K

33,3/4 Implications for Beer’s

ontological
726
system/metasystem dichotomy
Maurice Yolles
Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
Keywords Cybernetics, Management
Abstract Stafford Beer developed managerial cybernetics, but there were many facets of his
work. Most of his work concerned epistemology, and little concerned ontology. Not all of the aspects
or implications of his work has been fully recognised, and an attempt shall be made to explore one
of these. In particular, this paper explores his paradigm by considering some of the
epistemologically and ontological angles. Some of the implications for Beer’s work will also be
shown to have led to the creation of a virtual paradigm capable of exploring his achievements
“externally”, after Gödel.

Introduction

The 1960s saw the maturing of a few great thinkers who, in the 1970s and
1980s, led the way into forms of constructivism that paved the way for a new
emergence into the social sciences. These included people like Foucault (1974),
Habermas (1970), Piaget (1977) and Vygotsky (1978). It is rarely recognised that
it also included Beer who developed his own constructivist approach[1]
conditioned by the inconsistency theory of Gödel (Beer, 1959, 1979, p. 311). Both
Piaget and Vygotsky began their work with an interest in child development,
adopting related, but distinct approaches that result in related, but
differentiable axioms for their respective paradigms. Vygotsky was
interested in the social processes that enabled learning to develop. Piaget
used a cybernetic approach for his interest in how the interactions between
children contributed to their learning processes, and this developed into an
examination of the relationship between subjects and objects (rather like
Foucault (1974) whose interest lay in subjectification and objectification as
political processes). Habermas (1970) was interested in the cultural, social and
behavioural aspects of people, and in the subjective transfer of meaning
through the process of communication.
Beer was interested in how social communities were able to survive,
realising that regulation was central to this. Like Habermas, he also recognised
the need for communications. However, he was guided by the formal logic of
Kybernetes systems by Whitehead and Russell (1910) and Gödel’s (1931) incompleteness
Vol. 33 No. 3/4, 2004
pp. 726-764
theorem that illustrated the limitations of language. His interest in this
limitation led him to the development of a new cybernetic paradigm with clear
practical application for the management of coherent social communities, seen
as systems with controlled operations. The control emanated from a Beer’s
metasystem that communicated internally through a metalanguage. While ontological
the logical systems theory that Beer admired explored systems through the use system
of metasystems, his interests were very much centred on applied science. The
paradigm that he developed created an ontological dichotomy defined in terms
of the system and metasystem. The term dichotomy was not the one normally
used by Beer, but in fact it is rather harmless because it means a “division into
727
two”[2] that can be argued here to represent two ontological species of a given
generic entity. The generic entity may be seen as a self-organising body and its
ontological species are the system and metasystem that interact as an intimate
ontological couple. That is, they each have validity claims about reality that
operate in a way that mutually relate: one validity claim to reality is manifested
in the other relative to its validity claim to reality. Hence, a thought in the
metasystem may be manifested differently in different systems.
Survival, for Beer, related to viability, which he saw as occurring through
emergence. This is illustrated by a comment by Denis Adams, a close academic
colleague of Beer, when he recently said in a private communication that Beer
“was very interested in viability which I see as an emergent behavioural
property of a complex system (that we can never establish without doubt) and
how we think it may work. But as a result of observations and thinking about
how different systems (activities seen as if they were systems) seemed to have a
varying behavioural emergent property, he was able to ‘see’ characteristics that
the organisation of a viable system should have. These were systemic
characteristics in that they had to be abstracted and described from an
interacting dynamic whole system.”
Beer’s pragmatic interest lay in mapping his analytical ontological
conceptualisation of the metasystem/system onto practical situations. While
he developed the basis of a new ontology through the creation of the
dichotomy, his pragmatic interest centred on epistemology, which become
manifested through his viable system model (VSM). To illustrate this, again
quoting from Denis Adams.
The thrust of Stafford’s work in VSM is epistemological in nature; “what do we know and
how do we know that” is how he defined epistemology to me “in a nutshell”. So the VSM helps
you to think about a situation in terms of viability, and the VSM is describing the
communication and information flows round a system that is doing the same (what do they
know and how do they know that) for the sub-system behaviours.
The relationship between the dichotomous parts is recursive. By this we mean
that the ontological system/metasystem couple can be embedded as a whole
within either the system or the metasystem to give it a new ontological context
and an epistemological consequence.
Beer’s approach also appears to be constructivist in a way that is consistent
with the ideas of not only Piaget, but Vygotski too. Beer was true to the ideas of
the incompleteness theorem, and this paper discusses his developments not in
K the language of his paradigm, but consistent with his view, in another
33,3/4 cybernetic language that provides a way of exploring his managerial
cybernetics externally.

The system paradigm, and beyond

728 Elementary systems thinking emerged from the work of the Gestalt
psychologists who emphasised that the study of the mind should be seen as
a whole rather than as a collection of psychological parts. The approach led to
the notion of holistic thinking (Ellis, 1938).
The idea of using a system to understand the phenomena is normally
attributed to work in the 1930s by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, a German Biologist.
He gave the name general systems theory to a discipline devoted to formulating
principles that apply to all systems (Bertalanffy, 1951). Others like Boulding
(1956) and Churchman et al. (1957) developed these, and applied them to
organisational theory.
The traditional concept of a system still used in some areas of organisational
theory (for instance, in the Organisational Development (OD) methodology
(Yolles, 1999) used in Human Resource Management) is an input-output device.
Thus, for instance, Fogel (1967) looked at the human as an
information-input/decision-making/decision-output processor, and Nadler and
Tushman (1977, 1979) used the notion for organisational behaviour (Figure 1).
Further conceptualisations of the idea of the system developed, harnessing the
idea that it is not only a processor, but also has the property of synergy and
wholeness (Ackoff, 1971).
The concept of the system, however, also had a cybernetic dimension. In a
foundation paper, Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow
(Rosenblueth et al., 1943) were interested in the teleological properties of
systems, those that relate to their identity and degree of autonomy and

Figure 1.
Nadler and Tushman’s
perception of systemic
organisational behaviour
coherence. In particular, they were interested in biological, physiological, and Beer’s
social systems, and their control and feedback processes. These authors formed ontological
the Teleological Society, and after Wiener coined the term cybernetics, they system
changed its name to the Cybernetic Society.
While the conceptual base of cybernetics still centred on the single concept of
the system, it was to become transformed by Beer with the introduction of a new
frame of reference that involved a second conceptual arm, the metasystem. The
729
notion of the metasystem is credited to Whitehead and Russell (1910) in their
logical study of formal systems. Recent theoretical developments of this work
has led to Metasystem Transition Theory (MTT) by Turchin and Joslyn (1999)
as a means by which higher levels of complexity and control are generated, and
by Palmer (2000) as a general theory of metasystem engineering. Another
development that had relevance to metasystem theory was the incompleteness
theorem of Gödel (1931), who was concerned with the completeness (if an
argument is valid, then it is provable) and soundness (if an argument is
provable, then it is valid) of logical systems, and showed that any attempts to
prove that a logical system is sound (and therefore having validity and truth)
will result in a paradox unless reference is made from outside the system.
Beer became interested in the use of the concept of the metasystem as a
practical way of explaining the viability of coherent social communities through
self-regulation, self-organisation and control. As shown in Figure 2, part of his
direction for this came from Gödel’s (1931) inconsistency theorem (Beer, 1979,
p. 311). While he does not seem to have used the term metasystem in his very
early work, he did use the term metalanguage throughout. He noted that a
system uses a language to communicate about what it does – its operations.
However, language is defective because there are always propositions about the
language itself that cannot be expressed in the language. Consequently, another
language is required that is “over and beyond” the language being used at the
time, and this is a matalanguage. It is parallel to the notion supported by Beer of
“looking at problems themselves and not at their content” (Van Gigch, 1987,
p. xv). In particular, in Beer (1959, p. 169), we are told that “a control system
cannot discuss itself and that a higher order [system] is needed in which to
describe the behaviour of a system expressed in a given language.” Indeed, he
takes this a little further by considering that control is practically linked to
operations through its local management. Beer (1966, p. 425) also says that
“Since the normal occupation of management is to be expert in using the
practical language of the firm’s operations, there is the danger that the
management will never speak the metalanguage in which its own structure can
be discussed.” While the term metasystem was clearly implied in his earlier
work, it does not appear to have been used in his books until later, when Beer
(1972) explicitly adopts the term metasystem as the residence of the
metalanguage. It is, he says, a “second order system” from which language
about the system itself and its language can originate.
K
33,3/4

730

Figure 2.
The development of
the applied use of
the metasystem by
Stafford Beer

The nature of the metasystem is that it operates as a control impulse domain,

which in human systems occurs through the process of “thinking”, and
according to De Bono (1977) has come to be associated with beliefs. Without the
metasystem, the system would behave with spontaneous responses that are
programmed into its structure through what Yolles and Dubois (2001) refer to
as strong anticipation[3]. In the context of the human being, like Beer, De Bono
relates the concept of the metasystem to the social community when he
suggests that without the metasystem a person would act according to its own
personal systems, which might be based on immediate gratification,
self-indulgence and impulse. Thus, the metasystem lies outside individual
systems and overrides these factors in favour of society and a longer time base.
De Bono provides an illustration of the use of the metasystem: an individual Beer’s
may only collect enough food for his immediate needs, but the metasystem may ontological
require him to collect enough to store for the winter as well. For De Bono, to system
some extent, the success of societies has depended on the strength and nature
of the metasystems they have created.
By creating a management approach incorporating the system/metasystem,
Beer produced a new paradigm for management science and indeed in social
731
science. To see this it is appropriate for us to discuss the idea of paradigm
change. It has been only within the last 30 years or so, largely since the work of
Kuhn (1970), that we have considered how paradigms change their form.
Incremental change involves the development of base[4] concepts and their
structured relationships, creating new knowledge. Paradigms also change
dramatically as new base concepts arise that alter their frames of reference, i.e.
as new conceptual extensions enter their frames of reference (Yolles, 1996, 1999).
In doing so, paradigm holders expand their capacity to explain and therefore
diagnose the phenomena that they perceive. Such dramatic change has also been
referred to as paradigmatic revolution[5] or metamorphosis. It occurs because of
a perceived need by paradigm holders to respond to inherent inadequacies,
anomalies or paradoxes (e.g. Zeno’s paradox[6]). Such metamorphosis can be
part of an evolutionary process within which a new species of paradigm arises
that has its basis in an existing paradigm[7]. Metamorphosis is not spontaneous,
and paradigms first pass through a “virtual” stage (Midgley, 2000; Yolles, 1996,
1999). VST is an example of this; its original development occurs because of a
perceived need to respond to the problem of paradigm incommensurability
(Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Yolles, 1996, 1999), and at that time other approaches
seemed unable to adequately respond to it[8]. VST can be historically related to
the principles of managerial cybernetics.
Thus, Beer created a new paradigm whose frame of reference moved from a
single base conceptualisation of the operational system, to two: the operational
system and conceptual metasystem. We have already said that Beer’s interest in
this lay primarily in the epistemological basis of their relationship that was
associated with structured communications and meaning. His creation of the
metasystem/system dichotomy was clearly an ontological one, but his interest
here did not appear to extend to the proper ontological considerations that Casti
(1989) would consider is important. The epistemological dimension is reflected
in conditions that enabled viability to develop, supported by structured
processes of communications that effectively related to semantic
communications embedded in what Schutz and Luckmann (1974) would call
lifeworld processes. The ontological analysis can be understood by following a
lead taken by Habermas (1987) in his three worlds model, and where he explores
the validity claims about reality for each world resulting a distinct ontological
characteristics that differentiate the realities. Therefore, in Beer’s terms, we are
in a position where we should examine the validity claim about reality for both
K system and metasystem. This is illustrated in Table I and derives from Beer
33,3/4 (1979, p. 311, 57, 70, 120). The system and metasystem are ontologically
coupled, the connection occurring through the boundaries that differentiate
them. To elaborate on this, following Yolles and Guo (2003), the system and
metasystem each have boundaries that condition their validity claims about
reality, and the boundary of one domain is differentiated from that of the other
732 through its ontological horizon[9]. This horizon maintains a content that varies
depending on the cognitive perceiver that provides an entry into what may be
meaningfully reflected on, spoken about, or acted over. The two domains are
ontologically related, and their horizons meld[10] when the domains are seen as
an emergent whole. However, this can only occur if the boundaries that create
the horizons also harbour ontological migrations[11] that condition that
melding. Thus, ontological horizons both distinguish and connect differentiable
validity claims about reality. This notion provides entry into the understanding
that the boundaries have themselves transformation attributes.
Epistemologically the metasystem can be perceived to operate by housing a
worldview that the members of an organisation (or more generally social
community) hold to, and it is the repository of the knowledge that the
community accepts to perform its operations. Social communities are
autonomous when they define, create and manage their own futures. A
corollary to this is that autonomous systems are recognised to exist only when
they have a worldview(s) that has associated with it a language that can
economically represent and effectively use its own knowledge.

Viability and recursion

Beer (1979) wanted to provide an approach that can make autonomous
organisations viable, where viability is the ability to maintain a separate
existence and to survive as an identifiable entity through appropriate
self-regulation and self-organisation. The metasystem has a role in this. An
organisation is composed of a set of local systems, and each has its own set of
operations. While local management manages each set of operations, the
different local systems with their operations are collectively managed through

Types of reality Nature of reality

System A first-order system composed of interactive operational objects

that together form a whole, the perception of which is conditioned by
a cognitive knowledge-based frame of reference. It is relative to individual
subjectivity of groups that have developed normative perspectives
Metasystem A second-order system that operate through concepts, thinking and
beliefs, from which knowledge derives. The local individual or group
Table I. belief-based creation of concepts and their patterns are held in
Realities for Beer’s worldviews that establish a frame of reference, and determine what is
system and metasystem known and associated meanings
the metasystem. These must operate together systemically with coherence Beer’s
(Beer, 1979, p. 120), and for Ackoff (1971) with synergy and wholeness. ontological
An important aspect of organisations that has impact for their viability is system
that they should be seen in terms of a set of nested system ontological focuses
of reality that are also logically distinct levels of examination. This means that
the ontological model can be applied and re-applied to different focuses of
examination, each focus bringing in local complexity that cannot be seen from 733
a higher focus. Each time this occurs, the nature of the ontology model becomes
relative to its host focus. One ontological focus can be used as the reality from
which the whole system is referenced (the frame of reference), and be referred to
as the referencing focus with its vertically embedded subordinate focuses. This
nesting is sometimes referred to as a logical hierarchy, but the term can lead
to confusion in people’s minds by mistaking the meaning with that of a
socio-political hierarchy typical of bureaucracies. The nature of the nesting of
focuses is that at any referencing focus of examination, the system has a set of
operations that can be expressed in terms of the deeper set of subordinate
focuses.
Recursion is often a concept used within methodology (Yolles, 1999). For
instance, it is an essential part of Stafford Beer’s VSM when it is used as the
basis for methodological inquiry into organisations that may not be viable, and
it can be used to correct the faults that it finds. Recursion is also quite intimate
to the earlier works mentioned, for instance, Whitehead and Russell (1910).
The system/metasystem couple can occur at every focus of examination,
and the ability to apply the notion of the couple to distinct focuses is a form of
recursion. The notion of recursion can be recalled to mean the application
of a whole concept or set of actions that occurs at one logical level (focus) of
consideration at a lower logical level (or focus) of consideration.
What is particularly interesting here is that the recursive use of the
system/metasystem dichotomy provides not only a shift in the degree of
relative complexity accessed relative to the reference focus, but also in the
relativistic process the metasystem must be capable of being assigned a
different worldview(s), with its different knowledge and its own metalanguage.
Implicitly, this means that Beer has developed an approach that, because of its
knowledge implications, is fundamentally constructivist as well as providing
an important entry into an understanding of the nature of the autonomous
organisation. To see this, let us first explore the notions that underpin
constructivism.
Knowledge acquisition paradigms
Guba and Lincoln (1994) are interested in the methodology, and identified four
knowledge acquisition paradigms that underpin them: positivism,
postpositivism, constructivism, and critical theory. However, Anderson
(1993) provides a distinct view of the classifications proposed by Guba and
Lincoln. Taking this into consideration, this distinction can likely be
K differentiated into two classes, positivism and constructivism, there being a
33,3/4 variety of forms of the latter (Table II).
More generally, we can define ontological species of knowledge acquisition
paradigm. They are normally embedded within concepts of either realism or
relativism, as illustrated in Table II. In doing so, we shall consider the
considerations of Guba and Lincoln initially, and their four species of
734 paradigm. For them, constructivism is relativistic, and relativists believe that
reality is defined by what it is locally perceived to be, and a definable social
community usually defines that locality. Other perspectives adopt forms of
realism. Epistemological species can also be differentiated, by distinguishing
between knowledge acquisition paradigms that adopt objectivism or
subjectivism. Guba and Lincoln hold that positivism and postpositivism are
objectivist, while constructivism and critical theory are subjectivist. We should
note that their view of constructivism is defined in terms of the ontology of
social constructivism and the epistemology of cybernetic constructivism as
identified in Table II. Their postpositivism and critical theory both support

Postpositivism Constructivism
Critical theory Cybernetic Social
(cognitive Habermas Beer (1972, Radical (Vygotsky,
Aspect Positivism constructivism) (1971) 1979) (Piaget, 1977) 1978)

Ontology Realism Bounded Relativism

Description Naı̈ve Critical realism Historical Personal Personal Social
realism realism or social relativism relativism
relativism
Nature of Reality Reality exists Reality is Reality is Reality may Reality is
reality exists, imperfectly. Is local and local and exist, but is socially
and may be probabilistically cognitively cognitively mediated by constructed
apprehended apprehendable demiurgic: demiurgic individual
shaped by being shaped senses
socially by
related factors socially
(e.g. political, related factors
cultural,
economic)
Epistemology Objectivism Subjectivism
Description Dualist/ Modified Transactional/ Transactional/ Transactional/ Transactional/
objectivist dualist/objectivist subjectivist subjectivist subjectivist subjectivist
Knowledge Value free, Through Findings Findings Findings are Findings are
Table II. creation and through falsification, are value are value individual, and socially
Comparative objectivity, findings mediated mediated connected to the created
axioms findings replicable and through interrelationship through
for each must be probably true consensus between subject normative
species of replicable and object values
Knowledge to be true resulting from
Acquisition Paradigm interaction
realism, and many realists are also instrumentalists (or logical positivists) Beer’s
believing that reality is defined by the readings that have been acquired ontological
through measuring instruments. system
One area of importance to management processes is communication.
A positivist/postpositivist view of interpersonal communication looks at
the technical phenomena and expresses the efficiency of transactions.
A constructivist view sees a communication episode as part of cultural
735
framework with subjective outcomes. Critical theory takes a rather more bleak
perspective on what communication is for, and its conceptualisations may be
explored best through the work of Habermas (1987) on Communicative Action,
where participants to a process of communication pursue their plans
cooperatively on the basis of a shared definition of the situation. Similarly,
Luhmann’s (1995) work on social science is concerned with the information
bound within a communication, noting that its nature must take on board the
notion that it means something very different for the sender and the receiver.
Positivism has an ontology that is naı̈vely realistic – that is, there is a reality
that may be apprehended and that we can see it as it “really” is. Its
epistemology adheres to the notion of objectivity, and the possibility of finding
universal truths. Those who hold positivistic views see reality to exist
autonomously from any observer, and inquirers can be objective and
non-participant observers to the events that they see. The events can be
represented by observer independent measurables called data that represent
the “facts” of a single objective “reality”. Thus, for instance, a given
investigation should always produce the same result for any observer if the
theory about it is “true”, and if it is undertaken “scientifically” (though what is
scientific is defined by positivists in terms of a set of propositions for practice
that are consistent with a positivist epistemology). The truths set-up as a
pattern of propositions represents knowledge. Through deductive reasoning,
the approach usually embeds an attempt to test theory in order to improve both
understanding of a situation and ability to make predictions about it.
Positivism has a long tradition. It is sometimes referred to as mechanistic
thinking as it paralleled the machine age western industrial revolution. In the
last century, it was manifested within psychology as behaviourism, and it has
some relevance to the learning theory of organisations (Yolles, 1999).
Positivism purports that statements that emerge from a theory should be
positive and testable, but this can be problematic in a complex world. This is
because statements that may first appear to be simple may be quite complex
and convoluted, and the creation of testable hypotheses may be highly
problematic. Postpositivism arose as a counter to positivism to this.
The problems of quantum mechanics, chaos and complexity have been
captured in postpositivism with its “participatory interminglings” that links
the observer and that being observed, rather than perceptions of objective
things standing apart from human subjectivity (Fischer, 1998). In short, the
K traditional understanding of the physical world as a stable or fixed entity is no
33,3/4 longer adequate. However, there is no standard definition of “postpositivism”.
Its base assumption is that reality exists, but can never be fully understood or
explained, given both multiplicity of causes and effects and problem of social
meaning. Objectivity can serve as an ideal, but requires a critical community of
interpreters. Critical of empiricism, it emphasises the social construction of
736 theory and concepts, and qualitative approaches to the discovery of knowledge.
There is a critical tradition in postpositivism that is explained by Myers
(1999). A critical realist believes that there is a reality independent of our
thinking that science can study. While positivists are realists, the critical
realism of postpositivists supports the notion that observation is fallible and
has error and that all theory is revisable. That is, the critical realist is critical of
our ability to know reality with certainty. Unlike the positivist, the critical
realism of the postpositivist believes that the goal of science is to seek the truth
about reality. Owing to the fallibility of measurement, the postpositivist
supports the notion that multiple measures and observations are needed, each
of which may possess different types of errors that can be related and therefore
eliminated. The postpositivist also believes that all observations are
theory-laden, so that scientific inquiry is inherently biased by their cultural
experiences and worldviews. To deal with this, they reject the relativistic idea
of the incommensurability of different perspectives. That is the idea that we
can never understand each other because of our different worldviews
developed through our individual cultural experiences, leading to our
individually different patterns of knowledge that deliver meaning to us from
our experiences and communications. Data information that defines replicated
findings that create knowledge are considered to be true only probably.
Myers further contends that most postpositivists are constructivists who
believe that we each construct our view of the world based on our
perceptions of it. This view will be developed further through the
conceptualisations supported by Anderson (1999). It supports the notion
that since perception and observation are seen to be fallible, our
constructions of reality must be imperfect. Postpositivists do not believe
that any individual can see the world perfectly as it really is. All scientific
inquiry is biased and all observations are theory-laden. Objectivity in
postpositivism is a social rather than individual characteristic involving
critique across a subject area. Unlike Myers, Guba and Lincoln (1994) do
not admit that postpositivists are technically constructivists. They agree
that like positivists who support the notion of an objective reality,
postpositivists believe that this may only be apprehended imperfectly and
probabilistically, and only an approximate image of reality may be
possible. A distinction between constructivists and postpositivists, however,
is that the former believe that they can construct their own reality while
the latter are constrained in this by a positivist reality. Another distinction
is that in positivism, replicable findings are assumed to be true. In Beer’s
postpositivism, however, the concept of falsification arises, where findings ontological
are examined critically to see if they can be shown to be false. system
Supportive of Guba and Lincoln, Fischer (1998) paints a picture of
postpositivists as “interpretive consensualists” rather than constructivists.
From an epistemological perspective, he tells us that empirical data that are
accepted by consensus becomes knowledge through interpretative interaction
737
with the perspectives of others. It is only by examining such data through
conflicting frameworks that the presuppositions giving it meaning can be
uncovered. The crucial debates now become centred on their underlying
assumptions. Such deliberations produce new understandings in a process
better framed as a “learned conversation” than the pursuit of empirical proof.
Emphasis shifts from the narrow concerns of empirical-analytic theory to the
development of “a rich perspective” on human affairs. Within this context,
knowledge is the evolving conversation that is more accurately understood as
consensually “accepted belief” than as proof or demonstration.
Horkheimer and others developed critical theory in relation to the political
disappointments at the absence of revolution in the West, the development of
Stalinism in Soviet Russia, and the victory of fascism in Germany (Habermas,
1987; Held, 1980, p. 116). It was intended to explain mistaken Marxian
evaluations without breaking with its fundamental intentions. The form
proposed by Habermas (1970) is expressed in terms of his theory of knowledge
constitutive interests.
Critical theory is a blanket term that may be defined to include both
postmodernism and poststructuralism since their epistemology supports the
notion that inquiry is value determined (Guba and Lincoln, 1994).
Epistemologically, critical theory is transactional and subjectivist. An
inquirer and the situation being inquired into are assumed to be interactively
connected through the values of the inquirer and any others involved (the
inquiries). Any data information, taken as findings that create knowledge, are
therefore value mediated. As such a properly constituted value laden personal
interpretation of data information from findings made through personal values
is seen to be valid.
The ontology of critical theory tells us that while there may be a reality
separate from experience, it can only be known through experience making
it relative to the viewer. Since all individuals have distinct experiences, this
leads to the notion that each view of reality is unique. In particular, it
holds that reality is virtual as opposed to being tangible, and is shaped by
social, political, economic, ethnic and other factors that crystallise over
time.
Myers (1999) tells us that inquirers who adopt a perspective through critical
theory assume that social reality is historically constituted and that it is
produced and reproduced by people. Although people can consciously act to
K change their social and economic circumstances, critical inquirers recognise
33,3/4 that their ability to do so is constrained by various forms of social, cultural and
political domination. The main task of critical inquiry is seen as being one of
the social critique, whereby the restrictive and alienating conditions of the
status quo are brought to light. A critical framework focuses on the
oppositions, conflicts and contradictions in contemporary society. It may be
738 seen as the existence of any entity (a thing, object or event) that is perceivable
and that can be experienced in some way. As such phenomena are what we
shall call “cognitively demiurgic”: to be formative or creative, and deriving
from the notion of one who fashions the material world out of chaos. It is
consistent with the notion of creative observation as defined by Roy Frieden
(1999) that physical reality is a result of an interaction between a viewer and
acquired information. Unlike constructivism, it is not consciously constructed.
However like it, reality is locally made.
Following a lead offered by Carter et al. (1997), the underlying assumptions
for critical theory can be identified as:
.
all thought is mediated by power relations that are socially and
historically constituted;
.
the relationship between “concept and object” (relating to say an idea
about something, and the thing itself) and “signifier and signified”
(relating to say an indicator of something about a thing and that which is
understood about it) is socially (and culturally) mediated rather than
being fixed and stable;
.
language is central to the formation of subjectivity;
.
certain groups are privileged over others;
.
oppression (race, class, gender, age, for example) is reproduced when
subordinates accept their status or situation as natural, necessary, and/or
inevitable;
.
empirical data are interrogated with the intent of uncovering
contradictions and negations in objective descriptions;
.
information always involves acts of human judgement and interpretation;
.
power is the basis of social groups;
.
there is no such thing as neutrality;
. inquiry includes political action to redress injustices found in the inquiry
process;
.
purposes focus on facilitating change and emancipatory action;
.
conceptual context, informed by the assumptions listed above, is explicit;
.
research questions focus on uncovering, provide a space for introspection,
seek out multiple realities;
.
internal and external validity is replaced by critical trustworthiness.
Habermas (1987) has developed a view of critical theory that eventually Beer’s
developed into a theory of communicative action, concerned with the ontological
relationship between behaviour and communication. His earlier work identifies system
as part of its conceptual base, the notion of cognitive interest that is defined in
terms of three attributes that have embedded within them learning domains
that generate knowledge. The three attributes are: work, interaction and power
(Habermas, 1970, 1971). They determine how knowledge can be identified and
739
whether knowledge claims are warranted. It forms the basis of his theory of
Knowledge Constitutive Interests (KCI) that forms a basis for his three worlds
model. MacIsaac (1996) differentiates between these three forms of knowledge
in the following way.
.
Work knowledge broadly refers to the way one controls and manipulates
one’s environment. Commonly known as the instrument of action,
knowledge is based on empirical investigation and governed by technical
rules. The appropriateness of action is defined by the criterion “effective
control of reality”. It is through empirical and analytical approaches that
hypothetical and deductive theories can characterise the learning
domains.
.
Practical knowledge occurs through communicative action within a
process of social interaction. Social knowledge is created through
consensual norms, and these define reciprocal expectations about the
behaviour of others. While social norms can be expressed through
empirical and analytical propositions, their validity is subjective and
connected to intention. The determinant of nature of appropriate action is
“clarification of the conditions for communication and intersubjectivity”,
that is, the understanding of meaning rather than causality.
. Emancipatory knowledge is individual self-knowledge or self-reflection.
It involves an interest in one’s history, and biography is expressed in
terms of self-image, roles, and social expectations. Ones desires (libidinal),
institutional and environmental forces limit emancipation by
constraining our options and rational control over our lives. Knowledge
is gained by self-emancipation through reflection leading to a
transformation in perspective.
In critical theory, there is no absolute real world that can be separated out,
because viewers create it within their frame of reference, and interact with their
creation in a way that creates local or demiurgic phenomenology. There is
therefore no separation between viewers and the behavioural world around
them. Since what constitutes reality is determined through worldviews, it
changes as worldviews change. In each worldview, we build our view of what
we perceive to be the world through our mental models, created through a
collection of conceptual extensions that form our patterns of knowledge. We
may believe that we share the mental models with others, but mostly they will
K be incommensurable (Yolles, 1999). This is because the mental models involve
33,3/4 conceptual extensions, the meanings of which are not individually shared. This
is because the meaning of the conceptual extensions that make them up is
either not known or is qualitatively different. This results in a mismatch in
meaning the models supposedly shared. We are never aware whether the
shared models are related, except by attempting to draw meaning from others’
740 explanations provided through language, or comparing what we expect from
the behaviour of people in a situation with what we perceive that they are
doing.
Let us now move on to forms of constructivism as supported by Anderson
(1999), whose classification of constructivism is different from that of Guba and
Loncoln. He explains that the species of constructivism adopt the base notions
of Dewey (1938). According to Doolittle and Camp (1999) and Von Glasersfeld
(1984), constructivism has four epistemological axioms:
(1) knowledge is the result of cognitive processes,
(2) cognition is an adaptive process that enhances the viability of behaviour
for a given environment,
(3) experience becomes meaningful through cognitive processes, and
(4) knowing is created through biological/neurological as well as social,
cultural, and language-based interactions.
Thus, constructivism recognises that knowledge acquisition is a personal
process that is based on experience. Therefore, the knowledge acquired by an
individual will be personal, be connected with experiences, and have a validity
that is related to the ability of an individual to relate it convincingly in terms of
reality. Interestingly, these axioms are also valid for the critical theory
paradigm, which may therefore be seen as yet another species of
constructivism. However, this species of knowledge acquisition paradigm
has a number of subspecies, named by Anderson (1999) as: cognitive, social
and radical constructivism.
Cognitive constructivism, according to Dole and Sinatra (1998), accepts the
epistemological axioms (1) and (2) above, is linked to the learning process, and
holds that external structures that exist in external reality can be accurately
represented as internal models. Hence, structures and processes that are
internally formulated can correspond to those of the real world, and reality is
knowable to the individual, and like positivism supports the notion of naı̈ve
realism. Knowledge construction is therefore considered to be primarily a
technical rather than a subjectivist process of knowledge creation.
Interestingly, from the brief descriptions provided here, it is not an easy
matter to differentiate clearly between Anderson’s description of cognitive
constructivism and Guba and Lincoln’s postpositivism, and ultimately a
decision occurs through a matter of fancy or context. In Table II, we relate
postpositivism with cognitive constructivism.
 Both radical and social constructivism are closely related, each adopting all Beer’s
four axioms. Their distinctions are differentiated in that Vygotski (1978) sees ontological
knowledge processes being dependent initially on social processes in what we system
shall call naı̈ve knowledge acquisitors, while Piaget (1977) allows knowledge
acquisition to be totally a subjective process.
Radical constructivism is principally due to Piaget, whose propositions were 741
designed to enable him to explain the capacity of children to learn (Doolittle
and Camp, 1999). Knowledge acquisition is an adaptive process that results
from active cognising by the individual learner, and while social interactions
represent a source of knowledge, it occurs through internalisation by the
individual. As such, knowledge has an internal nature, and the idea that, while
an external reality may exist, it is unknowable to the individual knowledge is
internal. This is because our experience with external forms is mediated by our
senses, and our senses are not adept at rendering an accurate representation of
these external forms (e.g. objects, social interactions). Therefore, knowledge is
constructed from experience, and does not represent an accurate representation
of external reality. The adaptive nature of knowledge supports the notion that
knowledge cannot represent objective truth, and that internal knowledge is a
viable model of experience rather than a reflection of external reality. Piaget
theory of psychological constructivism is cybernetic, and holds that
understanding is constructed through the interrelationship between the
object, that is differentiated from self and towards which one acts without
personal attachment, and the subject that is associated with personal
attachment. This distinction is similar to that supported by Foucault (1974),
and we shall return to this in a moment.
Piaget’s perspective on cognitive learning may be constrained through that
of Vygotsky’s (1978) social constructivism (Doolittle and Camp, 1999). Rather
similar to radical constructivism, knowledge is a social phenomenon and is the
result of social interaction, language usage and social discourse. However, the
major departure from Piaget is that knowledge is seen to be a shared rather
than an individual experience. The social collective seeks and finds truth
through their collective interactive dialogue. Truth is therefore socially
constructed in the collective consciousness defined by cultural co-participants.
The social interaction occurs within a socio-cultural context, so that knowledge
is bound to a specific time and place. Truth is socially constructed and agreed
upon through common participation in cultural practices. Social constructivists
are concerned not so much with the mental constructions of knowledge
creation, but rather the co-construction of meaning within a social activity.
In this sense, social constructivism is more concerned with meaning than
structure. Cullen in 1999 notes that the social constructivist notions of the
construction of knowledge focus on its social origins, and appear to have direct
relevance to learning in organisational settings.
K Vygotsky (1978) builds upon a foundational principle that all cognitive
33,3/4 learning occurs at a social level prior to becoming individual. As such, others
mediate cognitive learning, social dialogue is an important component of
learning; and cultural tools (beliefs, artifacts, systems) are accessed and acquire
meaning in social contexts. However, the mediated cognitive learning approach
does not reflect particularly on the processes of knowledge intensification, only
742 on the conditions that enable knowledge intensification to develop. We can
refer to this as the mediation proposition.
This leads us to the question of where Beer’s conception fit into the pattern
of knowledge acquisition paradigms with his system/metasystem recursive
process. Following Pickering (2002), Beer’s interest in the success or failure of
organisations was a function of their adequacy in coping with their
environment as the real world. However, this real world was classified by
him as an “exceedingly complex system”, meaning that it was not exhaustively
knowable, however much, one mapped it and theorised it, one would always be
surprised by it. Hence, ontologically speaking, reality may exist, but it is not
knowable. In this sense, it is similar to critical theory. We can consider Beer’s
understanding of epistemology by recognising first, that the metasystem is the
harbour of knowledge and the place where it is acquired. Consequently, the
recursive principle is consistent with the notion that knowledge, embedded in
language, is subjective to subordination as relative movement occurs from one
subordinate focus to another, relative to a superior focus. In particular, Beer
(1972, p. 228-9) implies, but states in Beer (1979, p. 311), quite clearly the
constructivist nature of his work when he says: “systems are to be recognised
subjectively; and their purposes exist only in the mind of an observer (or group
of observers, who have themselves agreed on the conventions of their joint
observation)”. This would seem to link with the constructivist
conceptualisations of both Piaget and Vygotsky. As a result of this, we have
presumed to interpret Beer’s perspective as given in Table I, with similarities to
Habermas, Piaget and Vygotski. However, there is a difference between the
constructivism of Piaget and Vygotsky, and that of Beer, Beer is a realist in the
sense that ultimately reality is independent of our thinking about it (and this is
implicit in his thinking when he developed his Viable Systems Model - see for
instance Beer, 1979). However, he is also a constructivist, and his relativism is
bounded by his realism. This ontology may be referred to as reality relativism.

The system/metasystem dichotomy in viable systems

Organisations that are viable can adapt to a changing environment. Variety in
the environment of an organisation is determined by more or less
distinguishable entities (elements, events or states) that occur within it. This
is not problematic since to be adaptable, one has to see what it is that one must
adapt to. These entities can be expressed in terms of time, space or purpose.
The distinguishable entities may:
 .
be constrained through relatively stable causal relationships between Beer’s
them in time and space, and ontological
.
appear to have a lack of constraint or be chaotic, when they appear to be system
loosely related such that one event or state cannot be clearly associated
with another.
The variety of a system can be defined (Beer, 1979, p. 3) as the number of 743
possible states that the system is capable of exhibiting. The basic condition of
the complexity of a system is determined by its variety. Variety can therefore
be seen to act as a measure of complexity. As environmental variety changes,
so will environmental complexity. Organisational and social problem
situations are often seen to arise with changes in complexity. We often see
this as a natural development with, for example, the rise of new technologies
and their consequence for existing labour mechanisms.
The context of a situation that exhibits variety is important when discussing
complexity. Thus, what we mean by variety will be dependent upon the context
within which the system is placed by an inquirer. In this light, we can say that
when we talk of the number of possible states in a situation that defines
variety, then we are also talking about the worldview of an inquirer.
A viable system is one that can be seen to be self-dependent, and thus take
on an independent existence. At present, a system can be viewed as a set of
hierarchies that together form a complex whole. In the same way as it is
possible to explore the viability of an organisation as a whole, the viability of
each focus can also be explored as a part of the system as a whole.
This leads to a question posed by Beer. “If a viable system is one ‘able to
maintain a separate existence’, how is it that a viable system contains viable
systems which are clearly not separate from the viable system in which they
are contained” (Beer, 1979, p. 118). The answer is that often parts of the system
that might be identifiable as self-standing viable systems have other social,
cultural, propositional, operational, or human constraints that do not enable
them to separate out to work as independent viable systems.
Having said this, it should also be noted that organisations might be
responsible for their own demise due to their pathology. This is tied into their
autopoietic nature, which should relate to ontological focuses and indeed the
referencing focus that may define the whole. Autopoiesis should not be applied
to an organisation’s metasystem. An example of when this might occur is when
part of the metasystem attempts to control for the sake of control. Seeing
control as a product of the organisation destroys the viability and autonomy of
the broader system. In Beer’s terms, a system in this condition can be described
as pathologically autopoietic (Beer, 1979, pp. 408-12). Ultimately, the pathology
of a viable system concerns the failure of its cohesiveness.
Beer (1959), in his development of managerial cybernetics, explored the
nature of viable systems as he created his VSM. Viable systems participate in
the autonomous development of their own futures. A viable organisation
K participates in automorphosis[12], when it is responsible for and participates in
33,3/4 changing in its own form, and thus enabling it to maintain appropriate
operational behaviour under a changing environment and survive. The form is
determined by its structure that both facilitates and constrains that behaviour.
Its refinement over the OD methodology is that strategic decisions are not
simply seen as an input to the system (Yolles, 1999). Rather, they derive from
744 its metasystem that is responsible for manifesting and maintaining system
structure. While OD sees the system itself as the transformation, the
management cybernetics that underpins VSM invents a metasystem, and it
implicitly supposes a transformation between the system and metasystem.
Thus for instance, in OD strategy decisions are seen as inputs to the system,
while in VSM they derive from the metasystem. In this way, the metasystem
formally becomes one aspect of a structured inquiry.
When decision-making is part of a formalised determinable process in an
organisation, so the metasystem is also formalised, and decisions are made
within it with respect to the perceived needs of the organisation at the level of
focus concerned. This does not mean, however, that there may be another
informal metasystem from which informal decisions derive. The metasystem
ultimately operates through and is defined by the worldviews that determine
the nature of the organisation. When a worldview exists formally it may be
called its paradigm (Yolles, 1999).
VSM is a generic model of the organisation that promotes principles of
communication and control that help it to maintain its viability (Schwaninger,
2001). It is axiomatic in VSM that any organisation that can be modelled as a
viable system can also be modelled as a set of five subsystems. They each
represent an interactive function that act together as a filter between the
environment and organisation’s management hierarchy, and connect
management processes and their communications channels. The filter is
sophisticated because it attenuates (reduces the importance of) some data while
simultaneously amplifying other data. The filtered data are converted into
information that is relevant to different levels of management within the
organisation. A final control element addressed in the model offers auditing
tools to make sure that the correct data are being collated. The audit channel
mops up variety by sporadic or periodic checks. However, making sure that the
appropriate data are assembled is only one of its functions.
The VSM is defined in terms of five entities, referred to as system one (S1) to
system five (S5), plus S3*, each with related communicative relationships
(Yolles, 1999). S1 is defined as the system of operations (with its local
management), and S3, S4 and S5 compose the metasystem. The meaning of
each of the systems is described in Table III. While the epistemology of the
VSM is taken care of by Beer, there is an ontological discussion. In exploring
this we see that S1 is ontologically associated with the system, and S3-S5 are
ontologically associated with the metasystem. However, S2, S3* and the
System Ontology Nature of system
Beer’s
ontological
1 Operations System System 1 is concerned with the system in focus (“the system
system”) and its behaviour. “Operations” provide a
representation of what the system does and produces; it is
usually broken down into functional units, and interacts
with the environment through futures/planning. It is the 745
system that is itself the subject of control. S1 interacts with
the environment directly and through S4. There may be a
number of perspectives from which to see system 1, and it
may be seen from more than one by an organisation. For
instance, system 1 could be seen in terms of product line,
technology used, location, cycle time of products, customers,
distribution channels, etc.
2 Coordination In void System 2 can provide effective control. It concerns aspects
of culture and is interested in limited synergy across
divisions of an organisation. It tries to harmonise the culture
and structure of the enterprise whilst also trying to reduce
chaos and introduce order. It amplifies the control capability
to try to induce self-regulation into its behaviour, which is in
the implementation of operations. It can be seen as
predominantly anti-oscillatory. It implements non-executive
decisions like schedules, personnel and accounting policies
and other areas governed by (legal and other) protocol. The
aspect of culture it addresses is that of house style rather
than the values/identity questions of S5
3 Integration/ In void This function is concerned with effective regulation of the
control (early work) dynamic internal to the organisation. Integration/control is
or metasystem in charge of the functional units of the system. It controls
(later work) and monitors what is going on. It is responsible for the
implementation of policies, resource allocation, and the
control and monitoring of the implementation activities.
It determines information needs. It is involved in synergy
related tasks
3* Audit In void Investigation, evaluation and validation of information flow
between S1 and S3, noting that the link to S1 occurs only to
pick up the information deficit associated with S2
4 Future/ Metasystem This function is important to the identity of the
planning organisation. Futures/planning involves issues of
development and strategic planning. It observes the
organisation from both internal and external views. It does
this by gathering information from the environment and the
system itself. It does all the future orientated tasks: research
and development, training (except the orientation and
maintaining skills at S2), recruitment, public relations, and
market research. Consistent with the information gathering
activities, it is also connected with the creation of knowledge
Table III.
Nature of the VSM
(continued) systems
K System Ontology Nature of system
33,3/4
5 Policy Metasystem This is concerned with the establishment and maintenance
of a coherent context for the processes of the organisation. It
relates to what the organisation sets out to do. It defines the
direction of the organisation. It requires an accurate
746 overview that represents the various dimensions of activity.
Policy provides the systematic capability to choose from the
different problem situations or opportunities thrown up by
the environment. It is concerned with identity and cohesion
and balances the present and future and internal with
Table III. external perspectives

environment are normally portrayed within an ontological void (Table III) as

illustrated in Beer (1979, p. 253). It must be stressed that this has no impact at
all on the practical power VSM, concerned with the meanings associated with
each S1-S5 and their associated messaging (epistemological migrations) along
channels of communication (ontological migrations).
Beer’s constructions, when considered from an ontological perspective,
provide entry into a rich development that almost immediately connects with
the work of Schwarz (1997) and Yolles (1999). Schwarz has developed a
principally ontological theory that explains how persistent viable systems are
able to maintain themselves, change and die. However, it does very little to
engage with human activity systems, and it explains processes rather than
provides for diagnosis as in VSM. In what follows we shall create a synergy
between the conceptual constructions of Beer and Schwarz. It will result in a
new paradigm that is capable of engaging the power of VSM while at the same
time can draw on Schwarz’s elegant explanations. In creating this synergy such
that it is true to Beer, however, we shall need to develop some additional
conceptualisations that extend those of Schwarz into human activity systems.
The three domains VSM
Consistent with Table I, the needs of Table III, and with the construction of
Schwarz, we shall define the three domains (Yolles and Guo, 2003): cognitive or
existential (that can house a metasystem), the virtual or organising (that in
terms of VSM would house System 2, System 3 and System 3*), and the
phenomenal of behavioural (that can house the operational systems and their
environments). Domain epistemology is shown in Figure 3, which is originally
derived from the need to give a relatively practical explanation of change in
China as it joins the World Trade Organisation (Yolles and Guo, 2003).
Each domain has boundaries that condition their validity claims about
reality. The boundary of one domain is differentiated from that of the others
through its ontological horizon. In exactly the same way, as we considered the
system/metasystem couple, this horizon maintains a content that varies
depending on the cognitive perceiver that provides an entry into what may be
 Beer’s
ontological
system

747

Figure 3.
Influence diagram
exploring the
relationship between the
phenomenal, virtual and
existential domains

meaningfully reflected on, spoken about, or acted over. The three domains are
ontologically coupled, and their horizons meld when they are seen as an
emergent whole. However, this can only occur if the boundaries that
differentiate the domains maintain ontological migrations that condition the
melding process. Thus, ontological horizons both distinguish and connect
differentiable validity claims about reality.
Earlier, we introduced the ontology of the system and metasystem, and in
Table IV, we consider the ontology of the three domains. Consistent with the
notions of phenomenology, the three domains have boundaries that condition
their realities. The boundary of one domain is differentiated from that of the
others through its ontological horizon. In exactly the same way, as we
considered the system/metasystem couple, this horizon maintains a content
that varies depending on the cognitive perceiver that provides an entry into

Types of domain Nature of reality

Phenomenal or behavioural Material objects or events in interaction, the perception of

which is conditioned by a cognitive knowledge-based frame of
reference. It is cognitively demiurgic (meaning formative or
creative), deriving from the notion of one who fashions the
material world from chaos, and consistent with Frieden (1999)
and Husserl (1950, p. 108)
Virtual or organising Symbolic or logical relational images that relate to phenomenal
reality and involve purposeful organising. It is local to the
experiences of the perceiver. Images of value and belief are
maintained, partly represented through ethics and ideology.
The domain is conditioned by a cognitive knowledge-based
frame of reference
Existential or cognitive The local belief-based creation of concepts and their patterns Table IV.
held in worldviews that establish a frame of reference, and The three domains and
determine what is known and their related meanings their realities
K what may be meaningfully reflected on, spoken about, or acted over. The three
33,3/4 domains are ontologically related, and their horizons meld when the domains
are seen as an emergent whole. However, this can only occur if the boundaries
that create the horizons also harbour ontological connections that condition
that melding. Thus, ontological horizons both distinguish and connect
differentiable realities.
748 These domains have properties (Table V), this notion inspired by
Habermas’s (1970) Theory of KCI relating to the phenomenal domain, related
to Beer’s ideas on the system/metasystem couple, and extended to the other
domains. The idea of cognitive interests was Habermas’s, and in addition we
have included the notion of cognitive purposes and influences. Additionally, we
have adopted the notion of sociality properties that describes some of the
capacities of the organisation as a whole (Yolles and Guo, 2003).
It is interesting that some of Habermas’s conceptualisations in his KCI
theory are directly reflected in Beer’s notions. Thus for instance, when
Habermas talks of technical and practical interests, they are principally
reflected in Beer’s system (S1) that links practical management control with the
operational system. Beer’s principles of variety and requisite variety imply a
host of soft issues that are associated with organisational processes, and are
necessarily related to the emancipation and critical deconstraining of
Habermas. However, Beer’s language is less than transparent in this respect
and requires deep reading. It has therefore permitted critics of VSM to make
incorrect statements about the inadequacies of VSM, for instance by Checkland
(1980) who says that it misses the human meaning aspects of individuals
(surprising realising the epistemological nature of VSM), and from Ulrich
(1981) who suggests that tools of inquiry should have an ethical dimension.
The three domains of Figure 3 exist in a first-, and second-order ontological
couple that is expressed through its boundaries. The relationship between the
phenomenal and virtual domains defines a first-order ontological couple. This is
more usually referred to as autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela, 1979; Schwarz,
1997; Yolles and Dubois, 2001), but in fact autopoiesis is only an example of the
ontological migrations that can occur when two ontologies are coupled together.
It leads to the simple notion that the autopoietic capacity for a system can be
directly related to its ability to manifest phenomenally its own virtual images
through the self-production of usually structured intentional behaviour. We say
usually because organisations operate through normative behaviour that is
consistent with their expectations, and normative behaviour is normally
regulated through structure. This does not mean that structure is a necessary
condition for regularised behaviour to occur. Having said this, it is probably
possible to express any mechanisms through which regularised behaviour
occurs in terms of either implicit or explicit structure associated with the
organisation in focus. The second-order ontological couple that we have referred
to connects the existential or cognitive domain to the first-order ontological
 Sociality properties
Beer’s
Cognitive Kinematics (through Orientation Possibilities (through ontological
properties energetic motion) (determining trajectory) potential development) system
Cognitive Technical Practical Critical deconstraining
interests
Phenomenal or Work. This enables Interaction. This Degree of emancipation. 749
behavioural people to achieve goals requires that people as For organisational
(conscious) and generate material individuals and groups viability, the realising
domain well-being. It involves in a social system gain of individual potential
technical ability to and develop the is most effective when
undertake action in the possibilities of an people: liberate
environment, and the understanding of each themselves from the
ability to make others subjective views. constraints; imposed by
prediction and establish It is consistent with a power structures and
control practical interest in learn through
mutual understanding precipitation in social
that can address and political processes
disagreements, which to control their own
can be a threat to the destinies
social form of life

Cognitive Cybernetical Rational/appreciative Ideological/moral

purposes
Virtual or Intention. This is Formative organising. Manner of thinking. An
organising through the creation Enables missions, intellectual framework
(subconscious) and strategic pursuit of goals, and aims to be through which policy
domain goals and aims that defined and approached makers observe and
may change over time, through planning. It interpret reality. This
enables people through may involve logical, has an aesthetical or
control and and/or relational politically correct
communications abilities to organise ethical orientation. It
processes to redirect thought and action and provides an image of
their futures thus to define sets of the future that enables
possible systematic, action through
systemic and behaviour politically correct
possibilities. It can also strategic policy. It gives
involve the use of tacit a politically correct
standards by which view of stages of
experience can be historical development,
ordered and valued, and in respect of interaction
may involve reflection with the external
environment

Table V.
The three domains, their
cognitive properties,
(continued) and organisational
patterning
K Sociality properties
33,3/4 Cognitive Kinematics (through Orientation Possibilities (through
properties energetic motion) (determining trajectory) potential development)

Cognitive Social Cultural Political

influences
750 Cognitive Formation. Enables Belief. Influences occur Freedom. Influences
(non-conscious) individuals/groups to from knowledge that occur from knowledge
domain be influenced by derives from the that affect our polity
knowledge that relate to cognitive organisation determined, in part, by
our social environment. (the set of beliefs, how we think about the
This has a consequence attitudes, values) of constraints on group
for our social structures other worldviews. It and individual
and processes that ultimately determines freedoms, and in
define our social forms how we interact and connection with this to
that are related to our influence our organise and behave. It
intentions and understanding of ultimately has impact
behaviours formative organising on our ideology and
morality, and our
degree of organisational
Table V. emancipation

couple. An example of this ontological migration is autogenesis, that represents

the self-production of the rules of production, and that can therefore be expressed
in terms of the creation of principles that are able to guide self-production. The
ontological migrations shown in Figure 4, will be discussed later.

The use of autopoiesis within the context of social communities

It may here be noted while we have referred to autopoiesis in a social
context, there is an argument that this is not appropriate to this. Following

Figure 4.
Relationship between
normative belief system
in a social community
and patterns of
knowledge that it
develops
Mingers (1995), Maturana and Varela (1980) developed the concept of Beer’s
autopoiesis[13] within the sphere of biology applied to living systems. They do ontological
not see social systems as an appropriate application because they are not living system
systems and cannot self-produce the components that comprise them. Beer
(1980) notes that the purpose of Maturana and Varela (1980) is “to understand
the organization of living systems in relation to their unitary character. This
formulation of the problem begs the question as to what is allowed to be a 751
called a living system, as they themselves admit.” From an epistemological
perspective, Beer (1980, p. 68) does not see that the need for systems to be living
stands in the way of social systems being seen as autopoietic:
The fact is that if a social institution is autopoietic (and many seem to answer to the proper
criteria) then, on the authors’ own showing, it is necessarily alive. That certainly sounds odd,
but it cannot be helped. It seems to me that the authors are holding at arms length their own
tremendously important discovery. It does not matter about this mere word “alive”, what
does matter is that the social institution has identity in the biological sense; it is not just the
random assemblage of interested parties that it is thought to be.
When it comes to social evolution then, when it comes to political change: we are not
dealing with institutions and societies that will be different tomorrow because of the
legislation we passed today. The legislation – even the revolution – with which we confront
them does not alter them at all; it proposes a new challenge to their autopoietic adaptation.
The behaviour they exhibit may have to be very different if they are to survive: the point is
that they have not lost their identities.
Beer (1980, p. 71) consequently shows that he is not neutral to whether or not
social systems can be autopoietic, as he also argues epistemologically that:
. . .any cohesive social institution is an autopoietic system because it survives, because its
method of survival answers the autopoietic criteria; and because it may well change its entire
appearance and its apparent purpose in the process. As examples I list: firms and industries,
schools and universities, clinics and hospitals, professional bodies, departments of state, and
whole countries.
If this view is valid, it has extremely important consequences. In the first place it
means that every social institution (in several of which any one individual is embedded
at the intersect) is embedded in a larger social institution, and so on recursively – and
that all of them are autopoietic. This immediately explains why the process of change at
any level of recursion (from the individual to the state) is not only difficult to accomplish
but actually impossible – in the full sense of the intention: “I am going completely to
change myself ”. The reason is that the “it”, that self-contained autopoietic “it”, is a
component of another autopoietic system. Now we already know that the first can be
considered as allopoietic with respect to the second, and that is what makes the second a
viable autopoietic system. But this is in turn means that the larger system perceives the
embedded system as diminished as less than fully autopoietic. That perception will be an
illusion; but it does have consequences for the contained system. For now its own
autopoiesis must respond to a special kind of constraint: treatment which attempts to
deny its own autopoiesis.
Consider this argument at whatever level of recursion you please. An individual
attempting to reform his own life within an autopoietic family cannot fully be his new
self because the family insists that he is actually his old self. A country attempting to
become a socialist state cannot fully become socialist; because there exists an
international autopoietic capitalism in which it is embedded, by which the revolutionary
K country is deemed allopoietic. These conclusions derive from entailments of premises
which the authors have placed in our hands. I think they are most valuable.
33,3/4
In exploring the argument against social system autopoiesis, Mingers (1995,
p. 123) defines the ontological argument that inhibits social systems being seen
as autopoietic. For this he identifies the following three “problematic” elements.
752 (1) Centrally, autopoiesis is concerned with the processes of production –
the production of those components that constitute the system
themselves.
(2) It is constituted in temporal and spatial relations, and the components
involved must create a boundary defining the entity as a unity – that is,
a whole interacting with its environment.
(3) The concept of autopoietic organisation specifies nothing beyond
self-production. It does not specify particular structural properties and
thus should not need to be modified for social systems.
There is a concern explored by Mingers that these elements cannot be
legitimately applied to social systems, presumably because it is unclear how
this can occur directly in terms of individuals and groups. While he discusses
Luhmann’s (1986) approach to autopoiesis in social systems later in his book,
he does not appear to highlight that because it may not be the individual or the
group that is self-produced, but the components that enable the social group to
exist. Thus for instance, Luhmann’s model centres on communications and the
self-production of communications. In the same way, social systems produce
patterns of knowledge, myths, behaviour, and other things to which
autopoiesis can similarly be applied. Mingers (1995, p. 125) notes, however,
that “a more radical approach” is to apply autopoiesis to concepts or ideas,
though why this radical is unclear.
In another vein, Mingers (1995, p. 124) notes that the fundamental problems
of autopoiesis for social systems are not significant if they are applied
metaphorically “in helping our thinking, or that a more generalised version,
such as Varela’s idea of organisational closure, could be fruitfully applied.”
Having said this, Mingers also indicates that metaphors produce merely
metaphoric results, and thus they have no greater claim on our attention.
Consistent with this view, Beer (1989) suggests that comparisons deriving from
metaphor should not be taken too seriously. These representative views
about the limitations of metaphor relate to those that are on a par with
simile, which take experiences from one domain and apply them to another
directly. However, unlike simile, metaphor is often purposefully abstracted
and elaborated, leading to more profound and significant comparisons.
For Brown (2003), metaphor is very important to the development of science,
facilitating mature knowledge and understanding. Based on his characteristics
of metaphor, we list the following.
 (1) Metaphors, like simile, begin with literal everyday experiences in a Beer’s
source domain that is necessarily local and culturally based. ontological
(2) Metaphors are mapped from the source domain to a sink domain (where system
it is used). The aim is to enlarge and enhance understanding of situations
in that sink domain. These understandings ultimately derive from direct
experiences that enable us to create more abstract conceptualisations. 753
(3) A given metaphor may highlight certain features of the source domain
and may obscure others. Obscured features are often implied or inferred
through context, and this can make the metaphor a powerfully creative
force in scientific reasoning.
(4) Although metaphors invite comparisons of two disparate things, the
more interesting metaphors do more than this. They stimulate creation
of similarities between the source and sink domains, such that the latter
is seen in an entirely new light.
(5) Metaphors in science serve an explanatory role and are a stimulus to
new inquiries. They may be very simple and evocative initially, then
grow more detailed as research findings support or disconfirm
inferences drawn from the initial metaphor.
(6) Metaphors may be elaborated, when they are extended and abstracted,
and also perhaps individually or in plural convergence so can form
models. These models may have associated with them metaphorical
entailments that influence how they are understood and applied. Models
commonly form a basis for theory creation. They may constitute
primary[14] propositions, and when this occurs they need to be
evidenced. As an example of this, we note Beer’s (1989) reference to his
VSM that he considers to be a generic[15] model for the social domain,
and rather than talking about evidencing it, he equivalently refers to it as
being testable and verifiable.
Scientific principle may be thought of as a literal representation of an
elaborated metaphor, a statement that we shall explore briefly. While
metaphors are grounded in experience, scientific principles are grounded in
facts. However, what is fact? In one of Beer’s writings, he said that facts are
“fantasies that you can trust”, where we can take trust to be a firm belief [16],
and where fantasies at there best can be a “subjective interpretation of
information”. Trust, however, occurs through belief, and it should therefore be
realised that it can vary from individual to individual, from group to group, or
from time to time. In other words, it is a cultural phenomenon. From a
constructivist perspective, this must mean that since scientific principle are
grounded in fact, and fact is culture relative and not absolute, scientific
principle must also be relative. A simple illustration of this arises from a brief
examination of the conflict between the supporters of the wave and particle
theories of light (Hoffman, 1947).
K The distinction between metaphor and scientific principle therefore becomes
33,3/4 less differentiable, as can be illustrated through an example. The system is a
conceptual construction that constitutes an elaborated metaphor. It operates as
an abstracted ideal, and used non-literally in a sink domain aids the process of
inquiry and the creation of intervention strategies for improvement where this
is desirable. This is a constructivist view that Beer (1980) supported, when he
754 tells us “a system is not something presented to the observer, it is something
recognized by him”. Sometimes the knowledge and language of an extended
metaphor becomes so embedded in the sink domain that it becomes a frame of
reference, and any scientific principle that develops become grounded in the
metaphor(s). When this happens, it becomes very difficult to distinguish
between extended metaphor(s) and resulting scientific principle. Hence,
metaphors can be as important as the scientific principles that rest on them.
In developing our viable systems theory conceptualisations, we create a
frame of reference that like the system should be thought of as an abstract
metaphor. As such, the ontological constructions that appear here should not
be seen in positivist terms, as might be the case if we were attempting to create
literal causative models. They operate to assist the formation of explanations
about social community pathology, which may more pragmatically enable an
inquirer to reflect on ways of creating intervention strategies for improvement.
The abstract metaphor that we are using is a development of philosophical
questions that ask what is the nature of reality (ontology) and knowledge
(epistemology). Systems concepts are normally framed in an epistemological
frame of reference. Thus, it may be asked, “how can we improve a given
complex situation for a social community”, where the notion of improvement
implies the acquisition of knowledge such that this can happen. It is a rarity for
systems concepts to be defined in ontological terms. The reason is that reality
is usually taken for granted because it cannot apparently provide a route, like
epistemology, for improvement. However, one of the reason that our social
communities are pathological is that we each individually have our own
realities, and when we form into bounded groups these too ascribe to new
normative bounded realities. These realities form with the development of local
paradigms that are the concern of epistemology. In this sense, epistemology
and ontology can only be divorced analytically, not practically or
pragmatically. However, the analytic and pragmatic approaches are different
sides of the same coin, especially if the analytic approach is explicitly intended
for use to satisfy the pragmatic one.
Mingers (1995, p. 151) discusses the metaphorical use of autopoiesis by
Morgan (1986) whose thesis is that the organisation is influenced by its own
internal self-image or identity. They are continually concerned to recreate and
maintain their image and identity by projecting themselves onto environments,
and what they monitor is a reflection of their own concerns and interests. While
there is more to the theory than this, its basic tenets are consistent with the
notions embedded in the ontological arguments of Eric Schwarz (Yolles, 1999), Beer’s
who developed his abstract analytic ontology that we are applying in principle ontological
to social community. Schwarz is concerned with the ontological perspective system
that explains the dynamic that enables autonomous systems to maintain their
viability, and his constructions explored the nature of autonomy in terms of
autopoiesis and its second-order form autogenesis. We assert that there is a
relationship between autonomy and autopoiesis in social communities, an
755
argument that comes, for instance, from Jessop (1990). He defines autopoiesis
as a condition of radical autonomy that enables a system to define its own
boundaries relative to its environment and its own operational code. It
implements its own programmes, reproduces its own elements in a closed
circuit, and obeys its own laws of motion. When it has “autopoietic take-off”, its
operations can no longer be directly controlled from outside, though there may
be a variety of indirect controls that in part constitute its “environment”. When
we talk of autonomous systems, we are often interested in autopoiesis, and
conversely when we talk of autopoiesis, we are normally concerned with
radical autonomy. However, it can be argued that the characteristics that
constitute the condition of radical autonomy may have a subjective dimension.
It must be stressed at this juncture that even though we consider that this
construction, like that of the system, is a metaphor, this does little to weaken
the importance of theoretical arguments to pragmatic approaches of inquiry.

Recursion
There are epistemological implications to our ontological construction that
relates to the notion of recursion, so important to VSM. Maturana (1996)
explores the nature of reality, regarded as:
a proposition that we use as an explanatory notion to explain our experiences. . .. [beyond
this] it is that which in our living as human beings we live as the fundament of our living.
Under these circumstances, reality is not energy, not information, however powerful these
notions may appear to us in the explanation of our experiences. We explain our experiences
with our experiences and with the coherence of our experiences. That is we explain our living
with our living, and in this sense we explain human beings as constitutively the fundament
for all that exists, or may exist in our domains of cognition.
Explaining our experiences with our experiences is a recursive phenomenon,
enabling whatever images of reality that we perceive to be embedded within
other images, like two mirrors at an angle reflecting an image of an object to
infinity. This is effectively a recursive frame of reference, and each image
represents a new validity claim about reality that is contextualised by the
validity claim in which it is embedded. This idea allows us to talk about
recursion, by which we mean that each of the three domains can, through the
local context of its own validity claim about reality, recursively host the set of
three domains. When this happens, the host domain has a validity claim that is
ontologically distinguished. When the domain hosts other relative domains
K within it, they are capable of formulating finer, more local validity claims about
33,3/4 reality.
Let us illustrate this. Phenomenal reality can be apprehended by a unitary
consciousness from which a single person responds to his or her phenomenal
experiences. Alternatively, a socially plural consciousness with distinguishable
complexities may be defined, for which coherent social behaviour occurs
756 phenomenally. This is enabled through phenomenal structures that
anticipate [17] a plurality of commonalities and norms, and an expectation
for behavioural adherence to them. It is within the virtual domain that images
of these arise that enables the phenomenal structures and behaviours to be
manifested in the first place. They are defined in the conceptual domain
through the knowledge that constitutes such commonalities and norms. This is
only possible because of the recursive nature of the domains within the
conceptual domain, through which the commonalities and norms are
manifested through the interaction of a plurality of consciousnesses. It may
be noted that the commonalities and norms that have arisen to create a
paradigm for the group arose originally through the creation of a virtual
paradigm in the virtual domain at another level of recursion. In this case, the
paradigm itself with its shared concepts and their structured interconnections
that constitutes a pattern of normative knowledge would have been associated
with the phenomenal domain.
We can apply the concept of recursion to our three domains model. Unlike
Beer’s VSM, this is not intended to diagnose the system. Rather, like the work
of Schwarz (1997), its purpose is to provide explanations for the complex
organisation that relate to its operational behaviour. This may or may not
provide additional ways of diagnosing the organisation.
We illustrate the notion of recursion and its significance for explanation in
Figures 4 and 5. Figure 4 shows the relationship between normative
organisational beliefs and the patterns of objectified knowledge it has. Figure 5
shows how recursion can occur in this model. The postulated model in Figure 4
is not claimed as valid, and the notion that the relationship between an

Figure 5.
Embedding the three
domain model into the
existential domain
organisation’s paradigm and its patterns of knowledge is an autopoietic one is Beer’s
sheer hypothesis. It postulates that an organisation can maintain its own ontological
patterns of knowledge as structures that can be represented in the phenomenal system
domain. Likely these patterns are explicit and can be expressed as propositions
that underpin the organisation’s modus operandi. They derive from the
dominant paradigm (if one exists) that the organisation maintains and from
which it operates. In viable organisations, the relationship between the
757
paradigm and patterns of knowledge may well be expressed as an autopoietic
process. Earlier, we indicated that this relationship between the virtual and
phenomenal domains is a first-order ontological couple. The second-order
ontological couple links from the existential domain to the first-order couple.
To illustrate recursion, in Figure 5, we have embedded the three domains in
the existential domain to explain how the normative belief system arises in the
first place from a plurality of them connected with the individuals that make up
the social community. Normative processes develop during communication
between participants of an organisation through the lifeworld[18]. The
recursion in Figure 5 postulates how a normative belief system emerges in an
organisation from a plurality of individual belief systems. Through
autogenesis common, principles of lifeworld interaction about belief systems
emerge that enable a plurality of competing images of what belief system is to
hold to be managed. It is through autopoiesis that these competing images are
self-produced as a normative organisational belief system. The normative
belief system that results is now reflected as the existential domain for Figure 4.
In Figure 6, we develop a further model that deals with co-evolutionary
development. This model derived from Yolles, explores the relationship

Figure 6.
Indication of the
ontological relationship
between adaptation and
co-evolution “Man is a
prisoner of his own way
of thinking and his own
stereotypes of himself”
Beer (1975, p. 15)
K between adaptation, self-organisation [19] and co-evolution, the first two of
33,3/4 these concepts are a serious concern of Beer. Interestingly, this representation
now gives autopoiesis a simple form of expression, illustrating that it is an
organisation’s ability to manifest its internal images of itself and its future into
phenomenal/behavioural reality. It may be noted here that Figure 4 would also
appear to give clear meaning to Beer’s (1975, p. 15) statement that “Man is a
758 prisoner of his own way of thinking and his own stereotypes of himself”.
The new ontology of the three domains model provides the capability of
more easily appreciating the notion of pathological autopoiesis, a term that is
easily open to a variety of interpretations. This is primarily because autopoiesis
is an ontological condition, and if one does not engage ontological arguments
the notion of autopoiesis can become convoluted and unclear. Viewed from the
ontological perspective of Schwarz, the meaning of pathological autopoiesis is
very clear. Since autopoiesis is the capacity of a social community
(or individual) to establish/produce its image of itself and its future as a
pattern of behaviour, pathological autopoiesis must mean that the social
community gets locked into this, thereby decoupling the ontological connection
(autogenesis) to autopoiesis as shown in Figure 6.
We have represented this situation of pathological autopoiesis in Figure 7 as
a development of Figure 6. The pathology leads to a stationary image of oneself
and the future with whatever embedded variety it may have in it. Adaptation
can occur, but if none of the possibilities available within that image are
adequate to deal with the changing environment, then a lack of capacity for
adaptation occurs. In general, while it might appear that an evolutionary
process is under way, this is not the case since a host of variations available to
the community will be called on, but no new evolutionary ones will develop. As
a consequence, there is no possibility for a co-evolutionary process. This type of

Figure 7.
Situation during
pathological autopoiesis
with bounded variety
options
situation therefore explains the onset of the eventual demise of a species of Beer’s
social community, when all of its variety has been used up without success. ontological
The legacy of Stafford Beer and the dynamics of paradigm change system
We have discussed the contribution that Beer has made to organisational
theory through his introduction of constructivism, adopting the theoretical
ideas of the metasystem and recursion, and giving them practical capacity. In 759
arguing this, we have also discussed the idea that paradigms change, and in
doing so that pass through a virtual stage that they may not survive. This
brings us to an interesting juncture, which is how do we perceive the legacy of
Beer’s conceptualisations. The problem we have here relates to what Iles and
Yolles (2002) and Yolles (2000) call knowledge migration that explains the
epistemological distance between the semantic implications seen in a
communication by a message source and semantic inferences applied to a
communication by a message sink. This epistemological distance results in the
acquisition of distinct information and the creation (not re-creation) of
knowledge that is catalysed by the communication, not embedded in it. When
people communicate they send messages that carry meaning, and thus embeds
knowledge, in coded form. To encode the message the source of the message
uses their current patterns of knowledge to encode the message. The message
sink does something similar. In a paradigm that adopts the epistemology and
ontology of positivism, knowledge migration is simply knowledge transfer.
However, in the critical theory approach adopted in this paper, every
communicator has their own unique pattern of knowledge defined by their
experiences and contextualised by their culture. This means that the
knowledge that is assembled by each message sink is not a reconstruction of
the knowledge of a source, but is rather a knowledge re-creation facilitated and
catalysed by the message, and it is unique. This is complexified by the idea that
every message has a horizon of meanings, those things implied by those who
know, but not made explicit.
There is a problem therefore, when a new paradigm arises. It is that each
person who interacts with it is likely to create what Yolles (1999) calls a
doppelganger virtual paradigm. It is a new species of the genus that has
re-interpreted or recreated the new paradigm. Unless this shift is substantive in
that it has the capacity to introduce a new conceptualisation that
fundamentally alters the frame of reference of the original paradigm,
contestations can be fed back through lifeworld processes that involve
response and debate. Sometimes this is not sufficient, and contested differences
become elaborated, and result in conflict. This process is explained by Yolles
(2001).
This process of paradigm contestation can become exacerbated with the
demise of the father of the paradigm. In the case of Beer’s cybernetic theory of
management, there is no possibility of a feedback control process, and the
consequence is that bloody paradigmatic revolution can result. This author
K wonders therefore, whether the legacy of Beer’s ideas will fragment into not
33,3/4 only a set of virtual paradigms, but also whether the result will be destructive
bloody conflict.
To ensure that this does not happen, the operational research and systems
community needs to establish a metasystem in which the operational
subsystems are the species of virtual paradigms. For the sake of simplicity, we
760 can call this a metaparadigm. I pose this as a challenge to the OR and systems
community.

Notes
1. To illustrate that Beer was a constructivist, and held such principles at least in the same
period as those whose names are assigned to this, we will be obliged to explore the notion of
constructivism in this paper, and it has led to an appreciation of an apparent conflict of view
in the literature.
2. Webster online dictionary.
3. The complement to this is weak anticipation that can be associated with strategy.
4. Swanson (2001) differentiates between base and auxiliary concepts. Auxiliary concepts
describe base concepts.
5. “. . .scientists, just like the rest of humanity, carry out their day-to-day affairs within a
framework of presuppositions about what constitutes a problem, a solution, and a method.
Such a background of shared assumptions makes up a paradigm, and at any given time a
particular scientific community will have a prevailing paradigm that shapes and directs
work in the field. Since people become so attached to their paradigms, Kuhn claims that
scientific revolutions involve bloodshed on the same order of magnitude as that commonly
seen in political revolutions, only the difference being that the blood is now intellectual
rather than liquid. . .the issues are not rational but emotional, and are settled not by logic,
syllogism, and appeals to reason, but by irrational factors like group affiliation and majority
or ‘mob’ rule” (Casti, 1989, p. 40).
6. Zeno’s paradox is concerned with the impossibility of moving between two points A and B in
space. To reach B from A, one must travel half the distance to it to a point say a1, and to go
from a1 to B you must reach a point half way to it at a2. This argument is recursive as you
move to a3, a4, a5,. . .. To count the full distance that you have travelled you must add all of
the half distances that form an infinite series, suggesting mathematically that you can never
reach B. The solution to the paradox is to introduce time as a new analytically and
empirically independent conceptual extension that operates as a limiting factor on the
summation. The introduction of this new conceptualisation has meant that a new paradigm
has been created with new propositions and beliefs, and it is thus incommensurable with the
previous paradigm since it creates a new conceptual extension through which new ways of
seeing can be created (Yolles, 1998).
7. This happens in all paradigmatic environments, whether they relate to the cultural basis of
an organisation – for instance, in the privatisation of public companies (Yolles, 1999), or of a
discipline of science as that being considered here.
8. For example, see Yolles (1999), referring to the work of Flood and Jackson (1991).
9. The idea of ontological horizon may be developed by referring to Ladriëre (2002).
10. According to the American Heritage Dictionary 4th edition 2000 online, meld means to merge
or blend (e.g. a meld of diverse ethnic stocks). In our context, it relates to a process of
de-differentiating that is a consequence of emergence.
11. An ontological migration enables validity claims about one reality to be migrated to another Beer’s
ontologically coupled reality.
ontological
12. The term self-organising is normally used here, but within the context of this paper, it can be
misleading in that it can be supposed to be part of an “organising” domain, rather than what system
it is, associated with system structure and its manifest behaviour. It is for this reason that we
refer to it as automorphosis, or self-change-of-form, relating to the concept of morphogenesis
(Yolles, 1999).
761
13. Mingers (1995) notes that this word autopoiesis, also referred to as self-production, comes
from auto as self as opposed to alloi as other, and poiesis as bringing forth, in this context
with respect to production.
14. Propositions constitute knowledge. Axioms are base propositions that are cultural
statements of belief, need no demonstration, and underpin the primary propositions that
may be elaborated and perhaps generalised abstractions of a metaphor. Secondary
propositions are derived consequences from primary propositions and may describe a
particular characteristic of them. Following Keynes (1973), such secondary propositions may
be claimed to support rational belief.
15. Beer’s language is different, and rather than talk of a model being generic, he rather uses the
more formal logical word homomorphism.
16. Collins Reference Dictionary, 1992.
17. When we say anticipation, we are actually referring to “strong anticipation” (Yolles and
Dubois, 2001), relating to the nature and relationship of the boundaries of the three domains
and their validity claims about reality.
18. According to Habermas (1987), lifeworld is a transcendental site where speakers and hearers
meet for intersubjective affairs like dealing with validity claims, settle disagreements,
achieve agreements. It has both teleological and communicative aspects of a management
situation. Lifeworld defines patterns of the social system as a whole, and is associated with
culturally transmitted background knowledge.
19. The term automorphosis is used here for self-organisation. The reason is that the virtual
domain can be called as an organising domain, and it is better to be sure that
self-organisation is part of the phenomenal domain and relating to self-change of form.

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Further reading
Bateson, G. (1972), Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Ballantine Books.
Beer, S. (1985), Diagnosing the System, Wiley, Chichester.
Bruning, R.H., Schraw, G.J. and Ronning, R.R. (1999), Cognitive Psychology and Instruction,
Merrill, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Piaget (1969), The Mechanisms of Perception, Basic Books, New York, NY.
Staver, J.R. (1995), “Scientific research and oncoming vehicles: can radical constructivist embrace
one and dodge the other?”, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 32 No. 10,
pp. 1125-8.
Von Glasersfeld, E. (1998), “Why constructivism must be radical”, in Larochelle, M., Bednarz, N.
and Garrison, J. (Eds), Constructivism and Education, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, MA, pp. 23-8.
Yolles, M.I. (2002), “Viable boundary critique: a reply to Bryant”, Journal of Operational Research
Society, Vol. 53, pp. 1-3.