Gaston Damián Becerra

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• Answer added in Sociocybernetics
  2 What is sociocybernetics?
  By Halimu Shauri
  Gaston Becerra · University of Buenos Aires

  From http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/whatis.html (ISA research comitte) Sociocybernetics can be defined as “Systems Science in Sociology and ... [more]

  From http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/whatis.html (ISA research comitte) Sociocybernetics can be defined as “Systems Science in Sociology and Other Social Sciences” - systems science, because sociocybernetics is not limited to theory but includes application, empirical research, methodology, axiology (i.e., ethics and value research), and epistemology. In general use, “systems theory” and “cybernetics” are frequently interchangeable or appear in combination. Hence, they can be considered as synonyms, although the two terms come from different traditions and are not used uniformly in different languages and national traditions. Sociocybernetics includes both what are called first order cybernetics and second order cybernetics. Cybernetics, according to Wiener´s original definition, is the science of “control and communication in the animal and the machine”. Heinz von Foerster went on to distinguish a first order cybernetics, “the study of observed systems”, and a second order cybernetics, “the study of observing systems”. Second order cybernetics is explicitly based on a constructivist epistemology and is concerned with issues of self-reference, paying particular attention to the observer-dependence of knowledge, including scientific theories. In the interdisciplinary and holistic spirit of systems science, although sociology is clearly at the centre of interest of sociocybernetics, the other social sciences, such as psychology, anthropology, political science, economics, are addressed as well, with emphases depending on the particular research question to be dealt with.
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