SummaryParadigmatology as a science of structures of reasoning which vary from culture to culture, from profession to profession, and sometimes from individual to individual is outlined, and communication difficulties between paradigms are discussed. Three paradigms are used as examples: hierarchical, unilateral, homogenistic, universalistic, categorical, classificational, deductive, rank‐ordering, competitive paradigm with predetermined universe; individualistic, isolationists, random, nominalistic, atomistic, statistical, probabilistic, egocentric paradigm with thermodynamically and informationally decaying universe; mutualistic, reciprocally interactive, heterogeneity‐creating, network‐structured, relational, contextual, complementary, symbiotic paradigm with self‐generating and self‐organizing (...) universe based on mutual causality and post‐Shannon information theory.Paradigmatologie et son Application à la Communication entre des Domaines de Spécialisation différents, entre des Professions et entre des Cultures. (shrink)

The traditional divide between nature and culture restricts to the latter the use of information. Biosemiotics claims instead that the divide between nature and culture is a mere subdivision within the living world but that semiosis is the specific feature which distinguishes the living from the inanimate. The present paper is intended to reformulate this basic tenet in information-theoretic terms, to support it using information-theoretic arguments, and to show that its consequences match reality. It first proposes a ‘receiver-oriented’ interpretation of (...) semiosis. This interpretation implies that the means for recording, storing and processing information exclusively reside in the living world (extended so as to include the artefacts it produces). Then it may be argued that the main difference between the inanimate world and the living one lies in the fact that the very existence of the latter relies on information, which on the contrary is not relevant to the former. Thus, besides matter and energy, information is an entity irreducible to them which must be taken into account in any attempt for describing and understanding life. Information can interact with the real world only provided it is borne by some physical support: it must be ‘physically inscribed’. Contrary to matter and energy, information can be shared, not necessarily exchanged, so a same information can be borne by a number of distinct supports. Any living thing possesses means for recording, storing and processing information which are necessary for keeping it alive and securing its progeny. In particular, its genome contains hereditary information, can be replicated, and instructs the construction and maintenance of a phenotype. The simultaneous existence of a phenotype and of a genome, where the latter bears the symbolic description of the former, is mandatory for enabling the self-reproduction of an organism. Bearing and using information then endows a living thing with the ability to decrease the physical entropy, hence to act as Maxwell’s demon. Not only its own life is maintained against physical entropy, but its self-reproduction multiplies clones of the demon. Taking information as the entity which differentiates the living from the inanimate also supports Rovelli’s ‘relational’ interpretation of quantum physics. Experimental apparatuses then appear as information-theoretic channels from the inanimate world to a living observer. Besides having its own perspective (as stated by Rovelli), each of these channels has its own horizon because its capacity is necessarily finite. As another consequence, we may assert that the physicists’ quest of a ‘theory of everything’ is doomed to failure since, for lack of considering information as a relevant entity, physicists deny the living world, hence themselves. (shrink)

Themes of mastery, domination and power are familiar to any scholar of modern technology. Science is commonly cast as enabling the technological control over both the natural and physical worlds. Indeed, Francis Bacon famously equated scientific knowledge with power itself—stating that ‘knowledge itself is a power’. Bacon’s now ubiquitous phrase—commonly repeated as the banal ‘knowledge is power’—was an attempt to combat three heresies in scriptural interpretation by asserting the conjunction between biblical knowledge and divine power. Opening his critique of the (...) heresies he states: ‘You err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God’. In this sense the equation made between knowledge and power is of cosmic significance for Bacon in that knowledge is fundamentally associated with divine power. This image of scientific knowledge, method and rationality is deeply seductive. In this Baconian mode scientific method is irreducibly associated with human mastery over natural systems and the material world. In this image science and technology are defined as a kind of power over the physical world—the power of knowledge, method and the logos over nature, myth and irrationality. In its original Latin sense—ipsa scientia potestas est—the word that translates in English as simply power is a in fact a specific type of power. Potestas is defined as ‘power over’—with particular resonances with political and juridical traditions in Roman law. That is, knowledge is equated not simply with personal capacity. Rather, knowledge produces the power of mastery, domination and coercion... (shrink)

This paper situates Bogdanov in the context of social theory generally and socialist theory in particular. It outlines briefly the principal characteristics of his mature system, and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of his approach to the fundamental problems of social thought. The paper devotes particular attention to the problem of just how systems develop from less complex to more complex forms of organization, and evaluates Bogdanov’s solution to this problem against the background of populist, social democratic, and Leninist alternatives.

Recent socio-political developments in the experimental performing arts scenes from Europe have seen a strong commitment to the practices of self-organisation and their liberating impetus. Responding to the experimental nature of many such activities with a likewise experimental theoretical enquiry, this paper invests in an interpretation of self-organising principles from anarchism, cybernetics, and vitalist materialism through the fictional narrative of the pirate utopia Libertatia. The argument thus developed is that the liberating potentials of self-organisation can be located precisely in its (...) inherent tendency toward self-dis-organisation. (shrink)

As part of our exploration of a new conceptual framework for an economy that works for 100% of humanity, this conceptual paper asks why all talk about the purpose of organizations seems to suffer from a certain bias, namely the bias of scarcity, and how this myth of scarcity influences our understanding of corporate responsibility. The mainstream understanding of corporate purpose always contains partly normative and partly functional aspects designed to cope with the purported problem of scarcity. According to economic (...) and CSR reasoning, this bias concerning the purpose of business organizations triggers two quite distinct understandings of the essence of corporate responsibility. The economic view interprets it as responsibility towards the company, while CSR and business ethics argue that it reflects, or at least ought to reflect, a broader responsibility towards society. To overcome this responsibility gap, we need to affect a paradigm shift in economic reasoning, a shift which reconciles economic responsibility on the micro-level logic of raising profit with the greater demands of the meso, macro, and supra levels. Only then do we obtain a truly meaningful lever for changing real-world business practice from within the micro-logics of running a corporation. This paradigm shift requires a different mental model - a model of resource growth and natural abundance, rather than of scarcity - on the part of both economists and business ethicists. It can be labeled the economic model of future viability. This paper develops a conceptual argument for a future viable model of business practice which, first and foremost, takes seriously the need for the kind of micro-level decision-making which keeps individual organizations afloat, but which also, and crucially, delivers a solution for future viable business models and business behavior which breaks the apparent downward spiral of modern wealth creation, i.e. the spiral of continuous acceleration, disruption, concentration and resource exploitation, and which, thirdly, delivers a proper definition of purpose which can be applied in measurement systems which are free of biased assumptions of scarcity. (shrink)

Recent Darwin scholarship has provided grounds for recognising the Origin as a literary as well as a scientific achievement. While Darwin was an acute observer, a gifted experimentalist and indefatigable theorist, this essay argues that it was also crucial to his impact that the Origin transcended the putative divide between the scientific and the literary. Analysis of Darwin's development as a writer between his journal-keeping on HMS Beagle and his construction of the Origin argues the latter draws on the pattern (...) of the Romantic or Kantian sublime. The Origin repeatedly uses strategies which challenge the natural-theological appeal to the imagination in conceiving nature. Darwin's sublime coaches the Origin's readers into a position from which to envision nature that reduces and contains its otherwise overwhelming complexity. As such, it was Darwin's literary achievement that enabled him to fashion a new 'habit of looking at things in a given way' that is the centrepiece of the scientific revolution bearing his name. (shrink)

A goal-oriented analysis of argument is presented based on Taylor's layered protocols, a theory of communication based on Powers' hierarchical perceptual control theory. Goals and beliefs are hierarchical, related in a precise way to sensory inputs an d motor outputs. This model is combined with Gilbert's theory of coalescent argumentation. Participants sketch out their own and their partner's goal diagrams as an aid to resolving the argument. For this to work, the argument must be viewed, not in pu rely linguistic (...) or logical terms, but in terms of the entire system of goals in which it is embedded. (shrink)

The paper deals with the changes in the sense of synchronicity and simultaneity connected with the transformations in the structure of society. It examines and criticizes the modern concept of absolute chronology, understood as an objective temporal reference common to all observers. This notion is compared with the relative and flexible (but neither objective nor generalizable) forms of synchronization of different societies. The paper discusses finally the hypothesis that contemporary society is realizing a more complex and recursive form of temporality, (...) that questions the modern ideal of synchronicity. This temporality is connected with recent developments in telematics. (shrink)