Mead was also influenced by the idea of "emergence". A
At 11:48 PM 18/10/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Victor,
>
>I also found the url's you provided to be very useful, thank you for
>them. I am intrigued by the connection you make between aspects of
>Salthe's thinking and Hegelian dialectics. I sense potential for
>combining aspects of complexity theory with dialectical materialism. I am
>interested in your insights on how Salthe's hierarchy theory could be
>related to cultural historical activity theory, as well as to dialectical
>materialism. A paper I found by Wolfgang Hofkirchner on the
>internet Emergence and the Logic of Explanation: An Argument for the
>Unity of Science at
>http://igw.tuwien.ac.at/igw/menschen/hofkirchner/papers/InfoScience/Emergence_Logic_Expl/echo.html
>seems to have much to offer in regards to emergence theory and dialectical
>materialism. Another line of inquiry that has similarities with hierarchy
>theory that I would like to understand better, Ethel Tobach's integrative
>levels (from Needham, about 1937), strikes me as also relevant. Back to
>George Novack, I also see parallels in these theories with his work on
>the sociological or historical materialist theory Novack refers to as the
>law of uneven and combined development (the original formulation is
>Trotsky's), and Novack's way of describing historical processes in terms
>of qualitatively higher and complex levels, a way of thinking he
>attributes to Marx and Engels. I sense potential connections among all of
>these theories and approaches.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>- Steve
>
>
>
>
>At 10:33 AM 10/17/03 +0200, you wrote:
>>Ben,
>>You might check out Stan Salthe's hierarchy theory: intentional and
>>extensional hierarchies. He's designed it for analysis of bioecological
>>issues, but it can with some imagination be used to analyse political
>>economic and social issues.
>>http://www.nbi.dk/~natphil/salthe/natphilecol.2001.html
>>http://www.nbi.dk/~natphil/salthe/hierarchy_th.html Also
>>http://www.isss.org/hierarchy.htm
>>www.library.utoronto.ca/see/pages/hierarchydef.html If you find those
>>interesting you can search through the google files on hierarchy theory:
>>some 1,460,000 entries. The most interesting and relevant of these concern
>>biosemiology. (Note. Amost interesting feature of Salthe's hierarchy theory
>>is that his concept of the "intentional hierarchy" is virtually the same as
>>the Hegelean dialectical method).
>>Victor
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Nov 01 2003 - 01:00:08 PST