Three Generations of Complexity Theories: Nuances and Ambiguities

Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages 62-78

  Alhadeff Jones, Michel ^a,b  

^a Columbia University ^*  (United States)

^b UNIVERSITÉ PARIS 8   (France)

Author keywords

Automata theories and neural networks; Complexity versus complexities; Computer sciences and engineering sciences; Contemporary genesis; Cybernetics; Etymological roots; First Generation Second World War study of electronic computing devices and 'mixed team' approach of 'operations analysis'; Mathematical theory of communication; Operations analysis and operational research; Three generations of complexity theories nuances and ambiguities

Indexed keywords

EID: 77954642335     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1002/9781444307351.ch5     Document Type: Chapter

References (92)

1. Alhadeff, M. (2003) Rethinking the Concept of 'Critically Reflective Practice' through the Paradigm of Complexity: Some epistemological, theoretical, and practical issues. Paper presented at the 44 th Annual Adult Education Research Conference (San Francisco, San Francisco State University).
2. Alhadeff, M. (2004) Conjuguer l'Hétérogénéité de la Critique en Sciences de l'Education: De l'hypocrit(iqu)e à l'hypercritique, in: R. Arce, Farina, F., Novo, M., Egido, A., Ardoino, J. & Berger, G. (eds), La Pensée Critique en Education (Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) pp. 34-46.
3. Alhadeff, M. (2005) Complexité de la Critique et Critique de la Complexité en Formation, in:J. Clenet & D. Poisson (eds) Complexité de la Formation et Formation à la Complexité (Paris, L'Harmattan) pp. 227-241.
4. Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2007a, May) Scientific Mind, Critical Mind and Complexity: Learning from a Scientist's Life History. Paper presented at the 2 nd International Conference of the Learning Development Institute (Vancouver, Canada, Emilie Carr Institute).
5. Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2007b) Education, Critique et Complexité: Modèle et expérience de conception d'une approche multiréférentielle de la critique en Sciences de l'éducation. Doctoral dissertation in Educational Sciences (Paris, Université de Paris 8).
6. Alhadeff-Jones, M. (in press) Promoting Scientific Dialogue as a Lifelong Learning Process, in:F. Darbellay, M. Cockell, J. Billote & F. Waldvogel (eds), For a Knowledge Dialogue between Natural and Social Sciences (Paris, Odile Jacob).
7. Ardoino, J. (1963/1999) Education et Politique (Paris, Anthropos).
8. Ardoino, J. (1993) L'Approche Multiréférentielle (Plurielle) des Situations Educatives et Formatives. Pratiques de Formation/Analyses, 25-26, pp. 15-34.
9. Ardoino, J. (1998) Education et Politique aux Regards de la Pensée Complexe. Paper presented at the AFIRSE international conference (Lisbon, Portugal, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Lisbon).
10. Ardoino, J. (2000) Les Avatars de l'Education (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France).
11. Ardoino, J. & De Peretti, A. (1998) Penser l'Hétérogène (Paris, Desclée de Brouwer).
12. Ashby, W. R. (1956) An Introduction to Cybernetics (London, Chapman & Hall).
13. Atlan, H. (1972) L'Organisation Biologique et la Théorie de l'Information (Paris, Hermann).
14. Bachelard, G. (1934/2003) Le Nouvel Esprit Scientifique (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France).
15. Bak, P. & Chen, K. (1991) Self-Organized Criticality, Scientific American, 264, pp. 46-53.
16. Bateson, G. (1973) Steps to an Ecology of Mind (London, Paladin).
17. Beer, S. (1959) What has Cybernetics to do with Operational Research? Operational Research Quarterly, 10, pp. 1-21.
18. Beer, S. (1959/1970) Cybernetics and Management (London, English University Press).
19. Benkirane, R. (ed.) (2002) La Complexité, Vertiges et Promesses. 18 histoires de sciences (Paris, Le Pommier).
20. Boltanski, L. & Chiapello, E. (1999) Le Nouvel Esprit du Capitalisme (Paris, Gallimard).
21. Churchman, C. W. (1968) The Systems Approach (New York, Dell).
22. Churchman, C. W., Ackoff, R. L. & Arnoff, E. L. (1957) Introduction to Operations Research (New York, Wiley).
23. Dahan Dalmedico, A. (2004) Chaos, Disorder, and Mixing: A new fin-de-siècle image of science? in: M. Norton (ed.) Growing Explanations: Historical perspectives on recent science (London, Duke University Press) pp. 67-94.
24. Dawkins, R. (1989) The Selfish Gene (2nd edn.) (Oxford, Oxford University Press).
25. European Program MCX 'Modélisation de la Complexité' (2005) Retrieved September 20, 2005, from http://www.mcxapc.org.
26. Fabbri, D. & Munari, A. (1984/1993) Stratégies du Savoir. Vers une psychologie culturelle (Geneva, Switzerland, Université de Genève).
27. Forrester, J. (1961) Industrial Dynamics (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press).
28. Fox Keller, E. (2004) Marrying the Premodern to the Postmodern: Computers and organisms after World War II, in: M. N. Wise (ed.) Growing Explanations. Historical perspectives on recent science (London, Duke University Press) pp. 181-198.
29. Geyer, R. F. (1980) Alienation Theories: A general systems approach (Oxford, Pergamon Press).
30. Gleick, J. (1987) Chaos: Making a new science (New York, Penguin Books).
31. Gould, S. J. & Eldredge, N. (1977) Punctuated Equilibria: The tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered, Paleobiology, 3, pp. 115-151.
32. Helmreich, S. (2004) The Word for World is Computer: Simulating second natures in artificial life, in: M. N. Wise (ed.) Growing Explanations. Historical perspectives on recent science (London, Duke University Press) pp. 275-300.
33. Heylighen, F. (1997) The Evolution of Complexity. Retrieved August 20, 2004, from http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/PublicationsComplexity.html
34. Holland, J. H. (1992) Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An introductory analysis with applications to biology, control and artificial intelligence (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press).
35. Institut National de la Langue Française (2005) Le Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé [Electronic resource] (Paris, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique & Editions Gallimard). Retrieved September 15, 2005, from http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlf.htm
36. Kauffman, S. A. (1993) The Origins of Order: Self-organization and selection in evolution (New York, Oxford University Press).
37. Knuth, D. E. (1968) The Art of Computer Programming (vol. 1): Fundamental algorithms (Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley).
38. Lafontaine, C. (2004) L'Empire Cybernétique. Des machines à penser à la pensée machine (Paris, Seuil).
39. Langton, C. G. (ed.) (1989) Artificial Life: The proceedings of an interdisciplinary workshop on the synthesis and simulation of living systems (Redwood City, CA, Addison-Wesley).
40. Le Moigne, J.-L. (1979/1984) La Théorie du Système Général. Théorie de la modélisation (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France).
41. Le Moigne, J.-L. (1996) Complexité, in: D. Lecourt (ed.), Dictionnaire d'Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France) pp. 205-215.
42. Le Moigne, J.-L. (2001a) Le Constructivisme. Les enracinements (vol. 1) (Paris, L'Harmattan).
43. Le Moigne, J.-L. (2001b) Le Constructivisme. Epistémologie de l'interdisciplinarité (vol. 2) (Paris, L'Harmattan).
44. Le Moigne, J.-L. (2003) Le Constructivisme. Modéliser pour comprendre (vol. 3) (Paris, L'Harmattan).
45. Lissack, M. R. (ed.) (2001) Emergence, a journal of complexity issues in organization and management, 3:1 (Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Ass).
46. Mandelbrot, B. (1983) The Fractal Geometry of Nature (New York, Freeman).
47. McCulloch, W. S. & Pitts, W. (1943) A Logical Calculus of the Ideas of Immanent in Nervous Activity, Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 6, pp. 115-133.
48. Marcus, M. (1977) The Theory of Connecting Networks and their Complexity: A review. Proceedings of the IEEE, 65:9, pp. 1263-1271.
49. Maturana, H. R. & Varela F. J. (1992) The Tree of Knowledge: The biological roots of understanding (Boston, Shambhala).
50. Monod, J. (1972) Chance and Necessity (London, Collins).
51. Morin, E. (1973) Le Paradigme Perdu: La nature humaine (Paris, Seuil).
52. Morin, E. (1977/1980) La Méthode (vol. 1) La nature de la nature (Paris, Seuil).
53. Morin, E. (1980) La Méthode (vol. 2) La vie de la vie (Paris, Seuil).
54. Morin, E. (1986) La Méthode (vol. 3) La connaissance de la connaissance (Paris, Seuil).
55. Morin, E. (1990) Introduction à la Pensée Complexe (Paris, ESF).
56. Morin, E. (1991) La Méthode (vol. 4) Les idées. Leur habitat, leur vie, leurs moeurs, leur organisation (Paris, Seuil).
57. Morin, E. (ed.) (1999) Relier les Connaissances, le Défidu XXIe siècle (Paris, Seuil).
58. Morin, E. (2000) Les Sept Savoirs Nécessaires à l'Education du Futur (Paris, Seuil).
59. Morin, E. (2001) La Méthode (vol. 5) L'humanité de l'humanité, l'identité humaine (Paris, Seuil).
60. Morin, E. (2004) La Méthode (vol. 6) Ethique (Paris, Seuil).
61. Morin, E. (2007) Restricted Complexity, General Complexity, in: C. Gershenson, D. Aerts & B. Edmonds (eds) Worldviews, Science and Us, Philosophy and Complexity (London, World Scientific) pp. 5-29.
62. Morin, E. & Le Moigne, J.-L. (1999) L'Intelligence de la complexité (Paris, L'Harmattan).
63. Morin, E., Motta, R. & Ciurana, E.-R. (2003) Eduquer pour l'Ere Planétaire. La pensée complexe comme méthode d'apprentissage dans l'erreur et l'incertitude humaines (Paris, Balland).
64. Musso, P. (2003) Critique des Réseaux (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France).
65. Nelson, R. J. (1967) Introduction to Automata (New York, Wiley).
66. Nicolescu, B. (1996) La Transdisciplinarité. Manifeste (Monaco, Editions du Rocher).
67. Nicolescu, B. (2005, September) Transdisciplinarity-Past, Present and Future. Paper presented at the Second World Congress of Transdisciplinarity: 'What education for sustainable development? Attitude-research-action' (Vitória,Vila Velha, Brazil).
68. Paul, P. & Pineau, G. (eds) (2005) Transdisciplinarité et Formation (Paris, L'Harmattan).
69. Phelan, S. E. (2001) What is Complexity Science, really? Emergence, 3:1, pp. 120-136.
70. Prigogine, I. & Stengers, I. (1984) Order out of Chaos (New York, Bantam Books).
71. Rescher, N. (1998) Complexity. A philosophical overview (New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction Publishers).
72. Rosenblatt, F. (1958) The Perceptron: A probabilistic model for information storage and organization in the brain, Psychological Review, 65, pp. 386-408.
73. Santa Fe Institute (2005) Homepage. Retrieved September 15, 2005, from http://www.santafe.edu.
74. Schwaninger, M. (2005) System Dynamics and the Evolution of Systems Movement. An historical perspective (Diskussionsbeiträge des Institus für Betriebswirtschaft, #52) (St-Gallen, Switzerland, Hochschule für Wirtschafts-, Rechts- und Sozialwissenschaften).
75. Semetsky, I. (2008) On the Creative Logic of Education, or: Re-reading Dewey through the Lens of Complexity Science, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40:1 (this issue).
76. Shannon, C. E. & Weaver, W. (1963) The Mathematical Theory of Communication (5th edn.) (Chicago, University of Illinois Press).
77. Simon, H. A. (1947) Administrative Behavior (New York, MacMillan).
78. Simon, H. A. & Newell, A. (1958) Heuristic Problem Solving: The next advance in operations research, Operations Research, 6, pp. 1-10.
79. Simon, H. A. (1962) Architecture of Complexity, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 106, pp. 467-482.
80. Simon, H. (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd edn.) (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press).
81. Simpson, J. & al. (ed.) (1989/2005) Oxford English Dictionary Online (2nd edn.) [Electronic resource] (Oxford, Oxford University Press).
82. Thom, R. (1975) Structural Stability and Morphogenesis (Reading, MA, Benjamin).
83. University of the United Nations (Dir.) (1986) Sciences et Pratiques de la Complexité (Paris, La Documentation Française).
84. Von Bertalanffy, L. (1951) General System Theory: A new approach to unity of science (Baltimore, John Hopkins Press).
85. Von Foerster, H. (1960) On Self-Organizing Systems and their Environments, in: M. C. Yovits & S. Cameron (eds) Self-Organizing Systems (London, Pergamon Press) pp. 31-50.
86. Von Foerster, H. (1996) Cybernetics of Cybernetics (2nd edn.) (Minneapolis, MN, Future Systems).
87. Von Neumann, J. (1966) Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (Urbana, University of Illinois Press).
88. Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy (2003, October) The Use of Complexity Science. A survey of federal departments and agencies, private foundations, universities and independent education and research centers. Retrieved August 20, 2004, from http://www.complexsys.org
89. Weaver, W. (1948) Science and Complexity [Electronic version], American Scientist, 36, p. 536. Retrieved August 20, 2004, from http://www.ceptualinstitute.com.
90. Wiener, N. (1948/1961) Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (New York, Wiley & Sons).
91. Wise, M. N. (ed.) (2004) Growing Explanations. Historical perspectives on recent science (Durham, NC, Duke University Press).
92. Wolfram, S. (2001) A New Kind of Science (Champaign, IL, Wolfram Media).