I. Historical Development of Cybernetics.......................................................1 A. Origins.....................................................................................1 B. Second Order Cybernetics............................................................2 C. Cybernetics Today.....................................................................4 II. Relational Concepts...

 Historically, the new science of cybernetics can be viewed as a potential outline of Heinz von Foerster’s vision of second-order cybernetics as the science of observing systems or, alternatively, of living systems by living systems for living systems. Heinz von Foerster introduced the concept of second-order cybernetics on several occasions, without specifying, however, its content and cognit...

Bertalanffy's so-called "general system theory" (GST) and cybernetics were and are often confused: this calls for clarification. In this article, Bertalanffy's conceptions and ideas are compared with those developed in cybernetics in order to investigate the differences and convergences. Bertalanffy was concerned with first order cybernetics. Nonetheless, his perspectivist epistemology is also ...

> Context • The enactive paradigm in the cognitive sciences is establishing itself as a strong and comprehensive alternative to the computationalist mainstream. However, its own particular historical roots have so far been largely ignored in the historical analyses of the cognitive sciences. > Problem • In order to properly assess the enactive paradigm’s theoretical foundations in terms of thei...

mathematical/logical text that is a central reference for all second order cyberneticians. The introduction is a wonderfully insightful essay. So are some of the appendices.] von Foerster H. (1995). The Cybernetics of Cybernetics, second edn. Minneapolis, MN: Future Systems Inc. 497 pp. [The book of the name: a collection of papers by distinguished cyberneticians with graphic commentaries and o...