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Contributions to Books:

W. Hofkirchner:
""Mechanisms" at Work in the Information Society";
in: "Generative Mechanisms Transforming the Social Order", M. Archer (ed.); Springer, Cham, 2015, 95 - 112.



English abstract:
This chapter deals with `mechanisms´ from the perspective of critical systems thinking. `Mechanisms´ are rooted in self-organisation. Far from being mechanical, they are contingent dynamisms. They are the cause of the advent of Information Society; they are the cause for the reproduction of Information Society; and they are the cause for a transformation of Information Society.

After explicating critical systems thinking by referring to aims, scope and tools of social science, a critical review of positivist, interpretivist, postmodern and critical theories of the build-up of information society is given. All of them but the last ones focus on one side of a purported dynamism only instead of attempting to integrate several sides for which there is empirical evidence. An example of a dynamism is presented that is crucial for the advent of a Global Sustainable Information Society that would deserve the label `Morphogenic Society´. The description of this dynamism makes creative use of the terms `antagonism´, `agonism´ and `synergism´ and explains what the author calls the Logic of the Third.

German abstract:
This chapter deals with `mechanisms´ from the perspective of critical systems thinking. `Mechanisms´ are rooted in self-organisation. Far from being mechanical, they are contingent dynamisms. They are the cause of the advent of Information Society; they are the cause for the reproduction of Information Society; and they are the cause for a transformation of Information Society.

After explicating critical systems thinking by referring to aims, scope and tools of social science, a critical review of positivist, interpretivist, postmodern and critical theories of the build-up of information society is given. All of them but the last ones focus on one side of a purported dynamism only instead of attempting to integrate several sides for which there is empirical evidence. An example of a dynamism is presented that is crucial for the advent of a Global Sustainable Information Society that would deserve the label `Morphogenic Society´. The description of this dynamism makes creative use of the terms `antagonism´, `agonism´ and `synergism´ and explains what the author calls the Logic of the Third.

Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.