scholarly journals Thinking in Complexity about Learning and Education: A Programmatic View

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ton Jörg
Keyword(s):  
Nonlinear Effects ◽  
Nonlinear Phenomenon ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Dynamic Complexity ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
New Science ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Connected Spaces

In this contribution the focus is on sketching a programmatic view of thinking in complexity about learning and development. This kind of thinking goes beyond linear thinking. The new thinking in complexity about a dynamic complex reality may enable us to build a new science of learning and education, which does not take the nonlinear complex reality for granted but regards it as “real”: a science with a framework that does not exist yet. A new vision on learning is presented which takes the concept of interaction as a key concept, which may be linked with the notion of dynamic complexity. Thinking in complexity has its focus on “that which is interwoven”. Learning and development through interaction may thus be viewed as a way of co‐creating ourselves within a web of reciprocal relationships with the other. This co‐creation may be described as a complex of self‐generative, self‐sustaining processes of mutual “bootstrapping” with potentially nonlinear effects over time. Modelling learning this way, may show learning to be a potentially nonlinear phenomenon within a new reality as the domain of possibilities and potentialities of learning. The modelling of such learning as “bootstrapping,” and the concomitant effects on both partners in the interaction, shows these very possibilities and potentialities of learning in their humanly connected spaces of possibility. It demonstrates the very truth of Vygotsky’s adage that “it is through others that we develop into ourselves.” Based on his thoughts, we are able to develop a new view of the complex nonlinear reality of learning and education, with learners as potentially nonlinear human beings.

scholarly journals On Reinventing Education in the Age of Complexity: A Vygotsky-­inspired Generative Complexity Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ton Jorg
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Nonlinear Effects ◽  
Proximal Development ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Real ◽  
Emergent Complexity ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Causal Framework ◽  
Creativity And Innovation

Reinventing education is the ultimate aim of this contribution. The approach taken is a radical new complexity-inspired bottom-up approach which shows complexity as the fount of creativity and innovation. Organizing complexity accordingly may be the foundation for a new complexified vision of education. It all starts with new thinking in complexity about how complexity is actually generated in the real world. Such thinking offers new kinds of complexity like generative and emergent complexity. The approach taken is very much inspired by the genius of Vygotsky, as a visitor from the future. His focus was not only process-oriented, but also very much possibility-oriented. His method was bottom-up, and opened new spaces of the possible, like the Zone of Proximal Development. Yet he was not able to deal with the problem of complexity in his days. He ‘simply’ lacked an adequate causal framework, which showed causation as a generative bottom-up process, to be linked with potential nonlinear effects over time. He could not explain what he saw as possible: the turning points and upheavals of learning and development. In this contribution the focus will be on the link between the new thinking in complexity and the causal, generative nature of complexity in the real world. This link may show the ontological creativity of the entire world in general, and of human learning and development in particular. It may show the power of generativity to unleash this creativity by a new way of theorizing on education. The complexity-inspired theory of development as generative change, as thriving on the generative power of interaction, is fundamental and foundational for this new theorizing.

The Crisis of Knowing in the Age of Complexity

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ton Jörg
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Nonlinear Effects ◽  
Important Task ◽  
Complex Organization ◽  
Fostering Creativity ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Way ◽  
Self Organizing

The crisis of our time is very much a crisis of knowledge. There is no easy way of “solving” the crisis. “Solving” the crisis demands for a real shift of mind, implying new ways of thinking and knowing about what is the real. The most important task of today, therefore, is to see and to open up a new world: a world of the possible, with its hitherto uncharted and unexplored complexity territory. For the sake of mastering complexity, understanding real complexity is urgently needed. The problem of complexity for organizations is the way organizations and companies attempt to respond to complexity. To confront and master complexity, the focus should be on the conditions of possibility, hitherto unknown. These conditions are about the possibility of triggering self-generative, self-organizing processes with potential nonlinear effects within dynamic, hyperconnected networks. These effects can be generated by the process of amplifying changes within these networks. This amplifying is about the amplifying of learning, of thinking, and of knowing. In practice, this means that new thinking in complexity is urgently needed to master the complexity involved. This approach is compared with the recent approaches advocated by big firms and companies in their embracing of complexity. This chapter shows how they are unable to discover and explore the very potential of complexity for their own Complex Organization (CO). They are very much in need to master complexity for the sake of fostering creativity, novelty, and innovation in their own organizations.

The Dialectical Links Between Environmental Ethics and Sciences

1998 ◽  
pp. 49-57
Author(s):  
Ricardo Rozzi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
Misleading Interpretation ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The One ◽  
Radical Transformation

Ecologists formulate their scientific theories influenced by ethical values, and in turn, environmental ethicists value nature based on scientific theories. Darwinian evolutionary theory provides clear examples of these complex links, illustrating how these reciprocal relationships do not constitute a closed system, but are undetermined and open to the influences of two broader worlds: the sociocultural and the natural environment. On the one hand, the Darwinian conception of a common evolutionary origin and ecological connectedness has promoted a respect for all forms of life. On the other hand, the metaphors of struggle for existence and natural selection appear as problematic because they foist onto nature the Hobbesian model of a liberal state, a Malthusian model of the economy, and the productive practice of artificial selection, all of which reaffirm modern individualism and the profit motive that are at the roots of our current environmental crisis. These metaphors were included in the original definitions of ecology and environmental ethics by Haeckel and Leopold respectively, and are still pervasive among both ecologists and ethicists. To suppose that these Darwinian notions, derived from a modern-liberal worldview, are a fact of nature constitutes a misleading interpretation. Such supposition represents a serious impediment to our aim of transforming our relationship with the natural world in order to overcome the environmental crisis. To achieve a radical transformation in environmental ethics, we need a new vision of nature.

scholarly journals Not Just ‘Once’ upon a Time

Genealogy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Multidisciplinary Research ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Current Mass

Multidisciplinary research indicates the importance of storytelling in child development, most recently exploring the evolved nature of language and narrative. Many questions remain about how children develop competence within such a vital but highly complex process. The ‘once upon a time’ concept is present within nearly every human language on Earth, indicating what a powerful hold ‘storying’ has over human beings and what a central role it plays within human societies. Sue Lyle proposes that human beings are above all, ‘storytelling animals’. Emergent questions include whether and how current mass-produced storytelling products and interactive media developed by Western technology impact children’s competence in the human ‘storying’ process and, in particular, whether such rapid change should be approached with more reflection and caution than is currently the case. In this article, I will consider the process of child development with respect to language and ‘storying’, the traditional role of stories and ‘make-believe’ in the fabric of children’s lives, how this has changed in the recent past in technologically advancing societies, and how such change may impact children’s learning and development.

scholarly journals From the Publications Chair

2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-55
Author(s):  
Iris Berger
Keyword(s):  
Full Potential ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Vision

On the (Complex) Topic of Chidren's RightsThe Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out the rights that must be realized for children to develop their full potential, free from hunger and want, neglect and abuse. It reflects a new vision of the child. Children are neither the property of their parents nor are they helpless objects of charity. They are human beings and are the subject of their own rights (UNICEFF statement regard-ing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,http://www.unicef.org/crc/index_protect-ing.html).

scholarly journals Reconstructing the Economy: A Methodological Journey from the Surface to the Essence and Back

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 483-493
Author(s):  
Peter Karl Fleissner
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
New Science ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Protection Mechanisms ◽  
Abstract Level ◽  
The Many ◽  
Copy Protection

The essential methodology in social science to “understand” phenomena is informed abstraction. But the way - how and what for the abstraction process is shaped - divides the economists into various schools. While mainstream econ- omists abstract from any links of the economy to human beings - replacing them by selfish machines maximizing their prof- its or individual utilities, and neglecting any deeper analysis of the basic constructions they use (like prices or money), heterodox economists try to look behind the surface, link them to certain periods of history and to the source of all value: humans are social beings and cannot exist without mutuality. The paper presents a heterodox way to reconstruct contempo- rary capitalist economies by applying the new science of information with its evolutionary concepts. It starts the description on a very abstract level: useful things and services produced by specialized labor. Step by step new layers of economic activities and related information are added and become the basis for the next one. Vice versa economic activities on lower layers become controlled and modified by higher layers. One can see that the higher controlling principles in contemporary capitalist economies do not assist the economic, social, and cultural well-being of the majority of people, but function ac- cording to the self-interest of a minority. For the first time in history capitalism has developed new technologies that in prin- ciple could allow for the participation of the many, to create abundance of information, and to offer tools for building a de- mocratic and sustainable society. But by the same capitalism, rigid Intellectual Property Rights and severe copy protection mechanisms enforce artificial shortage of information goods.

REE Characteristics and Indicate Function in Groundwater of Jiaozishan Landfill Site Environs of Nanjing, China

2012 ◽  
Vol 518-523 ◽  
pp. 2712-2717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gui Fang Yang ◽  
Yue Hua Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Pollution Index ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Landfill Site ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Garbage Dump ◽  
The World ◽  
New Thinking

In recent years, researches of functions of REE on Hydrogeology are carried out all over the world. However, little is known about REE characteristics in polluted place that was affected by human beings. In this article, REE characteristics in groundwater which is polluted by Jiaozishan landfill are summarized, furthermore, hydrogeology condition and current pollution situation of research area are combined to analyze the correlativity between ∑REE and other pollution index, which provide a new thinking for groundwater polluted by garbage dump.

scholarly journals Reconstructing the Economy: A Methodological Journey from the Surface to the Essence and Back

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 483-493
Author(s):  
Peter Karl Fleissner
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
New Science ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Protection Mechanisms ◽  
Abstract Level ◽  
The Many ◽  
Copy Protection

The essential methodology in social science to “understand” phenomena is informed abstraction. But the way - how and what for the abstraction process is shaped - divides the economists into various schools. While mainstream econ- omists abstract from any links of the economy to human beings - replacing them by selfish machines maximizing their prof- its or individual utilities, and neglecting any deeper analysis of the basic constructions they use (like prices or money), heterodox economists try to look behind the surface, link them to certain periods of history and to the source of all value: humans are social beings and cannot exist without mutuality. The paper presents a heterodox way to reconstruct contempo- rary capitalist economies by applying the new science of information with its evolutionary concepts. It starts the description on a very abstract level: useful things and services produced by specialized labor. Step by step new layers of economic activities and related information are added and become the basis for the next one. Vice versa economic activities on lower layers become controlled and modified by higher layers. One can see that the higher controlling principles in contemporary capitalist economies do not assist the economic, social, and cultural well-being of the majority of people, but function ac- cording to the self-interest of a minority. For the first time in history capitalism has developed new technologies that in prin- ciple could allow for the participation of the many, to create abundance of information, and to offer tools for building a de- mocratic and sustainable society. But by the same capitalism, rigid Intellectual Property Rights and severe copy protection mechanisms enforce artificial shortage of information goods.

Training, Transformation and Education

2015 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 301-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bakhurst
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Human Development ◽  
First Language ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Intentional Agents

AbstractInMind and World, John McDowell concludes that human beings ‘are born mere animals’ and ‘are transformed into thinkers and intentional agents’, principally by their initiation into language. Such ‘transformational views’ of human development typically represent first-language learning as a movement from a non-rationally secured conformity with correct practice, through increasing understanding, to a state of rational mastery of correct practice. Accordingly, they tend to invoke something like Wittgenstein's concept of training to explain the first stage of this process. This essay considers the cogency of this view of learning and development. I agree with Sebastian Rödl that the idea of training (as developed, say, by Meredith Williams) is inadequate to the nature of infancy and child-parent interaction, and I draw on the work of Lev Vygotsky and Michael Tomasello to offer McDowell a richer picture, which acknowledges the child's active role in fostering the second-personal relations that underlie the possibility of language learning. Such considerations force us to revise the transformational view, but do not refute it outright as Rödl believes. I conclude by considering the relevance of McDowell's view of second nature to two striking ideas: Ian Hacking's suggestion that the development of autistic children is ‘non-Vygotskian’ and Derek Parfit's claim that persons are not human beings.

Cautious Optimism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Broad Implication ◽  
Moral Learning ◽  
Good Reasoning

This chapter briefly draws out some main lessons from the previous chapters and contains a discussion of some their implications for moral enhancement. We are capable of moral knowledge and virtue, in part because we do have a regard for reason that ultimately complicates the reason/emotion dichotomy. We do often fall short, but when we do, the problem is not with moral psychology in particular but the ways in which reason can be corrupted generally. One broad implication of cautious optimism is that the best method for increasing virtue won’t target our empathy or passions to the exclusion of our (often unconscious) reasoning. However, sound arguments aren’t enough, for human beings are fallible creatures with cognitive biases and limited attention spans. An intelligent populace is necessary, but so is moral technology, such as environments that nudge people to engage in good reasoning, not rationalization, particularly during moral learning and development.

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