Dissertation

Coming to Terms with Complexity: A Lens for the Human Sciences in the Twentieth Century

Patteson, Thomas E

2019

Overview

This project explores 20th century intellectuals in German-speaking Europe and the United States who studied the human world by exploring what I term the “complexity problem.” That problem has two elements. First, it emphasizes that humans have a limited capacity for processing complexity. On the individual level, we have limited cognitive capacities for obtaining and communicating knowledge and information, storing knowledge and information, making calculations, making decisions, and so forth. There are analogous limits at the group level; human organizations, economies, and societies are also limited in their abilities to process complexity. The second element of the complexity problem as analyzed by these intellectuals is that for a variety of reasons, the modern world is increasing in its complexity. Among them are the explosion of knowledge production, new media technologies, industrialization, the development of a global economy, the growth of ever-larger organizations, and the greater tendency to be exposed to a variety of worldviews and choices. The “complexity problem” arises from the incongruence of these two parts (limits for dealing with complexity and the fact that the world is becoming increasingly complex). For each of these intellectuals, how humans responded to this “complexity problem” incongruence provided a lens to try to understand a variety of human behaviors and social phenomena. Moreover, the responses to increasing complexity themselves could become sources of increasing complexity. The research here draws upon the published work of influential intellectuals who operated in a variety of academic disciplines and modes of thought (including: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, economics, systems sciences, management studies, cognitive psychology, and more). In the course of the twentieth century, each developed his own means for studying the “complexity problem,” often through the use of analogies. While in the earlier part of the century these lenses and analogies were developed largely independently, in the second half of the twentieth century, the dominant lens became understanding human individuals, groups, and societies as analogous to information processing systems: electronic digital computers. The dissertation thus points to a common theme in a variety of disciplines and settings, the similarity of which has hitherto been largely unexplored.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: American history / European history
• ISBN: 1392225264, 9781392225264