The System Idea and the Act of Knowing 1 TO WHAT EXTENT IS THE “SYSTEM” IDEA USEFUL FOR UNDERSTANDING THE ACT OF KNOWING?

Some soft and critical emancipatory systems approaches have relied on some version of the idea that in knowing, humans organise the content of experience by means of conceptual schemes. Based on this, they have further proposed ways of describing particular views and beliefs of persons involved in a situation of concern, with the purpose of proposing understanding and/or critique. Furthermore, they use the system idea as a central concept for explaining the idea of a scheme. Paradoxically, however, a radically holistic understanding of the act of knowing suggests that the very idea of a scheme should be dropped. Some implications of adopting that radically holistic view are then examined. Keywords; system, holism, interpretation, soft systems thinking, critical systems thinking.