Cybernetics for the Social Sciences

Contents
Cybernetics for the Social Sciences
Abstract
Keywords
Prolegomena
Part 1 About This Publication and a First Look at Cybernetics
	1 The Aim
	2 What Is Cybernetics?
	3 How the Publication Is Structured
Part 2 A Life in Cybernetics
	1 Encountering Cybernetics
	2 Becoming a Cybernetician
	3 Growing Up
	4 Concluding Comments
Part 3 The Story of Cybernetics
	1 Introduction – Beginnings
	2 Later Years – Decline and Renewal
	3 Cybernetic Explanation
	4 Gordon Pask’s Conversation Theory
Part 4 Some Key Concepts of Cybernetics
Part 5 On Messages
	1 Introduction
	2 Communication as Coding
	3 Communication as Conversation
	4 Human–Machine Interaction
	5 Some Current Developments
	6 Concluding Comments
Part 6 Cybernetics and the Integration of the Disciplines
	1 Introduction
	2 Cybernetic Epistemology
	3 The First Order Study of Natural Systems
	4 Approaches to the Study of Social Systems
	5 Cybernetics and the Arts, Humanities, and Vocational Disciplines
	6 Cybernetics and Philosophy
Part 7 In Defence of Pure Cybernetics
	1 The Problem
	2 Explanatory Schemas in Cybernetics
	3 Obscuring Cybernetics
	4 Enriching Cybernetics
	5 Cybernetics and the Communication Problem
Part 8 Sociocybernetic Understandings of Consciousness
	1 Introduction
	2 Use of the Term ‘Consciousness’
	3 Reflexive Cosmogony and Process Metaphysics
	4 Cybernetic Models of Learning in Conscious Systems
	5 Generalising the Typist Model
	6 Creating and Maintaining Healthy Communities
Part 9 Reflections on the Sociocybernetics of Social Networks
	1 Introduction
	2 Network Science
	3 What Is ‘Social’ about a Social Network?
	4 The Forms That Social Networks May Take
	5 What Is the Distinction between a ‘Social Network’ and a ‘Social System’?
	6 A Brief Critique of ‘Connectivism’ and ‘Actor-Network Theory’
	7 Concluding Comments: The ‘Global Conversation’
Part 10 Some Sociocybernetic Understanding of Possible World Futures
	1 Introduction
	2 Being Holistic about Global Problems
	3 First Order Problems
	4 Second Order Problems
	5 Looking for Solutions
	6 Concluding Comments
Part 11 Sociocybernetic Understandings of Culture
	1 Introduction
	2 Conceptions and Definitions of ‘Culture’
	3 Culture and Personality
	4 Cultural Transmissions and Transformations
	5 Opening up Inter-Cultural Conversations
Part 12 Summing up and What Comes Next
	1 Introduction
	2 What Next?
	3 Exhortations
	4 Values, Attitudes, Ethics
Acknowledgements
References