Firstly, Thanks for the Hofkirchner material.
Second,
"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."
CHAT is generally, and in my view, correctly, described by its explicators as a system, i.e. a scaled hierarchy of structure and operations comprised of systems incorporating subsystems. The CHAT model seems to me to be a collectivity of systems and subsystems linked by mediators that are analogous to if not identical to Salthe's interpolators. Check out Engstrom's graphic representation of CHAT as a complex of interlocked triangles where the basal vertices of each triangle represent respectively a system and a subsystem and the mediator is represented at the apical vertice, e.g. [subject [instument(the mediator or interpolation) object]](taken from Guohua, Bai and Lars Ake-Lindberg 1998 "Dialectical Approach to Systems Development" Systems Research vol. 15 pp. 47-54). Salthe's description of scaled/extensional hierarchies is based on cybersystems (after all he and Joclyn were at one time co-workers) hence his insistence on the trupletted formation of minimal extensional hierarchies. It shouldn't be too hard to reformulate CHAT as a cybersystem, e.g. [subject[instrument object[division of labor community]]] where the italicized terms represent the interpolations that mediate between system and subsystem. This, by the way, provides a definitive description of mediation as a "...cohesion of entities out of lower level units guided by higher level boundary conditions" (Salthe, S. 2001"Summary of the Principles of Hierarchy Theory" URL: http://www.nbi.dk/
~natphil/salthe/Hierarchy_th.html ). CHAT systems are no more dialectical than was Marx's description of "the capitalist mode of production," but , like the latter, they are a complex synchronic organization of a multiplicity of dialectical relations - read intensional hierarchies - that serve to impart both a temporal locality and purpose to the synchronic analysis.
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 have to give here both a no and a yes.
Trotsky's formulation of the "Law of uneven and combined development" was specifically tailored to work out a strategy of revolution in an underdeveloped country with a weak and bourgeoisie and proletariat. Marx believed that a socialist revolution in Russia was only possible given a successful proletarian revolution in Europe. With the decline of the revolutionary impetus in the 1870s, Marx believed that the Russian peasant commune was doomed and would eventually be destroyed by capitalism. In the 1870s Marx drew the conclusion that development of bourgeois rights, a capitalist economy and modern working class was the only way forward for Russia (paraphrased from the entry, Law of uneven and combined development, in the MIA Encyclopedia of Marxism http://www.marxists.org.uk/glossary/frame.htm). Recent history seems to me to bear out Marx's position - compare for example, the history and results of the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The dialectics of the evolution of modes of production regard the negation of prior modes of production as incorporating those forms rather than simply bypassing or annihilating them. Also, the relationship between the capitalist metropolis and its hinterlands is seamless, and should not be understood as respecting national or even cultural boundaries. Hence the "underdevelopment" of the capitalist hinterland is as much a part of a single unified network as is the relationships obtaining between financial and industrial sectors of capitalist economies. Michael Barrat Brown (1974) The Economics of Imperialism Peguin Books provides a succinct analysis of how capitalism produces underdevelopment rather than simply exploits it.
On the other hand, the relation between scales and rates of activity provide much more satisfying explanations of the relations between elements of a materialist analysis of social relations than the ready formulas of orthodox Marxist theory. It also raises interesting questions regarding the relations between information (speech, icons and so on) and larger scaled negentropies of harnessed energy and imposition of material order.
Enough for now.
Victor
---- Original Message -----
From: Steve Gabosch
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2003 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: timescale question
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
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