I present a novel approach to the scholarly debate that has arisen with respect to the philosophical import one should infer from scientific accounts of phase transitions by appealing to a distinction between representation understood as denotation, and faithful representation understood as a type of guide to ontology. It is argued that the entire debate is misguided, for it stems from a pseudo-paradox that does not license the type of claims made by scholars and that what is really interesting about (...) phase transitions is the manner by which they force us to rethink issues regarding scientific representation, idealizations, and realism. (shrink)

Attempts to ‘naturalize’ phenomenology challenge both traditional phenomenology and traditional approaches to cognitive science. They challenge Edmund Husserl’s rejection of naturalism and his attempt to establish phenomenology as a foundational transcendental discipline, and they challenge efforts to explain cognition through mainstream science. While appearing to be a retreat from the bold claims made for phenomenology, it is really its triumph. Naturalized phenomenology is spearheading a successful challenge to the heritage of Cartesian dualism. This converges with the reaction against Cartesian thought (...) within science itself. Descartes divided the universe between res cogitans, thinking substances, and res extensa, the mechanical world. The latter won with Newton and we have, in most of objective science since, literally lost our mind, hence our humanity. Despite Darwin, biologists remain children of Newton, and dream of a grand theory that is epistemologically complete and would allow lawful entailment of the evolution of the biosphere. This dream is no longer tenable. We now have to recognize that science and scientists are within and part of the world we are striving to comprehend, as proponents of endophysics have argued, and that physics, biology and mathematics have to be reconceived accordingly. Interpreting quantum mechanics from this perspective is shown to both illuminate conscious experience and reveal new paths for its further development. In biology we must now justify the use of the word “function”. As we shall see, we cannot prestate the ever new biological functions that arise and constitute the very phase space of evolution. Hence, we cannot mathematize the detailed becoming of the biosphere, nor write differential equations for functional variables we do not know ahead of time, nor integrate those equations, so no laws “entail” evolution. The dream of a grand theory fails. In place of entailing laws, a post-entailing law explanatory framework is proposed in which Actuals arise in evolution that constitute new boundary conditions that are enabling constraints that create new, typically unprestatable, Adjacent Possible opportunities for further evolution, in which new Actuals arise, in a persistent becoming. Evolution flows into a typically unprestatable succession of Adjacent Possibles. Given the concept of function, the concept of functional closure of an organism making a living in its world, becomes central. Implications for patterns in evolution include historical reconstruction, and statistical laws such as the distribution of extinction events, or species per genus, and the use of formal cause, not efficient cause, laws. (shrink)

This article contributes to the revision of the concept of system in social theory using complexity theory. The old concept of social system is widely discredited; a new concept of social system can more adequately constitute an explanatory framework. Complexity theory offers the toolkit needed for this paradigm shift in social theory. The route taken is not via Luhmann, but rather the insights of complexity theorists in the sciences are applied to the tradition of social theory inspired by Marx, Weber, (...) and Simmel. The article contributes to the theorization of intersectionality in social theory as well as to the philosophy of social science. It addresses the challenge of theorizing the intersection of multiple complex social inequalities, exploring the various alternative approaches, before rethinking the concept of social system. It investigates and applies, for the first time, the implications of complexity theory for the analysis of multiple intersecting social inequalities. Key Words: complexity theory • inequality • intersectionality • social theory. (shrink)

The paper addresses a problem for the unification of quantum physics with the new Aristotelianism: the identification of the members of the category of substance. I outline briefly the role that substance plays in Aristotelian metaphysics, leading to the postulating of the Tiling Constraint. I then turn to the question of which entities in quantum physics can qualify as Aristotelian substances. I offer an answer: the theory of thermal substances, and I construct a fivefold case for thermal substances, based on (...) the irreversibility of time, the definition of thermodynamic concepts, spontaneous symmetry breaking, phase transitions, and chemical form. (shrink)

Contemporary theories of consciousness are based on widely different concepts of its nature, most or all of which probably embody aspects of the truth about it. Starting with a concept of consciousness indicated by the phrase “the feeling of what happens” (the title of a book by Antonio Damásio), we attempt to build a framework capable of supporting and resolving divergent views. We picture consciousness in terms of Reality experiencing itself from the perspective of cognitive agents. Each conscious experience is (...) regarded as composed of momentary feeling events that are combined by recognition and evaluation into extended conscious episodes that bind cognitive contents with a wide range of apparent durations (0.1 secs to 2 or more secs, for us humans, depending on circumstances and context). Three necessary conditions for the existence of consciousness are identified: a) a ground of Reality, envisaged as an universal field of potentiality encompassing all possible manifestations, whether material or 'mental'; b) a transitional zone, leading to; c) a manifest world with its fundamental divisions into material, 'informational' and quale-endowed aspects. We explore ideas about the nature of these necessary conditions, how they may relate to one another and whether our suggestions have empirical implications. (shrink)

Two approaches to understanding the idealizations that arise in the Aharonov–Bohm effect are presented. It is argued that a common topological approach, which takes the non-simply connected electron configuration space to be an essential element in the explanation and understanding of the effect, is flawed. An alternative approach is outlined. Consequently, it is shown that the existence and uniqueness of self-adjoint extensions of symmetric operators in quantum mechanics have important implications for philosophical issues. Also, the alleged indispensable explanatory role of (...) said idealizations is examined via a minimal model explanatory scheme. Last, the idealizations involved in the AB effect are placed in a wider philosophical context via a short survey of part of the literature on infinite and essential idealizations. (shrink)

Every scientific or intellectual movement is founded upon basic assumptions and hypotheses that shape its specifically formulated philosophy. This study seeks to explore and explicate the basic philosophical underpinnings of grey systems theory, as well as the paradigm governing its postulates. The study, more specifically, scrutinizes the underlying principles of GST from the perspective of postmodern philosophy. To accomplish this, the epistemology, ontology, human nature, and methodology of GST are substantially investigated in the light of postmodern philosophy. The study draws (...) on Burrell and Morgan’s framework to reveal the paradigm underlying the philosophy of GST. Results demonstrate that GST is an anti-realistic, anti-positivistic, and non-deterministic theory which is inherently pluralistic and ideographic. Based on the principles of GST, change is an indispensable dimension of human speculation about the world and systems, and knowledge is ceaselessly reproduced as new information is collected. As a result, knowledge, narratives, theories and scientific laws are dynamically changed. GST, then, is remarkably compatible with the foundations of postmodern thought and it could be regarded as a postmodern theory governed by a humanistic paradigm. (shrink)

In modern, Western societies the purpose of schooling is to ensure that school-goers acquire knowledge of pre-existing practices, events, entities and so on. The knowledge that is learned is then tested to see if the learner has acquired a correct or adequate understanding of it. For this reason, it can be argued that schooling is organised around a representational epistemology: one which holds that knowledge is an accurate representation of something that is separate from knowledge itself. Since the object of (...) knowledge is assumed to exist separately from the knowledge itself, this epistemology can also be considered ‘spatial.’ In this paper we show how ideas from complexity have challenged the spatial epistemology’ of representation and we explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality. In addition to complexity, our alternative takes its inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and deconstruction. We suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time. This not only introduces the notion of time into our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and reality, but also points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before. This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present. The epistemology of emergence therefore calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking, away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response. (shrink)

Philosophers and social scientists of diverse orientations have suggested that the pragmatics of semiosis is germane to a dynamic account of meaning as process. Semiosis, the central focus of C. S. Peirce's pragmatic philosophy, may hold a key to perennial problems regarding meaning. Indeed, Peirce's thought should be deemed seminal when placed within the cognitive sciences, especially with respect to his concept of the sign. According to Peirce's pragmatic model, semiosis is a triadic, time-bound, context-sensitive, interpreter-dependent, materially extended dynamic process. (...) Semiosis involves inter-relatedness and inter-action between signs, their objects, acts and events in the world, and the semiotic agents who are in the process of making and taking them. (shrink)

I follow Hájek (Synthese 137:273–323, 2003c) by taking objective probability to be a function of two propositional arguments—that is, I take conditional probability as primitive. Writing the objective probability of q given r as P(q, r), I argue that r may be chosen to provide less than a complete and exact description of the world’s history or of its state at any time. It follows that nontrivial objective probabilities are possible in deterministic worlds and about the past. A very simple (...) chance–credence relation is also then natural, namely that reasonable credence equals objective probability. In other words, we should set our actual credence in a proposition equal to the proposition’s objective probability conditional on available background information. One advantage of that approach is that the background information is not subject to an admissibility requirement, as it is in standard formulations of the Principal Principle. Another advantage is that the “undermining” usually thought to follow from Humean supervenience can be avoided. Taking objective probability to be a two-argument function is not merely a technical matter, but provides us with vital flexibility in addressing significant philosophical issues. (shrink)

In the last decade, Systems Biology has emerged as a conceptual and explanatory alternative to reductionist-based approaches in molecular biology. However, the foundations of this new discipline need to be fleshed out more carefully. In this paper, we claim that a relational ontology is a necessary tool to ground both the conceptual and explanatory aspects of Systems Biology. A relational ontology holds that relations are prior—both conceptually and explanatory—to entities, and that in the biological realm entities are defined primarily by (...) the context they are embedded within—and hence by the web of relations they are part of. (shrink)

One of the main functions that introductory chemistry courses have fulfilled during the past century has been to provide evidence for the general validity of 'the atomic hypothesis.' A second function has been to demonstrate that an analytical approach has wide applicability in rationalizing many kinds of phenomena. Following R.G. Collingwood, these two functions can be recognized as related to a philosophical 'cosmology' (worldview, weltanshauung) that became dominant in the later Renaissance. Recent developments in many areas of science, and in (...) chemistry, have emphasized the central importance of understanding synthetic, developmental, and evolutionary aspects of nature. This paper argues that these scientific developments, and changes in other aspects of culture, amount to a widespread shift to an alternative cosmology, a quite different general worldview. To the extent that this is the case, introductory chemistry courses ought to be changed in fundamental ways. Rather that having a main focus on analysis to microscopic components, introductory chemistry instruction should emphasize current scientific understanding of the (synthetic) evolutionary origins of the present world. This altered approach would provide good preparation for future professional work, while also making better contact with the perceived concerns of students. (shrink)

It should now be recognized that codes are central to life and to understanding its more complex forms, including human culture. Recognizing the ‘conventional’ nature of codes provides solid grounds for rejecting efforts to reduce life to biochemistry and justifies according a place to semantics in life. The question I want to consider is whether this is enough. Focussing on Eigen’s paradox of how a complex code could originate, I will argue that along with Barbieri’s efforts to account for the (...) origins of life based on the ribosome and then to account for the refined codes through a process of ambiguity reduction, something more is required. Barbieri has not provided an adequate account of emergence, or the basis for providing such an account. I will argue that Stanley Salthe has clarified to some extent the nature of emergence by conceptualizing it as the interpolation of new enabling constraints. Clearly, codes can be seen as enabling constraints. How this actually happens, though, is still not explained. Stuart Kauffman has grappled with this issue and shown that it radically challenges the assumptions of mainstream science going back to Newton. He has attempted to reintroduce real possibilities or potentialities into his ontology, and argued that radically new developments in nature are associated with realizing adjacent possibles. This is still not adequate. What is also involved, I will suggest, utilizing concepts developed by the French natural philosopher Gilbert Simondon, is ‘transduction’ as part of ‘ontogenesis’ of individuals in a process of ‘individuation’, that is, the emergence of ‘individuals’ from preindividual fields or milieux. (shrink)

Is 'development' a concept that properly belongs to mind and morality and, if it does, what account can we give of moral development now that Piagetian and Kohlbergian models are increasingly being abandoned in developmental psychology? In addressing this central issue, it is hoped that the paper will contribute to the quest for a new integrated model of moral functioning, called for in the September 2008 Special Issue of the Journal of Moral Education (37[3]). Our paper argues that the notion (...) of moral development is fully justified, though it does not occur via invariant stages. Rather, each child is an emergent self-organising organism in which development is highly variable, dynamic and often non-linear. By viewing each child as a self-organising being and adopting the notion that moral development is dynamic and emergent from the predilection to value, the paper points towards a new account of moral development that opens up new avenues for educational research and moral education in schools. (shrink)

If the problem of the origin of life is conceptualized as a process of emergence of biochemistry from proto-biochemistry, which in turn emerged from the organic chemistry and geochemistry of primitive earth, then the resources of the new sciences of complex systems dynamics can provide a more robust conceptual framework within which to explore the possible pathways of chemical complexification leading to living systems and biosemiosis. In such a view the emergence of life, and concomitantly of natural selection and biosemiosis, (...) is the result of deep natural laws (the outlines of which we are only beginning to perceive) and reflects a degree of holism in those systems that led to life. Further, such an approach may lead to the development of a more general theory of biology and of natural organization, one informed by semiotic concepts. (shrink)

The prestige of science, derived from its claims to certainty, has adversely affected the humanities. There is, in fact, a “politics of certainty”. Our ability to predict events in a limited sphere has been idealized, engendering dangerous illusions about our power to control nature and eliminate time. In addition, the perception and propagation of science as a bearer of certainty has served to legitimate harmful forms of social, sexual, and political power. Yet, as Ilya Prigogine has argued, renewed attention to (...) the irreducible reality of time has brought us to “the end of certainty”. As we enter the age of uncertainty, there is disagreement about how science should be understood and communicated. Some scientists cling to the ideal of certainty, while others emphasize the creative potential of spontaneity, novelty, and surprise. (shrink)

This is an attempt to take a look at chemistry from the point of view of practical realism. Besides its social–historical and normative aspects, the latter involves a direct reference to experimental research. According to Edward Caldin chemistry depends on our being able to isolate pure substances with reproducible properties. Thus, the very basis of chemistry is practical. Even the laws of chemistry are not stable but are subject to correction. At the same time, these statements do not necessarily make (...) Edward Caldin a predecessor of practical realism. The latter has other predecessors, like Rom Harré’s policy realism or Sami Pihlström’s pragmatic realism. Chemistry is an experimental science. The experiment is a purposeful and critically theory-guided constructive, manipulative, material interference with nature according to Rein Vihalemm, the founder of practical realism. Chemistry is physics-like science but just partly so. This is an important point in the context of the current paper. (shrink)

This article explores the affinities and parallels between Foucault's Nietzschean view of history and models of complexity developed in the physical sciences in the twentieth century. It claims that Foucault's rejection of structuralism and Marxism can be explained as a consequence of his own approach which posits a radical ontology whereby the conception of the totality or whole is reconfigured as an always open, relatively borderless system of infinite interconnections, possibilities and developments. His rejection of Hegelianism, as well as of (...) other enlightenment philosophies, can be understood at one level as a direct response to his rejection of the mechanical atomist, and organicist epistemological world views, based upon a Newtonian conception of a closed universe operating upon the basis of a small number of invariable and universal laws, by which all could be predicted and explained. The idea of a fully determined, closed universe is replaced; and in a way parallel to complexity theories, Foucault's own approach emphasises notions such as self‐organisation and dissipative structures; time as an irreversible, existential dimension; a world of finite resources but with infinite possibilities for articulation, or re‐investment; and characterised by the principles of openness, indeterminism, unpredictability, and uncertainty. The implications of Foucault's type of approach are then explored in relation to identity, creativity, and the uniqueness of the person. The article suggests that within a complexity theory approach many of the old conundrums concerning determinism and creativity, social constructionism and uniqueness, can be overcome. (shrink)

Are there neurobiological reasons why we are willing to trust other people and why ‘trust’ and moral values such as ‘care’ play a quite pivotal role in our social lives and the judgements we make, including our social interactions and judgements made in the context of schooling? In pursuing this question, this paper largely agrees with claims made by Patricia Churchland in her 2011 book Braintrust. She believes that moral values are rooted in basic brain circuitry and chemistry, which have (...) been shaped over evolutionary time. However, these naturalistic claims raise important issues, including the standard philosophical objection that they fall victim to the naturalistic and/or deontic fallacies. This paper provides an overview of the neurobiology of trust and examines some of the main objections, in the belief that recognising the neurobiological substrate of care and trust can deepen our appreciation of the role these play in education. (shrink)

After the birth of thermodynamics’ second principle—outlined in Carnot's Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu —several studies provided new arguments in the field. Mainly, they concerned the thermodynamics’ first principle—including energy conceptualisation—, the analytical aspects of the heat propagation, the statistical aspects of the mechanical theory of heat. In other words, the second half of nineteenth century was marked by an intense interdisciplinary research activity between physics and chemistry: new disciplines applied to the heat developed in the form of (...) analytical, mechanical and statistical theories. Inside all these theories, entropy—the brand-new function that Clausius coined in his Mechanical theory of heat—started to play a central epistemic role. In the present paper, we analyse some steps of the historical process of conceptualisation of such function from 1850 to 1902. Particularly, we retrace the historical–foundational path that—starting from Clausius’ Second Law—lead Boltzmann and Gibbs to their distinguished formulations of statistical entropy. As usual, our research has been unrolled through the analyses of primary sources and by leaning on critical readings of the secondary literature. As for the methodological approach, text analysis of historical documents constituted our privileged modus operandi. This paper is the expression of a collaborative historical research program focused on the thermodynamic foundations of physics–chemistry relationship; early results have already been published by the same authors upon the concepts of reversibility––and––thermal equilibrium. (shrink)

Bioscientists generate far more data than their minds can handle, and this trend is likely to continue. With the aid of a small set of versatile tools for mathematical modeling and statistical assessment, bioscientists can explore their real-world systems without experiencing data overflow. This article outlines an approach for combining modern high-throughput, low-cost, but non-selective biospectroscopy measurements with soft, multivariate biochemometrics data modeling to overview complex systems, test hypotheses, and making new discoveries. From preliminary, broad hypotheses and goals, many relevant (...) samples are selected and measured with respect to many informative variables. The resulting tables represent a “cacophony” of data. From these, the most relevant and reliable “underlying harmonies and rhythms” are extracted and tested statistically, displayed for interpretation, and used for prediction. Outliers are detected automatically. Interesting subsets of samples can then be chosen for in-depth analyses in subsequent research cycles. This pragmatic, top-down approach takes advantage of developments in both “soft,” data-driven modeling and “hard,” knowledge-driven cultures. Data analytical examples show how information-rich biospectroscopy can be used for characterizing and quantifying known and unknown chemical constituents and physical phenomena in intact biosamples. This is based on a combination of deductive “hard” and inductive “soft” modeling. The examples represent NIR spectra of biochemical mixtures, FTIR spectra of a microbiological fermentation process, and FTIR analysis of fatty acids in milk for functional genomics. (shrink)

While complexity science is gaining interest among educational theorists, its constructs do not speak to educational responsibility or related core issues in education of power and ethics. Yet certain themes of complexity, as taken up in educational theory, can help unsettle the more controlling and problematic discourses of educational responsibility such as the potential to limit learning and subjectivity or to prescribe social justice. The purpose of this article is to critically examine complexity science against notions of responsibility in terms (...) of implications for education. First, themes of complexity science prominent in contemporary educational writing are explained. Then dilemmas of responsibility in complexity are explored, such as what forms and meanings responsibility can have in a ‘complexified’ perspective of education, how care for others is mobilised, and how desire can be understood. Analyses of ethical action grounded in complexity science are then examined, as well as theories of the ethical subject and participatory responsibility that are congruent with certain tenets of a complexity ontology. Finally, the possibility of an educational vision of responsibility animated by complexity theories is considered, drawing from related writings of Bai, Biesta, Derrida, Levinas and Varela. (shrink)

The paper deals with the philosophy of science and technology from a new perspective. The analysis connects closely to the novel approach to scientific research called practical realism of the late Estonian philosopher of science and chemistry Rein Vihalemm. From his perspective, science is not only theoretical but even more clearly a practical activity. This kind of practice-based approach puts chemistry rather than physics into the position of the most typical science as chemistry has a dual character resting on both (...) constructive-hypothetico-deductive and classifying-historico-descriptive types of cognition. Chemists deal with finding out the laws of nature just like the physicists do. However, in addition to this chemistry deals with substances or stuff that is rather an activity typical to natural history. The analysis of the dual character of chemistry brings forward the need to analyse philosophically also the reasons why physics has held the position of the model science so far. The problem unfolds in the context of practical realism. However, some earlier observations concerning the dual character of chemistry influenced us as well, i.e. by Friedrich Paneth, Michael Polanyi and Edward Caldin. More recently, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Jonathan Simon have given their own explanation of why and how chemistry has a dual character. From their perspective, chemistry is a perfect technical science as it aims at applications, literally at producing something new. Bensaude-Vincent and Simon call their approach operational realism. The latter, however, does not differ from practical realism. (shrink)

This article applies the analytic rigor of philosophy to the vexed topic of business strategy, and uses the objective, public evidence of business strategy as an existence proof for the possibility of free will and purpose in the private realm of subjective intentionality. The first part distinguishes three types of intentionality in philosophy—purposive intentionality, referential intentionality, and the problematic intentionality of a godlike, miraculous “inner intender.” After rejecting this third type of intentionality, and noting that its rejection saves the first (...) two types of intentionality from guilt by association, the second part draws parallels with three types of strategy in business: purposive, referential, and godlike. The first defines the goals and objectives of a company; the second picks out and targets consumers in market driven strategy; and the third, with the help of philosophical reflections, demands a rethinking of the function of leadership without reliance on a single, godlike leader. In the third part of this article, the existence proof from the public world of business is used to shed light on the possibility of intentionality in the private world of subjective intentionality. Finally, the article draws conclusions for its three audiences: for the philosophers, with credit to Nietzsche who saw it all, a greater clarity about intentionality and free will; for business people, greater clarity about the importance of purposiveness and strategic intent; and for business philosophers, a demonstration showing how—through strategy and intentionality—we can both create value and give meaning to the lives of our employees, ourselves, and our customers. (shrink)

Abstract.The basic laws of physics for particles and fields can be formulated in terms of variational principles. The initial development of a variational principle had distinct teleological implications. The formulation of physical laws in terms of variational principles is outlined with specific reference to classical and quantum mechanics and field theory. Because of time irreversibility no variational principle exists for thermodynamics. In order to obtain time irreversibility molecular trajectories must be abandoned in the lowest‐level description of complex multicomponent systems. A (...) more open set of possibilities results. I suggest that this may be more consistent with a modern teleology. (shrink)

Many methods are used in research on complexity. One of these is qualitative comparative analysis. Although many authors allude to the relationships between complexity and QCA, these links are rarely made explicit. We propose that one way of doing so is by using critical realism as a meta-framework. This article discusses the viability of this approach by examining the extent to which QCA is a complexity-informed method. This question is answered in three steps. First, we discuss the nature of complexity (...) and its epistemological implications. Second, we focus on Bhaskar’s perspective on critical realism and show how it can be used as a framework for understanding social complexity. Third, we examine the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying QCA and synthesize these with our critical realist approach to complexity. We argue that complex reality is non-decomposable, contingent, non-compressible and time-asymmetric. We conclude that, although QCA is inevitably reductive and partial, its core premises are built upon the notions of contingency and time-asymmetry. Therefore, it is not only a powerful method for doing complexity-informed research, but is also a complexity-informed method by itself. (shrink)

The paper examines connections between ontology and finance. The ontological debates concerning the role of finance are examined between two opposing schools of thought that can be labelled, very broadly, ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘realist’. These two schools of thought have had momentous repercussions in understanding what is a good society. Each school defines Nature in particular ways which can be explored using ontology and philosophical insight. Our theoretical investigation aims to accommodate Nature in community financial deliberations. A positive role for government (...) is advocated to finance environmental infrastructure initiatives. For example, precautionary strategies to address climate change must be funded. New roles for finance and government are proposed to align human relationships with Nature. Environmental precautionary principles must be developed in conjunction with finance theory to maintain decent standards of living for all. Reliance on impersonal market forces will not be enough to save the planet given the power of some over the many in the neoliberal arena. (shrink)

Complexity theory has become a major influence in discussions about the theory and practice of education. This book focuses on a question which so far has received relatively little attention in such discussions, which is the question of the politics of complexity. The chapters in this book engage with this question in a range of different ways. Whereas some contributions make a case for the promotion of complexity in education, others focus more explicitly on questions concerning the reduction of complexity (...) in and through education. The chapters do so using theoretical, historical and empirical arguments, paying attention to a range of different educational settings (including early childhood education, school education, post-compulsory education, lifelong learning and work-based education), and focusing on different aspects of these practices (such as curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, architecture, and management). Taken together the chapters not only reveal the potential of complexity for engaging with questions about the politics of education in new and different ways. They also provide examples of a more reflexive engagement with the politics of complexity in education itself. The book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of education studies, curriculum studies, curriculum theory, educational theory, educational policy, and philosophy of education. It should also be of interest to practitioners in more specialised fields such as early childhood education, school education, post-compulsory education, work-based education and lifelong learning. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of emergence have been explicated in terms of logical relationships between statements (derivation) or static properties (function and realization). Jaegwon Kim is a modern proponent. A property is emergent if it is not explainable by (or reducible to) the properties of lower level components. This approach, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in scientific explanations of complex systems. The standard philosophical notion of emergence posits the wrong dichotomies, confuses (...) compositional physicalism with explanatory physicalism, and is unable to represent the type of dynamic processes (self-organizing feedback) that both generate emergent properties and express downward causation. (shrink)

This paper recommends that chemistry educators shift to a different ‘idea of nature’, an alternative ‘worldview.’ Much of contemporary science and technology deals in one way or another with dynamic coherences that display novel and important properties. The notion of how the world works that such studies and practices generate (and require) is quite different from the earlier concepts that are now integrated into science education. Eventual success in meeting contemporary technological and social challenges requires general diffusion of an overall (...) outlook that focuses on creative generation of novel and useful coherences, replacing a worldview that concentrates on analysis of pre-existing items to minimum constituents. Such a shift in emphasis would amount to general adoption of a new basic model of how nature functions. Chemistry educators can and should provide leadership for this urgently-needed development. (shrink)

Cognitive sciences as an interdisciplinary field, involving scientific disciplines (such as computer science, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, economics, etc.), philosophical disciplines (philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, analytic philosophy, etc.) and engineering (notably knowledge engineering), have a vast theoretical and practical content, some even conflicting. In this interdisciplinary context and on computational modeling, ontologies play a crucial role in communication between disciplines and also in a process of innovation of theories, models and experiments in cognitive sciences. We propose a model for (...) this process here. An ontological commitment is advocated as the framework of a scientific realism, which leads computational modeling to search for more realistic models, for a complex systems perspective of nature and cognition. In that way multiagent modeling of complex systems has been fulfilling an important role. (shrink)

Although Whitehead’s particular style of philosophizing--looking at traditional philosophical problems in light of recent scientific advances--was part of a trend that began with the scientific revolutions in the early 20th century and continues today, he was marginalized in 20th century philosophy because of his outspoken defense of what he was doing as “metaphysics.” Metaphysics, for Whitehead, is a cross-disciplinary hermeneutic responsible for coherently integrating the perspectives of the special sciences with one another and with everyday experience. The program of such (...) a meta-discipline is challenging to philosophical orthodoxy because it enlarges, rather than narrows, the range of empirical evidence that philosophy must acknowledge. This places Whitehead’s philosophy in a perennial tradition that seeks to resolve fundamental antinomies through synthesis and reconciliation rather than reduction or elimination. (shrink)

This paper has two main foci: the history of curriculum design, and implications from the new sciences of chaos and complexity for the development of new forms of curriculum design and teaching implementation. Regarding the first focus, the paper posits that there exist—to use Wittgenstein's phrase—‘family resemblances’ between Peter Ramus’ 16th century curriculum design and that of Ralph Tyler in the 20th century. While this 400‐year linkage is by no means linear, there are overlapping strands from Ramus to Comenius to (...) the Puritans to colonial New England to Horace Mann to Ralph Tyler. What unites these strands, all belonging to the Protestant Methodization movement that swept across northern Europe into colonial America and the USA, is the concept of Method. Taylor's ‘time and motion’ studies set the stage for Tyler's Basic Principles of curriculum design—those starting with set goals and concluding with measured assessment. The second focus draws on the new sciences of chaos and complexity to develop a different sense of curriculum and instruction—open, dynamic, relational, creative, and systems oriented. The paper concludes with an integration of the rational/scientific with the aesthetic/spiritual into a view of education and curriculum informed by complexity. (shrink)

A modern assessment of the classical Boltzmann-Schuetz argument for large-scale entropy fluctuations as the origin of our observable cosmological domain is given.The emphasis is put on the central implication of this picture which flatly contradicts the weak anthropic principle as an epistemological statement about the universe. Therefore, to associate this picture with the anthropic principle as it is usually done is unwarranted. In particular, Feynman's criticism of theanthropic principle based on the entropy-fluctuation picture is a product of this semantic confusion.

This is an attempt to take a look at chemistry from the point of view of practical realism. Besides its social–historical and normative aspects, the latter involves a direct reference to experimental research. According to Edward Caldin chemistry depends on our being able to isolate pure substances with reproducible properties. Thus, the very basis of chemistry is practical. Even the laws of chemistry are not stable but are subject to correction. At the same time, these statements do not necessarily make (...) Edward Caldin a predecessor of practical realism. The latter has other predecessors, like Rom Harré’s policy realism or Sami Pihlström’s pragmatic realism. Chemistry is an experimental science. The experiment is a purposeful and critically theory-guided constructive, manipulative, material interference with nature according to Rein Vihalemm, the founder of practical realism. Chemistry is physics-like science but just partly so. This is an important point in the context of the current paper. (shrink)

This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the Chinese worldview on equilibrium/nonequilibrium and yin-yang in the context of science and draws the correlative aspects with irreversible thermodynamics and quantum reality, such as instability, nonlinearity, nonequilibrium, and temporality. The paper argues that Prigogine's expressions on dissipative structures and their role in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium, complexity, and irreversibility resonate with the principles in Yijing. Instability, far-from-equilibrium, irreversibility, probability, bifurcation, and self-organisation are intrinsic properties of nature appearing at all levels. Information is (...) the basis of all changes. The agency of change is the human with a consciousness interpreting the information existing in the probability space between heaven and earth. The paper outlines a modelling approach with the self-organising human in the centre between heaven and earth, representing living systems as discrete dynamical systems presented with binary yin-yang choices. The concepts of yin-yang and information causality are central to Yijing’s understanding of change and are clarified in this paper. (shrink)

Sciences are often regarded as providing the best, or, ideally, exact, knowledge of the world, especially in providing laws of nature. Ilya Prigogine, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his theory of non-equilibrium chemical processes—this being also an important attempt to bridge the gap between exact and non-exact sciences [mentioned in the Presentation Speech by Professor Stig Claesson (nobelprize.org, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977)]—has had this ideal in mind when trying to formulate a new kind of science. Philosophers (...) of science distinguish theory and reality, examining relations between these two. Nancy Cartwright’s distinction of fundamental and phenomenological laws, Rein Vihalemm’s conception of the peculiarity of the exact sciences, and Ronald Giere’s account of models in science and science as a set of models are deployed in this article to criticise the common view of science and analyse Ilya Prigogine’s view in particular. We will conclude that on a more abstract, philosophical level, Prigogine’s understanding of science doesn’t differ from the common understanding. (shrink)

My objective in this article is to question whether the problem of free will can, within our current conceptual system, be framed coherently. It is already widely recognized that a mental faculty, the will, needed to initiate action, no longer fits with current thought. However, we can still ask whether human decisions and actions are determined by something other than the agent. So the important question is whether we still have a cogent concept of determinism. The two prevalent alternatives are (...) a closed set of deterministic laws of nature, and a simple distillation of the principle of sufficient reason: all events must have a cause. I first provide examples showing that philosophical concepts come and go as categorial frameworks change. The modern concept of deterministic laws of nature was developed during the latter half of the modern period and is now being called seriously into question. G. W. Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason could only be justified in theological terms, which most contemporary Western scholars reject. I end with an inadequate account of a dawning worldview based on complex adaptive systems theory, in which most human actions are best described in terms of non-necessitating propensities. (shrink)

Well known quantum and time paradoxes, and the difficulty to derive the second law of thermodynamics, are proposed to be the result of our historically grown paradigm for energy: it is just there, the capacity to do work, not directly related to change. When the asymmetric nature of energy is considered, as well as the involvement of energy turnover in any change, so that energy can be understood as fundamentally "dynamic", and time-oriented, these paradoxes and problems dissolve. The most basic (...) consequence concerns the particle-wave dualism. For a reversible inter-conversion of a particle into a wave, subject to a dynamic energy, a self-image of information has to be generated: quantum theory has to be complemented by a theory of information. Then, quantum processes can be derived from classical ones and the second law of thermodynamics with the tendency of increasing entropy follows in a straightforward way. (shrink)

This essay discusses the origins, biases, and effects on contemporary discussions of economics and ethics of the unexamined use of the metaphor an economy is a machine. Both neoliberal economics and many critiques of capitalist systems take this metaphor as their starting point. The belief that economies run according to universal laws of motion, however, is shown to be based on a variety of rationalist thinking that – while widely held – is inadequate for explaining lived human experience. Feminist scholarship (...) in the philosophy of science and economics has brought to light some of the biases that have supported the mechanistic worldview. Possible alternatives to the an economy is a machine include an economy is a creative process and an economy is an organism. Such metaphors are intellectually defensible as guides to scientific inquiry and provide a richer ground for moral imagination. (shrink)

This second part of a two-part essay discusses recent developments in the Brussels-Austin Group after the mid 1980s. The fundamental concerns are the same as in their similarity transformation approach (see Part I), but the contemporary approach utilizes rigged Hilbert space (whereas the older approach used Hilbert space). While the emphasis on nonequilibrium statistical mechanics remains the same, the use of similarity transformations shifts to the background. In its place arose an interest in the physical features of large Poincaré systems, (...) nonlinear dynamics and the mathematical tools necessary to analyze them. (shrink)

Constantin Caratheodory offered the first systematic and contradiction free formulation of thermodynamics on the basis of his mathematical work on Pfaff forms. Moreover, his work on measure theory provided the basis for later improved formulations of thermodynamics and physics of continua where extensive variables are measures and intensive variables are densities. Caratheodory was the first to see that measure theory and not topology is the natural tool to understand the difficulties (ergodicity, approach to equilibrium, irreversibility) in the Foundations of Statistical (...) Physics. He gave a measure-theoretic proof of Poincaré's recurrence theorem in 1919. This work paved the way for Birkhoff to identify later ergodicity as metric transitivity and for Koopman and von Neumann to introduce spectral analysis of dynamical systems in Hilbert spaces. Mixing provided an explanation of the approach to equilibrium but not of irreversibility. The recent extension of spectral theory of dynamical systems to locally convex spaces, achieved by the Brussels–Austin groups, gives new nontrivial time asymmetric spectral decompositions for unstable and/or non-integrable systems. In this way irreversibility is resolved in a natural way. (shrink)

Traditional analytical philosophy of education assigns a peripheral place to physical education, partly because orthodox epistemology finds its cognitive claims implausible. An understandable but dubious response to this state of affairs is the attempt to relocate physical education within the academic curriculum, with its characteristic emphasis on theoretical knowledge and formal assessment. Dissatisfaction with this response suggests an analysis of physical activity in terms of practical knowledge or knowing how, but the results of this seem inconclusive. More recently, the development (...) of neurocomputational and embodied-cognition approaches in cognitive science appears to offer alternative ways of understanding motor skill and physical activity, and thus of rescuing physical education from its marginal status. But these strategies are not unproblematic, particularly where questions of personal agency and motor control are concerned. Examination of these issues prompts a radical reconsideration of the traditional problem of physical education, and consequently of some familiar assumptions in the philosophy of education. (shrink)

. Values in the cultural timescapes of science. Cultural Values: Vol. 2, No. 2-3, pp. 385-402.