Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems [Paperback]

Paul Cilliers (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415152879 | ISBN-13: 978-0415152877 | Publication Date: March 11, 1998 | Edition: 1

In Complexity and Postmodernism, Paul Cilliers explores the idea of complexity in the light of contemporary perspectives from philosophy and science. Cilliers offers us a unique approach to understanding complexity and computational theory by integrating postmodern theory (like that of Derrida and Lyotard) into his discussion. Complexity and Postmodernism is an exciting and an original book that should be read by anyone interested in gaining a fresh understanding of complexity, postmodernism and connectionism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a cogently argued, important and original book.
–Mary Hesse, author of Forces and Fields

This book constitutes an excellent introduction to complexity theory and provides an intelligent appraisal of its implications for the philosophies of mind and science as well as for social theory.
–Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick

About the Author

Paul Cilliers lectures in philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (March 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415152879
• ISBN-13: 978-0415152877
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,205,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A modernist approach to Complexity, July 6, 2000

By 

Will McWhinney (Venice, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems (Paperback)

Cilliers has undertaken an important job - exploring the linkage between complexity thinking and postmodernism. He has made excellent use of some main writers on postmodernism and shown some important relation to studies of representation and self-organizing systems. He works hard to help us escape the locked-in positions of positivistic and foundationalist science, but his major conceptual base in connectionism displays an unabashed modernist view. While connectionism is an important tool in exploring the ideas about how the mind/brain works, it ignores other important ideas arising from the work of Maturana/Varela and Niklas Luhmann on auto-poiesis and John Holland on complex adaptive systems. More significantly, Cilliers is locked into the ideas of networks. It is a valuable tool for the technological advances, but for a full philosophical exploration he undertakes, we needs also to look at field thinking, particularly that arising in quantum fields discussion such as in Sunny Auyang' work.

What I find most difficult in Cillier's retention of the modernist view of competition. Our cultures may be agonistic but is competition fundamental to the development of human life?

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All Without Referring to Wittgenstein?, January 21, 2002

By 

Brad (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems (Paperback)

I read this book primarily through an interest in the philosophy of language. Of particular relevance in this respect is the emphasis on a characterisation of complexity as being opposed to traditional notions of representation. Cilliers draws parallels between the philosophy of Saussure and Derrida and scientific developments in distributed representation, particularly with respect to connectionist approaches as implemented in neural networks. Cilliers argues that a classical representational theory of language that posits syntax as an instantiation of semantics does not sufficiently allow for the complexity evident in language, but rather that meaning is constituted by the dynamic relationships between both the components of language and the environment in which it is embedded. Cilliers explicitly rejects rule-based symbol systems as being adequete for modelling language, referring to recent scientific research using neural networks to simulate language learning indicating that "though rules may be useful to describe linguistic phenomena, explicit rules need not be employed when language is acquired or when it is used" (p. 32). In Chapter 4 (pp. 48-57), Cilliers considers the Chinese Room Gedankenexperiment from the perspective of his thesis. He suggests that the debate has unquestionably assumed that the formal model of language represented by the argument is correct, that is, that a rule-book such as the one supposed is even possible. Cilliers suggests that this assumes certain features of language: that a formal grammar for a natural language can be constructed and represented in a lookup table; that there is a clean split between syntax and semantics; and that language represents rather than constitutes meaning (p. 53).

The overall picture of language that Cilliers develops has important parallels with the views of Wittgenstein, though, somewhat surprisingly, Wittgenstein is never explicitly mentioned (except with regard to his family concepts). Firstly, meaning is construed as occuring through dynamic processes (use) rather than static representations (the conception that Wittgenstein's private language argument criticises). Secondly, the idea that there is some fact of the matter (whether inside or outside human agents) that determines meaning is explicitly rejected. Finally, a straightforward split between syntax and semantics is denied (a distinction that the sceptical interpretation of Wittgenstein, offered by Kripke, takes advantage of).

In summary, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in making connections between dynamic systems theory and philosophy of mind or language -- Cilliers proves an effective communicator in both of the fields he wishes to connect.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A seminal work in the philosophy of technology, January 8, 2000

By 

Salamantis (Pensacola, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems (Paperback)

This work is essential for a cutting-edge understanding of how two independently cultivated lines of investigation - complexity and postmodernism - have fortuitously dovetailed, providing us with a new level of perspective upon the character and evolution of contemporary technology. I highly recommend reading this work in tandem with Don Ihde's groundbreaking study EXPANDING HERMENEUTICS: VISUALISM IN SCIENCE, itself a phenomenologically well-grounded yet visionary exposition of where the computer-inspired "visual turn" in hermeneutics is leading us in the 21st century.