Developing epistemological consciousness about complexity- seven domains of discourse

Introduction:

This paper  describes a tool for thinking and developing consciousness about the epistemology contained and revealed in our  discourse about  psychology and complexity theory. It is concerned with knowledge, with how we can know and with how we can sensibly speak about knowing.

The conceptual model of what originally was the seven epistemological levels was developed in 1975 in order to help students who were grappling with the wide variety of models of psychology or orders of human experience so that the similarities, differences and contradictions of the existing models could be clarified and clear communication enhanced.

The model is not intended to express any values in itself and it sets no hierarchies of value either. Originally, the model offered simply a category sorting tool for thinking of the implications and ramifications of each level in terms of clarifying and preventing  the kind of logical fallacies which the Oxford philosopher Ryle (1966) identified as category errors.  Essentially it is phenomenological in the sense that it makes provision for the description of differentiated domains of discourse avoiding common category errors.  Discourse is here defined as text or talk and discourse analysis is not so much a tool to get at empirical truths but rather a different way of conceptualising talk - “a new perspective”. (Silverman 1992) The model provides a simultaneous implication of different domains of human existence alongside the different modes of discourse used and the different narratives involved.

In thinking and talking about complexity, we are faced with the challenge of perceiving and discoursing upon the different domains of discourse that are involved in the attempt to capture and circumscribe the field in question. Frequently it is observed that misunderstandings are not necessarily  due to intrinsic differences, but occur as result of category errors when the different truth values which apply in different domains are used indiscriminately across the various levels of discourse.

No one work about complexity is complete, and the field of complexity seems to be self-organising.  Different concepts emerge from within the field and at the same time, different domains of knowledge are providing a constant supply to the new formation of useful and illuminatory concepts from outside. In this vein, the paper will  use as examples  simultaneous categorisation of complexity concepts across the different epistemological levels (or domains). We will do that by giving examples of notions of complexity across the seven domains of discourse or experience, as well as specific examples occurring in organisational settings so that a perception can be  formed of how the epistemology of complexity  can lead to the creation of an  useable layout of the discourses involved.

In summary, the model provides a classificatory tool for identifying and separating out different layers of knowledge, different epistemological  areas and the various realms of discourse  and methodology concerning truth values appropriate to each.

By ‘domain’ we mean:

domain of reality, constituted in three interlocking dimensions, the criteria for accepting explanations, different operational coherences structuring such explanations, and the actions seen as legitimate. Together, these define a cognitive domain-a domain of possible viable existence. Each is equally rational and equally consistent, and to the extent that we can choose between them the choice depends only on our preference (Mingers, 1995).

  This model does not intend to be normative in any way. Its application should be judged solely by bearing in mind the potential usefulness for perception and developing of an epistemological consciousness. (It will  soon be obvious to readers  familiar with developmental and/or evolutionary backgrounds that there is an ontogenetic and phylogenetic unfolding across the domains. However, it should be stressed that in my view all of these levels co-exist right from wherever we wish to start talking about “the  beginning”   -  otherwise known as “initial conditions”.  Any notion that one domain is ‘higher’ or ‘better’ than another would show a misunderstanding of a  relational model grounded in simultaneous wholeness.

 Rather than applying it directly to the different complexity writings, it is aimed  here at creating a way of thinking about what we mean in complexity terms and how we are using them in different settings. In particular it can help to clarify the truth values appropriate to each epistemological domain - thus preventing category errors, improper conflations and unnecessary confusions, as well as unavoidable miscommunications. The model is both ontological in that it is concerned with existence or being as well as epistemological in that it is concerned with knowledge, what and how we can know and the methodologies  we use in distinguishing varieties of truth values between different domains.

The objects that the observer brings forth in his or her operations of distinction arise endowed with the properties that realize the operational coherences of the domain of praxis of living in which they are constituted, [This path entails] the recognition that is the criterion of acceptability that the observer applies..... that determines the reformulations of the praxis of living that constitute explanations in it...... each configuration of operations of distinctions that the observer performs specifies a domain of reality. (Maturana, 19988, p.30).

Description of kinds of talk appropriate to this domain:

This is the realm of sensory experience, the part of our experienced world which functions in time before language manifests. The sources of knowledge on this level are the objects and events perceived through our senses and also the proprioceptive experience of phenomena within our bodies. It concerns body processes such as sleep arousal, psychophysiology, natural sleep rhythms, physical conditions of disease, the physical manifestation of anxiety and general sensory awareness.

Example:

Complexity is associated with the intricate inter-twining and inter-connectivity of elements within a system and between a system and its environment. Complexity theory as developed, has been really an attempt to capture and appreciate the changes in our ways of thinking and the ways the organisations are consequently affected. People working in organisations have been undoubtedly influenced by the changing conditions around them. The environment around the organisations has become complex beyond our previous experience, and in response to that, the various management initiatives that are employed in an attempt to make organisations more efficient in the face of changes, have all been influencing how people feel inside organisations. Many people have been complaining about increased levels of stress and have been consequently unable to enjoy either a creative streak in their work or their family and social life as a response to that.

Epistemological truth value/ methodology:

Physiological processes can be “measured” in some instances such as brain wave patterns on an EEG, but - as philosophers over centuries have been at pains to show -  is its  probably impossible to ever know whether another person’s sensation of the colour red is similar or different from one’s own. Perception, as pain, is irretrievably subjective  and embodied.

Description of talk appropriate to this domain:

This level comprises the feelings that we have in common with infants and animals-fear, pain, joy, anger etc. Emotions and subjective feelings pervade our existence, and even the smallest possible segments of our perceptions carry an ‘emotional colour’. Emotions are the subjective feelings which arise as response to one or another stimulus events.

This domain involves a pre-verbal area of experience and activity. It concerns those psychophysiological states or electro-chemical muscular changes in our bodies we talk about as feelings, affect and/or emotion in psychology. What one person experiences as distress in the vertiginous post-modern condition, another may experience as pleasurable excitement at the unfolding of creative potentials of chaos. It has been convincingly demonstrated and argued that there is always an emotional layer or sub-text to any communication - even if it is the acknowledgement of the other person.

Example:

The complex conditions inside the organisation, which respond to the increased complexity from the environment outside, create increased levels of demand for performance on behalf of the employees; people are required to perform at high levels, to different tasks and across different domains at the same time. There is a great amount of pressure put on people to perform and this competition creates fear of being caught out, when people are asked to perform tasks that they are not really very knowledgeable about. This creates what de Geus has called  a sense of fear and terror ‘in the boardroom’, sometimes resembling what has been termed the ‘Achilles syndrome’. (Clarkson, 1994) Yet this is frequently not spoken, what is said concerns “downsizing”, recession, or a multiple of other words which conceal rather than reveal the often turbulent feelings and emotions which drives us all.

Epistemological truth value/ methodology:

Emotions are essentially subjective, experiential and felt states, whereas our knowledge about them seems to be existential, phenomenological and unique. Many organisations and male-dominated cultures lack useful and efficient ways of processing the emotional layers of their relationships, their cultures and their communications, yet psychologically there exist many tools, techniques and approaches which can identify and facilitate the emotional shadow of the organisations.

Description:

This level comprises naming through words, a process which rests on division into classes and categories and precedes complex abstract thinking. (This model is a level three discourse itself.) This is the area of objective nominalism, when objects are placed together on the basis of certain resemblances. Linguistic identity  is established through the repetition of a unique sound  which supports the development of an objective reality outside the self. Name giving implies reflective shared experience, the basis of human culture. Within any common set of language rules the fact that certain kinds of words are known to stand for certain kinds of objects, can be agreed, debated or disputed. Philosophically it represents the realm which the phenomenologists such as Merleau Pointy posited as a third way between idealism and positivism.

Example:

In terms of complexity, there are implications associated with the naming of the different concepts and ideas to be found in the field. For example, people might be confusing the notions of ‘complex’ and ‘complicated’ when they are thinking about complexity. Battram (1998), distinguishes between the two by using the example of a television, a very complicated system, but not a complex system, in that the vast number of parts out of which the television set is comprised are connected in simple, pre-determined ways. Similarly, we need all the time to define and redefine concepts such as self-organised criticality, complex adaptive systems, emergence, autopoiesis. The LSE project on developing a lexicon for complexity reflects exactly the need for finding and  articulating  some kind of   nominative agreement  (about the words we use and what they mean) which reflects common understandings within this community of practice. The request to provide this paper is another.

Epistemological truth value /methodology:

In this realm of discourse there can be some agreement or disagreement within or between groups, within dialect or language or disciplinary groups eg. “what things are called”. Within any common set of language rules the fact that certain kinds of words are known to stand for certain kinds of objects or phenomena can be agreed, debated or disputed. Without clarity of definition  (or discourse about such definitions) words such as “autopoeisis” or “emergence” or “love” are often used idiosyncratically,  whimsically or arbitrarily.  Teubner recently gave an  example of a contract  which was  concluded on the basis of an  agreement between two parties in terms of so many thousands of franc. However, the one party was using Belgian franc and the other French. (Two language communities attaching different numerical values to an apparently identical nominator.) I believe the dispute was eventually resolved by reference to the  laws of country in which the agreement was made (Switzerland?) . In this way Teubner’s example demonstrates the work of separating the nominative domain from the social or legal epistemological domain.

 Brief  description:

 The normative level comprises the various aspects of the individual encountering the norms and values of the group, the tribe, the family, the organisation, the culture, the church, the political party etc.  This level of discourse tends to deal with facts, knowledge of attributes and practices regarding people as ‘cultural beings’. It deals with values, norms, collective belief systems, stereotypes of gender or race for example  and societal or organisational expectations.

Example:

As philosophers since the earliest times to the ethicists of today have pointed out, everything that we say (or not say) implicates issues of value, ethical preference -   explicit or imbedded cultural constructions which privilege certain discourses or certain voices.  Since  Oppenheimer  and Nagasaki, few scientists still claim that science is “value free” or neutral. The very  fact that we are engaging in the study of complexity means that there are other areas of enquiry which we are choosing, consciously or not, to ignore, neglect or refuse.  In any organisation the implicit values and norms - the socalled organisational culture - is both much more  difficult to identify that the manufacturing process and also a major target for consultancy interventions in terms of “culture change”.

Values, morals, ethics are not always subject to logical tests of truth or statistical rationality - it is a different realm of questioning and knowing. Norms provide containment and limitation, security and meaning, a sense of belonging or exclusion. The normative tends to support homeostasis and resistance to change - unless change becomes the norm or the “the organisational culture”.

 Indicative description:

This is the level of facts, the logical-rational dimension of testable statements, where causal  relations can be clearly established. The rational permits clear positivistic  principles of verification, it operates with that which can be objectively identified, defined and proved - for that time and that culture.  Facts in this realm exist not as subjective feelings, mere words or shared beliefs, but as rational conclusions derived in a repeatable form from a body of well established empirical data. This layer of knowledge and activity includes thinking, making sense of things, examination of cause and effect, working with facts and information of the time and place. It covers science, logic, statistical probabilities, provable facts, verifiability according to Popper,  established ‘truth’ statements and consensually observable phenomena.

Example:

There is only little consensus on facts  as far as complexity is concerned. It is an open proposition, that basically what we probably can claim to be ‘the’ fact about complexity is that it is a self-organising concept and this is what researchers and practitioners alike attempt to untangle and explain.

At the same time, all the activity on a pragmatic level that deals with experimenting with complexity ideas, such as computer simulation, the experiments at the Santa Fe institute, as well as the Complexity Game at the LSE are to be found inside this domain.

Epistemological truth value/methodology

It is characteristic of all level five discourse that it is possible to establish truth values by consensual practices of that time and that culture. That is, it is the only realm of discourse where dispute can be settled by reference to external tests resembling  what is commonly understood as the modern scientific method. If there is disagreement about a “fact” within a particular knowledge community, it is a misnomer and does not belong within this realm of discourse.

Indicative description:

The theoretical level attends to explanations, metaphors, the stories that are told to show how things have come about,  narratives and metaphors. They are the means by which we make sense of the world; they do not establish the ‘Truth’ but remain some of the possible versions that when verified or negated pass from theory to the factual domain (5). Within the sixth domain there are the hypotheses, explanations, metaphors and stories that humans have created in order to explain  why things are they way they are and why humans behave in a certain way. Theory that is not underpinned by the rationality of domain 5 tends to rely on the belief structures of level 4.

Example:

Almost all of the complexity ‘stories’, ‘narratives’ and ‘theories’ fall into this category, basically trying to explain domain 1 reactions, such as being upset or excited about such concepts. At this domain, there has been an attempt to create a multiple ‘narratives’ of complexity so as to accommodate its diversity and the Mitleton-Kelly paper examining three different approaches to the theory of complexity is an example of work at this level.

 Epistemological truth value/methodology

When a theory, narrative or hypothesis is “proved” true, it belongs to the domains of facts and logical or statistical probabilities. Until this becomes the case,  such notions belong to the narrative or theoretical ontological and epistemological  domain. However, there are criteria for judging whether a particular theory is better or worse. Such criteria help us to choose or prefer some theories or explanations or hypotheses over others. The criteria for evaluating such theories usually include dimensions such as  validity, reliability,  coherence, lack of internal contradictions, elegance,  utility, economy of explanation ( eg. Occam’s razor), ‘fit’ with surrounding theories and already proven facts.

Indicative description:

The transpersonal level attends to the unexplained areas of human interaction and experience. It arises within an inner locus of evaluation and experience which appears to connect with the universal and is distinct from the outer locus of evaluation, which is group norm related. This domain refers to the epistemological area or universe of discourse concerned with people as ‘spiritual beings’, or for those who want to use another nomination - with the soul. It is beyond rationality, facts and theories and concerns the paradoxical, the unpredictable and the inexplicable. It is a region of unknowability, a horizon that has to be left open for the development of future areas of discourse and reference for these currently unknown conditions. In this domain, we could present complexity as those aspects of  autopoiesis which are still mysterious, ‘physis’ or  the life-force (see Heraclitus and Heidegger) which makes systems and organisms emerge and self-develop out of unpredictable circumstances - autopoetic  emergence itself.

Example:

There are many ways one can develop a discourse about such concepts, although one does not have to accept any of these given terms for talking about the ‘unexplained’ or the currently inexplicable. Most human beings have experienced awe or wonder or synchronistic encounters, or sudden flashes of intuition or creativity which are not circumscribed in the other realms discussed so far. This is the realm for them - until we can sensibly speak about them when they become appropriate to other levels. It is characteristic  of  the seventh domain  that it is silent or wordless and that we lack vocabulary which can truly represent what we know (or sense) at this level. In the oriental tradition it is said that the Tao which can be described is not the Tao; in the occidental tradition Wittgenstein advises: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should be silent.”

Epistemological truth value/methodology

It is characteristic of experience in this domain that  people are convinced by “direct experience” which  feels impossible to articulate or effectively communicate to others who have not shared similar direct experience - or who come to do so. It is the knowledge of the mystic, the “peak experience’   or  the quantum physicist who marvels at the beauty of  our universe and concludes that “God does not play dice.”

Discussion:

The ‘distortion of domains’/therapeutic  modes

Domain confusion:

A form of category confusion indicating a wrong identification of domains, for example when a statement that expresses a group norm is taken to be rational definition or fact. Imprecise languge supports many domain confusions.

An example of a domain confusion would be  a phrase like:

‘It is the organisational values that have to change so as to accomodate change in organisational environments’

Domain contamination:

This happens when one or more domains is impaired by the controlling influence of another domain; one example would be:

‘It is good to have statistics about change in organisations’

Conflict:

This exists when one or more levels are in opposition and in fact, they usually are. An indication would be a phrase like:

‘It is commonly agreed that complexity is....

or we should try to build a set of parametres for measuring the complexity of...’

Cross-level displacement:

This occurs when a condition pertaining to one level cannot find expression on that level and manifests on another level in symbolic form, perhaps as a symptom. Of that kind, would be a concept like ‘The Tao of Management’.

Conclusion:

Several communities of knowledge and practice have effectively used this model to clarify their thinking and their communication. In response to a specific request, it is offered here as a possible tool for facilitate mutual understanding and greater fruitfulness in our discourses and discoveries about complexity.

References

Battram (1998) Navigating  Complexity

Clarkson, P. (1975) ‘Seven-level model’. Invitational paper delivered at University of Pretoria, November.

Clarkson, P. (1994) The Achilles Syndrome, Element.

Maturana, H. (1988) Reality: The search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling argument. Irish Journal of Psych. 9:25-82.

Mingers, J. (1995) Self-Producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis, New York: Plenum Press.

Mitleton-Kelly, E . (Personal communication)

Ryle, G.  (1966).  Dilemmas:  The Tarner Lectures.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Silverman., D., (1992) Interpreting Qualitative Data; Methods of Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction. London: Sage.      

© and moral rights P. Clarkson, 1975/1999.