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Social Agency
Praxiology deals with doing and working from the point of view of effectiveness. It has three components: analysis of concepts involving purposive actions; critique of models of action from the viewpoint of efficiency; and normative advisory aspects in recommendations for increasing human efficiency. This fourth volume of the Praxiology series is devoted to the very special topic of social agency. It focuses on two important praxiological concepts: rationality and preparation as preconditions for human action to be effective and efficient. The question of efficiency was raised by Anatol Rapoport over three decades ago in his lecture to the audience at the Praxiological Seminar in Warsaw in 1...
Emergence in Complex, Cognitive, Social, and Biological Systems
The systems movement is made up of many systems societies as well as of disciplinary researchers and researches, explicitly or implicitly focusing on the subject of systemics, officially introduced in the scientific community fifty years ago. Many researches in different fields have been and continue to be sources of new ideas and challenges for the systems community. To this regard, a very important topic is the one of EMERGENCE. Between the goals for the actual and future systems scientists there is certainly the definition of a general theory of emergence and the building of a general model of it. The Italian Systems Society, Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sui Sistemi (AIRS), decided to devote its Second National Conference to this subject. Because AIRS is organized under the form of a network of researchers, institutions, scholars, professionals, and teachers, its research activity has an impact at different levels and in different ways. Thus the topic of emergence was not only the focus of this conference but it is actually the main subject of many AIRS activities.
Processes of Emergence of Systems and Systemic Properties
This book contains the Proceedings of the 2007 Conference of the Italian Systems Society. Papers deal with the interdisciplinary study of processes of emergence, considering theoretical aspects and applications from physics, cognitive science, biology, artificial intelligence, economics, architecture, philosophy, music and social systems. Such an interdisciplinary study implies the need to model and distinguish, in different disciplinary contexts, the establishment of structures, systems and systemic properties. Systems, as modeled by the observer, not only possess properties, but are also able to make emergent new properties. While current disciplinary models of emergence are based on theories of phase transitions, bifurcations, dissipative structures, multiple systems and organization, the present volume focuses on both generalizing those disciplinary models and identifying correspondences and new more general approaches. The general conceptual framework of the book relates to the attempt to build a general theory of emergence as a general theory of change, corresponding to Von Bertalanffy''s project for a general system theory.
Transition Redesigned
Transition Redesigned deals with the philosophical bases of different types of transition: change in the economy, organizational/institutional change, and change in social and individual relationships. The editors' primary goal is to give further impetus to a much-needed worldwide debate on the issue of transition towards a better future. The volume reviews transitions made in different areas of human activity, assesses their relevancy, and analyzes their contexts. During this century, different organizations and institutions will undergo a level of radical and global change that has rarely been seen. The expected shift must be addressed in terms of a multidimensional transition toward building a sustainable society. Do we have an understanding of transition relevant to the task of meeting at least some of the challenges presented in this volume? Do we need a radical innovation for redesigning the transition that may enforce real social and ethical responsibilities into organizational practice on different levels and bring to life new ideas? Transition Redesigned seeks to answer these questions.
Whistleblowing
This latest volume in this important international series discusses practical errors and wrongdoing considered under the action theory (praxiological) umbrella, linking these to ethical behavior. Human actions related to the conduct of business should be effective and efficient. But such praxiological criteria are of secondary importance to norms that should also be taken into account. The primary norm is ethical behavior, which defines the morality of business activities on the basis of the good; these are the presupposed foundations for the human actions in business. The articles in this volume discuss whistleblowing, or the exposure of behavior that violates the ethical foundations of bus...
Responsible Decision Making
What should I do?, How should I deal with this?, How should I behave?, How should I act? we ask ourselves daily. But, this is only the first part of the sentence, while the full sentence is What should I do ... to achieve such and such?, for example to complete an assigned task, to do well before my boss or a client, to be pleased with myself, to carry out my plans, to make money in the stock market, to pass an exam, to complete an application, etc. These and similar questions that people ask, consciously or not, openly or not, are decisions.What skills must we master, especially when there is a need to make not only elementary decisions, but also decisions that affect the existence, health,...
Action Learning
Praxiology is the study of working and doing from the point of view of effectiveness. It has three components: analysis of concepts involving purposive actions; critique of modes of action from the viewpoint of efficiency; and normative advisory aspects in recommen-dations for increasing human efficacy. This sixth volume of the Praxiology series fo-cuses on action learning. Learning from distinguishable action is surprisingly different than learning from a sub-ject expert in human or book form. For those who have worked with and in action learn-ing, the latest form is always distinguishably different from a former experience. Action learning programs are not, in general, intended to tackle p...
Methods, Models, Simulations and Approaches Towards a General Theory of Change
Other approaches are based on considering (1) periodic changes in structure as for processes of self-organisation; (2) non-periodic but coherent changes in structure, as for processes of emergence; (3) the quantum level of description. Papers in the book study the problem considering its transdisciplinary nature, i.e., systemic properties studied per se and not within specific disciplinary contexts. The aim of these studies is to outline a transdisciplinary theory of change in systemic properties. Such a theory should have simultaneous, corresponding and eventually hierarchical disciplinary aspects as expected for a general theory of emergence.
Topics in the Foundation of Statistics
Foundational research focuses on the theory, but theories are to be related also to other theories, experiments, facts in their domains, data, and to their uses in applications, whether of prediction, control, or explanation. A theory is to be identified through its class of models, but not so narrowly as to disallow these roles. The language of science is to be studied separately, with special reference to the relations listed above, and to the consequent need for resources other than for theoretical description. Peculiar to the foundational level are questions of completeness (specifically in the representation of measurement), and of interpretation (a topic beset with confusions of truth and evidence, and with inappropriate metalinguistic abstraction).
Emergent Information
At the dawn of the information age, a proper understanding of information and how it relates to matter and energy is of utmost importance for the survival of civilisation. Yet, attempts to reconcile information concepts underlying science and technology with those en vogue in social science, humanities, and arts are rather rare. This book offers a new approach, departing from fragmented information concepts.Many academics refrain from undergoing unifications, as most undertakings are reductionistic. This book contends that it is the noble task of an as-yet-to-be-developed science of information to go one step in the direction of a unified theory of information without falling back into neith...
