Aims

By the end of the course, students will have acquired:
a good knowledge of systemic epistemology, and of the main theoretical concepts developed within the framework of this epistemology;
the ability to deal with a theoretical problem within this framework;
the ability to characterise the phenomena of interaction and social communications in systemic terms.

Main themes

The course aims to introduce the epistemological and conceptual framework of the systemic approach, and to demonstrate its importance as a source of inspiration for the theoretical communications models that have developed in various fields, particularly those of social interaction and cognition.
The main issues to be addressed are:
cybernetico systemic epistemology (notions of cybernetic organisation and of system);
the notion of organisational information;
second-order cybernetics and the notion of self organisation;
- the systemic approach and social interaction;
- the systemic approach to cognition;
- the systemic (or systemically based) theories of communications.

Content and teaching methods

Content
The course is in three parts:
1. The origins and the main concepts
This part introduces the emergence of 'systemism' based on cybernetics, General Systems
Theory and information theory, and analyses developments in it as far as the issue of the self organisation of second-order cybernetics is concerned.
2. Social interaction
This part takes as its point of departure Bateson's transfer of systemic epistemology to a study of social interaction. It then focuses on the notion of mimetism, and attempts to develop on the basis of this notion a coherent perspective on the various aspects and forms of social interaction.
3. Cognition
This part introduces the various theoretical paradigms concerning cognition that have developed from first-order cybernetics to the theory of enaction. The focus will be on epistemological differences, and on concepts that are particularly important for the cognitive theories of communication.
Methodology
Lecture form expositions and discussions.

Other credits in programs