Papers by wolfgang hofkirchner
IS4SI Summit 2023
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The 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
Ludwig von Bertalanffy is known as founding father of the General System Theory (GST). When Ludwi... more Ludwig von Bertalanffy is known as founding father of the General System Theory (GST). When Ludwig von Bertalanffy created his GST amidst the last century, he was able to overcome the deep cleft between the controversial theoretical approaches to biology – mechanicism and vitalism. He did so by formulating laws of organisation ruling biota and after generalising them he successfully applied them to different domains such as medicine, psychology, psychotherapy. Methodologically, Bertalanffy revived synthesis, ontologically, he advocated perspectivism, and, ethically, he was humanist. His main concern was the fate of the human civilisation and the new way of thinking necessary for the survival of mankind. Evolutionary systems theory thus is the most recent elaboration of Bertalanffy’s original GST-ideas. “Unity through diversity” is the motto that holds for evolutionary systems theory, too – epistemologically, ontologically, and ethically, if it takes advantage of categories of dialec...
It is a widely held assumption that computers process information. When finding out that natural ... more It is a widely held assumption that computers process information. When finding out that natural systems manifest information processes, it is hypothesised that natural systems too are computers. This can be called the quintessence of the “computational turn”, however, it is a non sequitur. This chapter draws upon the ontological distinction of strict determinism and less-than-strict determinism. It contends that artificial devices like computers work on the basis of strict determinism, while natural systems to the extent as they self-organise work on the basis of less-than-strict determinism. Strict determinism is a derivative of less-than-strict determinism. Thus the chapter concludes that concerning computers and natural, self-organising systems the assumption of the computational turn is wrong. It is the other way round: computers play a restricted, though essential and indispensable, part within self-organising (natural and social) contexts.
In sociology and social sciences there has been for long a debate on whether actions and agents p... more In sociology and social sciences there has been for long a debate on whether actions and agents play the role of the explanans in sociological or social scientific explanations or structures and rules. In this contribution it will be argued that introducing the concept of self-organisation that relates agency and systems enables the divide between both strains of thought to be rendered obsolescent. This reconceptualization of the central issue in social science in terms of self-organization is able to resort to and integrate important ideas and insights of recent attempts to overcome the dichotomy in social theory which do not explicitly refer to an evolutionary systems theory of society. However, it differs fundamentally from the Luhmannian type of approaching social systems while being consistent with various other perspectives on evolutionary systems inside and outside the human realm — in particular, with Bertalanffy’s General System Theory.
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2019
The paper describes the glossaLAB international project as a contribution to confront the urgent ... more The paper describes the glossaLAB international project as a contribution to confront the urgent need of knowledge integration frameworks, as required to face global challenges that overwhelm disciplinary knowledge capacity. Under this scope, glossaLAB is devised to make contributions in three main aspects of such endeavor: (i) development of a sound theoretical framework for the unification of knowledge, (ii) establishment of broadly accepted methodologies and tools to facilitate the integration of knowledge, (iii) development of assessment criteria for the qualification of interdisciplinarity undertakings. The paper discusses the main components of the project and the solutions adopted to achieve the intended objectives at three different levels: at the technical level, glossaLAB aims at developing a platform for knowledge integration based on the elucidation of concepts, metaphors, theories and problems, including a semantically-operative recompilation of valuable scattered encyclopedic contents devoted to two entangled transdisciplinary fields: the sciences of systems and information. At the theoretical level, the goal is reducing the redundancy of the conceptual system (defined in terms of "intensional performance" of the contents recompiled), and the elucidation of new concepts. Finally, at the meta-theoretical level, the project aims at assessing the knowledge integration achieved through the co-creation process based on (a) the diversity of the disciplines involved and (b) the integration properties of the conceptual network stablished through the elucidation process. Acknowledgements: The authors wish to dedicate this work to the memory of Charles François. His work represents an invaluable and everlasting contribution to the integration of knowledge to which glossaLAB project is devoted. We are indebted to his legacy. This contribution has been carried out under support of glossaLAB project, co-founded by the Universidad Estatal Península de Santa Elena, Ecuador, and an international consortium of academic institutions.
Proceedings, 2020
The Global Sustainable Information Society is a theoretical concept describing the vision of a go... more The Global Sustainable Information Society is a theoretical concept describing the vision of a good society in the age of global challenges. Globality, sustainability and informationality are understood in an innovative way as essential features of a world society to come that is capable of mastering the global challenges. Regarding informationality, the distinction between informedness and informatisation is made and a law of requisite information is introduced. The terms “intelligence”, “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) and “wisdom” are discussed from the perspective of complex systems. Intelligence and AI without wisdom are not deemed sufficient to meet the conditions of a good society today.
tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, Jul 6, 2010
Given the short period of time internet research and related new fields had to establish themselv... more Given the short period of time internet research and related new fields had to establish themselves, it does not come as a surprise that their development is still a search for identity. Self-reflection is needed when it comes to recommendations for practice, and when it comes to empirical studies, and it is in the domain of theory where the glue can be found that integrates praxis with empirical research. The four collected papers published here date back to a panel I held on "Approaches towards ICTs and Society-Theories and Methodologies" at the IADIS ICT, Society and Human Beings 2009 (ICT 2009) Conference chaired by Gunilla Bradley. In the first article, Alice Robbin chooses an empirical approach for investigating different theoretical and methodological approaches researchers are pursuing, while, in the next article, Wolfgang Hofkirchner sketches a logical categorisation. In the third article, Eduard Aibar describes the political consequences of research lines following different theories on the relationship of technology and society. In the last article, Gunilla Bradley provides one example of a theoretical approach that reconciles the society perspective with the individual perspective and gives a normative vision of the good society.
The European Physical Journal Special Topics, 2017
Proceedings, 2017
The talk will focus on the potential of social media to support commoning relations and the actua... more The talk will focus on the potential of social media to support commoning relations and the actuality of devastating impacts through post-truth, fake-news populism.
Proceedings, 2017
This paper is on ontological assumptions on which ideologies such as trans-and post humanism are ... more This paper is on ontological assumptions on which ideologies such as trans-and post humanism are based. The method by which these ontological assumptions are criticised is the analysis of the way of thinking (reductionism/projectionism, disjunctionism, and integrationism).
Social Morphogenesis, 2014
Data Science Journal, 2007
Currently, a Science of Information does not exist. What we have is Information Science that grew... more Currently, a Science of Information does not exist. What we have is Information Science that grew out of Library and Documentation Science with the help of Computer Science. The basic understanding of information in Information Science is the Shannon type of "information" at which numerous criticisms have been levelled so far. The task of an as-yet-to-be-developed Science of Information would be to study the feasibility of, and to advance, approaches toward a more general Theory of Information and toward a common concept of information. What scientific requirements need to be met when trying to develop a Science of Information? What are the aims of a Science of Information? What is the scope of a Science of Information? What tools should a Science of Information make use of? The present paper responds to these questions.
Biosystems, 1996
This paper proposes the restoration of information theory by means of a philosophy of evolutionar... more This paper proposes the restoration of information theory by means of a philosophy of evolutionary systems. What this philosophy implies for the conception of information may be called a multi-stage model, comprising both the history and the ordering of information processing by real-world systems. Such a unifying information concept may assist suitable research in the coming field of information science.
IS4SI Summit 2023
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
The International Review of Information Ethics
A citizen uses his mobile phone to capture events during a demonstration on June 22nd 2012 in Teh... more A citizen uses his mobile phone to capture events during a demonstration on June 22nd 2012 in Tehran, Iran (source: wpmu.mah.se)
IS4SI 2021, 2022
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
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Papers by wolfgang hofkirchner