589
Epistemic Uncertainty and Complexity Theories
Epistemic Uncertainty and Complexity Theories
Thursday, 14 July 2016: 10:45-12:15
Location: Hörsaal 15 (Juridicum)
RC51 Sociocybernetics (host committee) Language: English
The theoretical reflection on Complexity has always followed two main streams: Complexity has been either a philosophical notion for defining what society is and how it works or a tool for collecting and interpreting empirical data.
This session will carry out a reflection on the current state of the art in the studies on Complexity, trying to understand if this division theory-empirical data is still in progress or if other epistemic approaches are emerging.
Within this framework, an issue of Complex thought appears to be crucial in the current times for both theory and empirical research: uncertainty. Lots of pages are devoted, in the debate literature, to the limits of science and rationality in understanding the world and foreseeing its future conditions; furthermore, in the current times incertitude is involving not only scientists but also the other categories of social actors in the everyday life.
Thus, this session will highlight the contributions that Theories of Complexity can provide to face this general lack of cognitive references: can they provide other, more sophisticated keys for interpreting reality than the traditional ones? Or will they just consist of a tool for elaborating strategies of management of that uncertainty, which might appear as an unavoidable condition in all domains of the social life?
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