Language

1
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Klaus Krippendorff The Annenberg School for
Communication University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia kkrippendorff_at_asc.upenn.edu
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
2
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Approaches to systems

• General Systems Theory
• Generalizations from living organisms
  Bertalanffy hierarchy of levels of organization
  Miller
• autopoiesis Maturana

• Cybernetics
• The study of all possible systems, which is
  informed when some of them cannot be build or
  evolve in nature Ashby

• Second-order Cybernetics
• The study of systems that include the
  properties of their observers von Foerster

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
3
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Second-order Cybernetics

• v. Foerster The cybernetics of cybernetics
• The cybernetics of
  observing systems

• Varela The cybernetics of
  autonomous systems

• Pask The purpose of the modeler

• Umpleby Interaction between observer
  and observed

What they have in common
The observer ( cybernetician) is expected
to enter his/her domain
of observation
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
4
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Second-order Cybernetics
Areas where observers enter their domain of
observation

• Quantum physics

• Ethnomethodology / Ethography

• Family systems practice

• Sociology of science (Strong Program)

Problems for second-order cybernetics in the
social domain

• The primacy of observer

• The missing role for language in the
  construction of reality

• Second-order (recursive) understanding

• Accountability for social constructions of
  reality

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
5
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
The primacy of the observer what does s/he do ?

• As autopoietic systems, second-order
  cyberneticians are aware of their observing and
  of living in their own constructions of reality

• If everything said is said by an observer, what
  is said has to do with how observers observe

• Observers ultimately observe themselves in the
  context of happenings they experience

• Observers are committed to making descriptions,
  offer explanations of these, and generate
  descriptions of future observations

• Descriptions occur in language as a medium of
  representation they are monologue, not dialogue

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
6
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
The primacy of the observer consequences

• Observed systems appear deterministic

• Determinism is the belief that happenings
  determine each other without the actions of an
  observer/agent

• Causal determinism everything has a cause
  and a consequence
• State determinism states follow each other
• Structural determinism networks of
  interaction have their own dynamics
• Structural coupling an involuntary mutual
  dependency

• Biological determinism is an artifact of how a
  community of observers (of living systems) speak

• Languaging is primary, biology is one of its many
  artifacts

• Biological and radical constructivist conceptions
  of human nature are rooted in individualism
  even if the environment (medium) of living
  systems is acknowledged

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
7
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
The missing role for language
Four conceptions of language

• Abstract-Objectivist Medium of
  Representation

• Individual-Subjectivist Medium of Expression

• Hermeneutic Medium of
  Interpretation

• Constitutive Medium of Being
  (Human)

Heidegger Language is the house of
being Nietzsche Language is a mobile army
of metaphors Wittgenstein A language game is a
way of life Rorty A language is a
human creation, realities follow Maturana
Language is the coordination of coordination of
action Krippendorff Languaging realizes
everything social
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
8
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
The the role of language
Constitutively

• Languaging realizes everything social human
  being-with

• Languaging implies addressivity and
  responsiveness language is interactive,
  dialogue, not monologue

• Languaging is always embodied in the bodies of a
  community of speakers not an abstract system

• The observer (a standard observer) is an
  abstraction, hence, a disembodied human. The
  observer cannot speak. The language of this
  observer becomes a medium of representation. It
  invokes disembodied Cartesian dualism

• Languaging-based conceptions are constitutively
  social. Theories not cognizant of their
  linguistic nature are not.

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
9
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Second-order (Recursive) Understanding
Understanding Others understanding
A, B two humans capable of languaging,
understanding, enacting their
understanding, and observing the
consequences of their actions X an issue,
belief, or construct held by A or B
As As
Their construction experiences
comparison of with
yields
A(X) (X)
(dis)confirmation
A(X) B(X)
(dis)agreement
A(B(X)) B(X)
(mis)understanding
A(X) B(A(X))
being (mis)understood
A(B(A(X))) B(A(B(X)))
(failure of) realization
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
10
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
When is a Construction Social ?
An individual construction individual
understanding, belief

• is enacted and

• (dis)confirmed ultimately (non)viable to
  beholder

A social construction is constituted in

• the understanding that its constituents have
  of it

• the understanding of each others
  participation in it

• the interactive enactment of this understanding

• its (failure of) realization accountable
  acquiescence

Recall A(X) vs. (X)
(dis)confirmation A(B(A(X))) vs.
B(A(B(X))) (failure of) realization
Examples money, law, marriage
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
11
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Mutual Accountability for social constructions of
reality

• Not to be confused with responsibility
• One can distinguish two forms
• Responsibility that is assigned by A to B for C
• Responsibility that is assumed by B for C

Assigning responsibilities presupposes a
hierarchy of authority in which A can delegate
responsibilities to others
Assuming responsibilities for C presupposes Bs
purpose
In any case, C is inferior to B. When C is a
person or group, Bs responsibility patronizes C
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
12
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Mutual Accountability for social constructions of
reality
Giving accounts occurs in conversations (language
use) where everyone can hold everyone else
accountable for what they said or did. (Near
synonymsmotives, intentions

• Accounts come in conversational triplets
• Requesting an account
• Offering an account
• Accepting or rejecting an account

The most typical accounts

• Explanations coordinating understanding

• Excuses acknowledging an untoward action
• but denying agency

• Justifications admitting agency and claiming
• and claiming the
  virtue of ones action

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
13
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Second-order Cybernetics may be defined as
The cybernetics of conversation in a context
under reconstruction by its constituents

• Cybernetics is a recursive way of languaging,
  practicing

• Conversation presupposes multiple speakers who
  acknowledge each others participation no
  observers

• Participation entails agency no structural
  coupling

• Re.con.struction a jointly coordinated
  restructuring of the (bodily, social, or
  material) context in which second-order
  cybernetics is practiced

• Organizationally closed, self-organizing not
  predictable without participation (not
  observationally determinable)

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
14
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
My Aim So Far Was

• To replace the primacy of observation by that of
  constructive participation (agency)

• To enter dialogue, interactivity, and joint
  action where determinist explanations (monologue)
  ruled supreme

• To unsettle biological fundamentalism
  (individualism) by the possibilities that
  languaging and conversation offers

• To acknowledge the embodied nature of social
  constructions and human action in opposition to
  abstract theories that fail to address their
  basis of being

• To propose a second-order cybernetics capable of
  allowing its practitioners to question and
  reconstruct social phenomena without loosing
  touch with its first-order origin

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
15
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
How Can We Conceive Social Systems from the
perspective of second-order cybernetics that is,
without imposing an observer perspective ?
Let me define a social system as
(1) Encompassing human participants as declared
members
(2) Residing in the interactions between members,
which, at appropriate times, reconstitute both
the system and the roles of its members in it.
As such, social systems are intermittently
active, self-organizing, or
organizationally closed
(3) Its members performing certain acts and
utterances that continuously confirm the systems
identity draw a boundary between what belongs
and what does not
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
16
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
How Can We Conceive Social Systems from the
perspective of second-order cybernetics that is,
without imposing an observer perspective ?
continued
(4) Its members acting in the understanding that
all other members act within their own
understanding of the system and hold each other
accountable for apparent deviations from their
own perception of the systems identity
(5) Its viability is demonstrated by its repeated
reconstitution with same or different members.
Profit, growth, preservation of structure, are
all secondary to their reconstitutability
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
17
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Examples

• Conversation

• Family

• The American Association for Cybernetics

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
18
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
What Does This Concept Accomplish ?
It recognizes that

• Social systems cannot be understood by
  observation but by participation, including by
  introducing challenges

• Interactions are embodied, partially tacit. They
  are incomprehensible without language, without
  engaging in conversations, without realizing that
  words change things, and without acknowledging
  accountability for ones actions

• The conception of a social system is delegated to
  what its constituents do and say, not imposed by
  an outsider

• Social systems may be self-organizing, control
  may be distributed, communication may be
  heterarchical or not, the point is to grant
  them the possibility of autonomy

• Their reconstitutability renders social systems a
  resource rather than a fact

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
19
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
What Does This Concept Accomplish ?
Continued

• It realizes the wisdom of Heinz von Foersters
• playful definition of second-order
  cybernetics as
• The cybernetics of cybernetics,
• The communication of communication,
  and
• The control of control
• and substantiates what actually is a radical
  idea

• It socializes second-order cybernetics and
  grounds the social sciences

• It raises new questions

• It is politically biased against intellectual
  imperialism
• enshrined in objective truth claims.
  
• Instead, it encourages emancipatory,
  liberating, and
• constructively critical inquiries into
  realities

American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28
20
Language in the Constitution of Social Systems
Thank you for listening
Klaus Krippendorff The Annenberg School for
Communication University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia kkrippendorff_at_asc.upenn.edu
American Society for Cybernetics, Washington, DC,
2005.10.28