Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (14 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Metadecisions: Rehabilitating Epistemology constitutes an epistemological inquiry about the foundations of knowledge of a scientific discipline. This text warns contemporary scientific disciplines that neglecting epistemological issues threatens the viability of their pronouncements and designs.
It shows that the processes by which complex artefacts are created require a pluralistic approach to artefact design.
It argues that viable solutions to fundamental problems in each discipline require cooperation, creativity and respect for contributions from all walks of life, all levels of logic and all standards of rigor - be they in the natural sciences, the social sciences, engineering sciences, management, the law or political sciences.
Several true cases, obtained from different walks of life are used to illustrate logic levels in problems and how the application of the process of modeling/metamodeling helps to conceptualize problem dysfunctions and to convert decisions into metadecisions.
Ten cases spanning subjects like Doctor Assisted Suicides (DASs), Advising Women on The Risks of Mammograms, a Deregulation Crusade, The Crash of TWA Flight 800, The Control of The World Wide Web, The Creation of the US Department of Homeland Security, among others, are used to illustrate the application of the metasystem framework to increase knowledge and meaning of fundamental problems.
The design of any human activity requires the intervention of several inquiring systems where the manager, the engineer, the scientist, the lawyer, the epistemologist, the ethicist and even the artist contribute to shape how problems in the real-world are formulated, how decisions/metadecisions to solve problems are taken, and finally, how actions are implemented.
Reviews
from the foreword by C. West Churchman
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Metadecisions
Book Subtitle: Rehabilitating Epistemology
Authors: John P. Gigch
Series Title: Contemporary Systems Thinking
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0097-1
Publisher: Springer New York, NY
-
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers 2003
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-306-47458-3Published: 31 January 2003
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4613-4922-8Published: 17 September 2012
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4615-0097-1Published: 06 December 2012
Series ISSN: 1568-2846
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 341
Topics: Operations Research/Decision Theory, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Management, Epistemology, Social Sciences, general