.s.e.s., in order to apply this model to further enquiries. In the first part, we will reactivate the Kantian interdependence between aesthetics and epistemology via the intersubjective dimension, in order to understand how the shaping of forms and the figuring-out patterns remain an essential component of any epistemic structure as such. In the second part, moving from Hacking, Husserl and Foucault, we will look into the way in which the evidence of symbolic structures can be maintained even alongside a genetic conception of science. Art plays an essential role in such a conception, in that it opens new horizons of figurativity in which new shapes can arise and new kinds of objectivities can be accepted as belonging to our epistemic experience of the world. (shrink)

In 1962 Umberto Eco published his Opera aperta. Forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee, in which he dealt with the televised space and its influence on the development of plot in contemporary narratives. The analysis of the aesthetic of television led him to highlight the exclusive capacity of television to transmit events in real time: Live TV.Eco affirms in particular that through the editing in Live TV, the role of choice completely changes in comparison to what happens in the editing (...) phase within the cinematographic narrative. In Live TV, choice becomes a proper composition, a form of narrative, a means of unifying in a discursive way a set of isolated images within the framework of a wider set of events taking place at the same time and intersecting one another. This impromptu narrative brings with it the use of some recursive forms, which represent an important narrative tool enabling a weaving of the narrative space. Eco identified those recursive forms in some jazz figures such as the riff, the recursive form of which allows for the creation of an organic composition full of improvisation. A few years later, the importance of figures of this kind was also noted by Deleuze-Guattari, who posited that ritornello has an important function of organizing the exterior space, or chaotic space. Based on these considerations, this paper deals with the phenomenon of repetition, recursivity, and patterns, to bring these concepts into the construction of narrative spaces. The central point of the paper is that the birth of Live TV started a phenomenon of exteriorization of the inner data of the narrative construction. This phenomenon of externalization makes possible the understanding of data through spatial terms, and one starts to use recursive formulas to navigate it. (shrink)

A growing body of literature focuses on practice as a central aspect of teacher education. Whereas this approach emerged mainly from teacher preparation programs in specific content areas such as math, science, and literacy studies, socially related educational fields have served as a peripheral player alone. Recently, however, scholars have suggested incorporating a practice-based approach to teacher education into the social studies. In this article, we draw on complexity theory to reexamine this proposal, evaluating the connections between teaching practices and (...) democratic citizenship. First, we introduce complexity theory. Second, we offer a critical examination of key publications discussing practice-based teacher education, using the components of complexity theory as an organizing scheme. We then highlight practice-based teacher education’s reductive aspects, leading to an argument that promoting democratic citizenship through civics teacher education should be seen as a complex endeavor where borders are blurred, interactions are nonlinear, and reality changes frequently. Finally, we offer to supplement the practice approach with aspects of teacher education that stem from complexity theory. (shrink)

La tendencia natural de identificar complejidad con algo complicado y confuso, es una forma también natural de simplificar las redes complejas del fenómeno del conocimiento y de los saberes. En este artículo se presentan las orientaciones y puntos de partida del pensamiento complejo en la perspectiv..

Ce texte a été publié dans Carnets, n° 6, janvier 2016 – Exotopies de Barthes, p. 130-142. Résumé : L'idiorrythmie, terme que Barthes emprunte au vocabulaire religieux des monastères et qui répond à son « fantasme d'une solitude collective », d'un compromis entre retrait et engagement, est, selon nous, en germe depuis les premiers travaux et sous-tend toute son écriture. Car, parmi le foisonnement de métaphores littéraires ou philosophiques mobilisées pour mener à bien son combat d'écrivain contre le - Poétique (...) et Études littéraires – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

The proposed transdisciplinary field of ‘complexics’ would bring together allcontemporary efforts in any specific disciplines or by any researchersspecifically devoted to constructing tools, procedures, models and conceptsintended for transversal application that are aimed at understanding andexplaining the most interwoven and dynamic phenomena of reality. Our aimneeds to be, as Morin says, not “to reduce complexity to simplicity, [but] totranslate complexity into theory”.New tools for the conception, apprehension and treatment of the data ofexperience will need to be devised to complement existing (...) ones and toenable us to make headway toward practices that better fit complexictheories. New mathematical and computational contributions have alreadycontinued to grow in number, thanks primarily to scholars in statisticalphysics and computer science, who are now taking an interest in social andeconomic phenomena.Certainly, these methodological innovations put into question and againmake us take note of the excessive separation between the training receivedby researchers in the ‘sciences’ and in the ‘arts’. Closer collaborationbetween these two subsets would, in all likelihood, be much moreenergising and creative than their current mutual distance. Humancomplexics must be seen as multi-methodological, insofar as necessarycombining quantitative-computation methodologies and more qualitativemethodologies aimed at understanding the mental and emotional world ofpeople.In the final analysis, however, models always have a narrative runningbehind them that reflects the attempts of a human being to understand theworld, and models are always interpreted on that basis. (shrink)