This article first sketches the transition from first-order to second-order cybernetics. Next it presents an analysis of George Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form. Against this background, Niklas Luhmann’s constructivism is afterwards analyzed in more detail. It is thereby shown how second-order observations “work” within modern society. Relevance: This article presents an analysis of the constructivist position developed by Niklas Luhmann in his late writings.

The enactive approach is usually associated with a revolutionary project that aims to transform in a radical way our understanding of mind and cognition. Bold theoretical moves such as the rejection of cognitive representations or the assumption of a deep continuity between life and mind, among other enactive ideas, justify this perception. Nonetheless, when we assume a broader historical perspective, including the long cybernetic tradition that preceded the emergence of cognitive sciences, the image of the enactive approach looks different. Put in the context of the paradigmatic shift that took place between first-order and second-order cybernetics, especially in the case of Maturana’s autopoietic theory, the enactive paradigm, so I will try to show in this work, appears rather like a conservative or revisionist project. Better said, it appears as a slightly hybrid paradigm, wherein original and progressive elements coexist with revisionist components. The paper aims to offer an alternative interpretation of the enactive approach and contribute to a better understanding of its identity as a research program, and its present and its possible future challenges. Relevance: The paper offers a reconstruction of the historical relationship between autopoietic theory and the enactive approach, and evaluates the internal consistency of the enactive approach.

Problem: First-order scientific research is often not aware of the hidden assumptions provided by an epistemological perspective based upon realism. Beyond philosophical considerations about the epistemological foundations, some practical normative implications deriving from them are crucial: in the field of communication and media studies, some scholars criticize media coverage, e.g., on climate change, as biased and distorted from reality. Method: From a constructivist perspective, the article presents a detailed meta-analysis of the course of argumentation provided by two empirical communication studies that follow an objectivist approach. Result: With the help of a second-order research strategy, it is possible to uncover their ontological assumptions and criticize their normative implications. Implications: Social scientists should be careful with normative suggestions for the system under study (e.g., journalists) unless they are applied within these systems themselves.

Key words: Meta-analysis, second-order research, epistemology, communication studies, climate change, bias.

Open peer commentary on the article “On Climate Change Research, the Crisis of Science and Second-order Science” by Philipp Aufenvenne, Heike Egner & Kirsten von Elverfeldt. Upshot: I discuss the concepts of detection and attribution as they are used in scientific discussions about the cause of global warming.

Upshot: Following a brief reflection on some terminological issues, I discuss the question of the (ir)rationality of non-dualism, the two aspects of the conceptual dimension of phenomenologisation, and the potential of meditative/contemplative practices in cultivating its experiential/existential dimension. Also, I (re)emphasise that the two-pronged project of phenomenologisation is closely associated with the establishment of second-order science, and purport to show why it might be an important addition to, and elaboration of, the overarching attempt to think and live the fundamental circularity between subject and object.

Context: The burgeoning field of consciousness studies has recently witnessed a revival of first-person approaches based on phenomenology in general and Husserlian phenomenology in particular. However, the attempts to introduce phenomenological methods into cognitive science have raised serious doubts as to the feasibility of such projects. Much of the current debate has revolved around the issue of the naturalisation of phenomenology, i.e., of the possibility of integrating phenomenology into the naturalistic paradigm. Significantly less attention has been devoted to the complementary process of the phenomenologisation of nature, i.e., of a (potentially radical) transformation of the theoretical and existential underpinnings of the naturalist framework. Problem: The aim of this article is twofold. First, it provides a general overview of the resurgence of first-person methodologies in cognitive sciences, with a special emphasis on a circular process of naturalising phenomenology and phenomenologising nature. Secondly, it tries to elucidate what theoretical (conceptual) and practical (existential) implications phenomenological approaches might have for the current understanding of nature and consciousness. Results: It is argued that, in order for the integration of phenomenological and scientific approaches to prove successful, it is not enough merely to provide a firm naturalistic grounding for phenomenology. An equally, if not even more important, process of phenomenological contextualisation of science must also be considered, which might have far-reaching implications for its theoretical underpinnings (move from disembodied to embodied models) and our existential stance towards nature and consciousness (cultivation of a non-dual way of being. Implications: The broader theoretical framework brought about by the circular exchange between natural sciences and phenomenology can contribute to a more holistic conception of science, one that is in accord with the cybernetic idea of second-order science and based on a close interconnection between (abstract) reflection and (lived) experience. Constructivist content: The (re)introduction of first-person approaches into cognitive science and consciousness studies evokes the fundamental circularity that is characteristic of second-order cybernetics. It provides a rich framework for a dialogue between science and lived experience, where scientific endeavour merges with the underlying existential structures, while the latter remains reflectively open to scientific findings and proposals.

Key words: Cognitive science, phenomenology, first-person approaches, naturalisation, phenomenologisation, lived experience, non-dualism

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that cybernetic theory explains learning curves and sets the curves as legitimate and efficient tools for a pro-active energy technology policy. Design/methodology/approach – The learning system is a non-trivial machine that is kept in non-equilibrium steady state at minimum entropy production by competitive, equilibrium markets. The system has operational closure and the learning curve expresses its eigenbehaviour. This eigenbehaviour is analysed not in calendar time but in the characteristic time of the system, i.e., its eigentime. Measured in eigentime, the minimum entropy production in the steady-state learning system is constant. The double closure mechanism described by Heinz von Förster makes it possible for the learning system to change (adapt) its eigenbehaviour without compromising its operational closure. Findings: By obeying basic laws of second order cybernetics and of non-equilibrium thermodynamics the learning system self-organises its learning to follow an optimal path described by the learning curve. The learning rates are obtained through an operator formalism and the results explain observed distributions. Application to solar cell (photo-voltaic) modules indicates that the silicon scarcity bubble 2005–2008 produced excess entropy corresponding to costs of the order of 100 billion US dollars. Research limitations/implications: Grounding technology learning and learning curves in cybernetics and non-equilibrium thermodynamics open up new possibilities to understand technology shifts through radical innovations or paradigm changes. Practical implications: Learning curves are legitimate and efficient tools for energy policy and industrial strategy. Originality/value – Grounding of technology learning and learning curves in cybernetic and thermodynamic theory provides a stable theoretical basis for applications in industry and policy.

Key words: eigenbehavior, learning curves, …

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relevance of second-order cybernetics for a theory of architectural design and related discourse. Approach: First, the relation of architectural design to the concept of “poiesis” is clarified. Subsequently, selected findings of Gotthard Günther are revisited and related to an architectural poetics. The last part of the paper consists of revisiting ideas mentioned previously, however, on the level of a discourse that has incorporated the ideas and offers a poetic way of understanding them. Findings: Gotthard Günther’s conception of “You” is specifically valuable in reference to a theory of architectural design in the sense of an architectural poetics. Originality – The research furthers the field of architecture by contributing to it a new theory in the form of an architectural poetics. It addresses questions of design with a procedural framework in which critical engagement is an intrinsic principle, and offers an alternative to existing discourses through a poetry of architectonic order that is open to the future. Relevance: Second order approaches are at the center of discussion in this paper. The paper argues for a new theory of design based on second order approaches.

Excerpt: What must immediately surprise any reader new to the discourses of systems theory or what is sometimes called “second-order cybernetics” is the rather systematic reliance of this new theoretical paradigm on the figure of vision and, more specifically, observation. That surprise might turn into discomfort if not alarm for readers in the humanities who cut their teeth on the critical genealogy of vision and the look which runs, in its modernist incarnation, from Freud’s discourse on vision in Civilization and Its Discontents through Sartre’s Being and Nothingness to Lacan’s seminars and finally to recent influential work in psychoanalysis and feminist film theory. With the possible exception of Michel Foucault, no recent intellectual has done more to call into question the trope of vision than America’s foremost pragmatist philosopher, Richard Rorty. From his ground-breaking early work Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature onward, Rorty has argued that the figure of vision in the philosophical and critical tradition is indissolubly linked with representationalism and realism, where representationalism assumes that “making true’ and ‘representing’ are reciprocal relations: the nonlinguistic item which makes S true is the one represented by S, ” and realism maintains the “idea that inquiry is a matter of finding out the nature of something which lies outside the web of beliefs and desires, ” in which “the object of inquiry – what lies outside the organism – has a context of its own, a context which is privileged by virtue of being the object’s rather than the inquirer’s.” Instead, Rorty argues, we should reduce this desire for objectivity to a search for “solidarity” and embrace a philo-sophical holism of the sort found in Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, which holds that “words take their meanings from other words rather than by virtue of their representative character” and “transparency to the real.” Hence, Rorty rejects the representationalist position and its privileged figure, and argues instead that “Our only usable notion of ‘objectivity’ is ‘agreement’ rather than mirroring."

Key words: Luhmann, Rorty, Habermas, Žižek, Maturana, Varela, closure

In order to obtain, as the author himself puts it, “a successful internalisation of the comparative metadiscourse” necessary for “the survival of comparative literature,” the author refers to constructivism by noticing crucial similarities between the two directions in terms of their historical development and character. The author does not agree with the accusation of the secondary status of comparative research in relation to other fields of science. He points to the fact that the existence of a rich comparative metadiscourse, which implies analogy with constructivism and accounts for the status of comparative studies as an important area of research, is omitted. Relevance: By means of referring to Niklas Luhman, the author identifies comparative studies with second-order observation, that is, focusing not on the objects of comparative studies (those seem to be as numerous and various as the reality surrounding the human being), but on the nature of the comparative process, in other words on the manner in which the comparison of the above mentioned objects is carried out.

Key words: Constructivism, crisis of comparative literature, metadiscourse, metatheory, Niklas Luhmann, multiculturalism