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On Complexity
In this extremely valuable volume of essays Morin turns his attention to the technical and philosophical underpinnings of complexity theory and applies it to a wide-ranging number of issues. These essays will certainly stimulate the critical debate within complexity circles, but is also essential reading for anybody interested in our complex world and how to live in it.
127 pages, Paperback
First published February 29, 2008
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About the author
Edgar Morin
394 books370 followersEdgar Morin (born Edgar Nahoum) is a French philosopher and sociologist who has been internationally recognized for his work on complexity and "complex thought," and for his scholarly contributions to such diverse fields as media studies, politics, sociology, visual anthropology, ecology, education, and systems biology. He holds degrees in history, economics, and law. Though less well known in the United States due to the limited availability of English translations of his over 60 books, Morin is renowned in the French-speaking world, Europe, and Latin America.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Morin's family migrated from the Greek town of Salonica to Marseille and later to Paris, where Edgar was born. He first became tied to socialism in connection with the Popular Front and the Spanish Republican Government during the Spanish Civil War.
When the Germans invaded France in 1940, Edgar fled to Toulouse, where he assisted refugees and committed himself to Marxist socialism. As a member of the French Resistance he adopted the pseudonym Morin, which he would use for the rest of his life. He joined the French Communist Party in 1941. In 1945, Morin married Violette Chapellaubeau and they lived in Landau, where he served as a Lieutenant in the French Occupation army in Germany.
In 1946, he returned to Paris and gave up his military career to pursue his activities with the Communist party. Due to his critical posture, his relationship with the party gradually deteriorated until he was expelled in 1951 after he published an article in Le Nouvel Observateur. In the same year, he was admitted to the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS).
Morin founded and directed the magazine Arguments (1954–1962). In 1959 his book Autocritique was published.
In 1960, Morin travelled extensively in Latin America, visiting Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Mexico.He returned to France where he published L'Esprit du Temps.
That same year, French sociologist Georges Friedmann brought him and Roland Barthes together to create a Centre for the Study of Mass Communication that, after several name-changes, became the Edgar Morin Centre of the EHESS, Paris.
Beginning in 1965, Morin became involved in a large multidisciplinary project, financed by the Délégation Générale à la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique in Plozévet.
In 1968, Morin replaced Henri Lefebvre at the University of Nanterre. He became involved in the student revolts that began to emerge in France. In May 1968, he wrote a series of articles for Le Monde that tried to understand what he called "The Student Commune." He followed the student revolt closely and wrote a second series of articles in Le Monde called "The Revolution without a Face," as well as co-authoring Mai 68: La brèche with Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort.
In 1969, Morin spent a year at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.
In 1983, he published De la nature de l’URSS, which deepened his analysis of Soviet communism and anticipated the Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Morin was married to Johanne Harrelle, with whom he lived for 15 years.
In 2002, Morin participated in the creation of the International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium.
In addition to being the UNESCO Chair of Complex Thought, Morin is known as a founder of transdisciplinarity and holds honorary doctorates in a variety of social science fields from 21 universities (Messina, Geneva, Milan, Bergamo, Thessaloniki, La Paz, Odense, Perugia, Cosenza, Palermo, Nuevo León, Université de Laval à Québec, Brussels, Barcelona, Guadalajara, Valencia, Vera Cruz, Santiago, the Catholic University of Porto Alegre, the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, and Candido Mendes University Rio de Janeiro.
The University of Messina in Sicily, Ricardo Palma University in Lima, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the French National Research Center in
At the beginning of the 20th century, Morin's family migrated from the Greek town of Salonica to Marseille and later to Paris, where Edgar was born. He first became tied to socialism in connection with the Popular Front and the Spanish Republican Government during the Spanish Civil War.
When the Germans invaded France in 1940, Edgar fled to Toulouse, where he assisted refugees and committed himself to Marxist socialism. As a member of the French Resistance he adopted the pseudonym Morin, which he would use for the rest of his life. He joined the French Communist Party in 1941. In 1945, Morin married Violette Chapellaubeau and they lived in Landau, where he served as a Lieutenant in the French Occupation army in Germany.
In 1946, he returned to Paris and gave up his military career to pursue his activities with the Communist party. Due to his critical posture, his relationship with the party gradually deteriorated until he was expelled in 1951 after he published an article in Le Nouvel Observateur. In the same year, he was admitted to the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS).
Morin founded and directed the magazine Arguments (1954–1962). In 1959 his book Autocritique was published.
In 1960, Morin travelled extensively in Latin America, visiting Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Mexico.He returned to France where he published L'Esprit du Temps.
That same year, French sociologist Georges Friedmann brought him and Roland Barthes together to create a Centre for the Study of Mass Communication that, after several name-changes, became the Edgar Morin Centre of the EHESS, Paris.
Beginning in 1965, Morin became involved in a large multidisciplinary project, financed by the Délégation Générale à la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique in Plozévet.
In 1968, Morin replaced Henri Lefebvre at the University of Nanterre. He became involved in the student revolts that began to emerge in France. In May 1968, he wrote a series of articles for Le Monde that tried to understand what he called "The Student Commune." He followed the student revolt closely and wrote a second series of articles in Le Monde called "The Revolution without a Face," as well as co-authoring Mai 68: La brèche with Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort.
In 1969, Morin spent a year at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.
In 1983, he published De la nature de l’URSS, which deepened his analysis of Soviet communism and anticipated the Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Morin was married to Johanne Harrelle, with whom he lived for 15 years.
In 2002, Morin participated in the creation of the International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium.
In addition to being the UNESCO Chair of Complex Thought, Morin is known as a founder of transdisciplinarity and holds honorary doctorates in a variety of social science fields from 21 universities (Messina, Geneva, Milan, Bergamo, Thessaloniki, La Paz, Odense, Perugia, Cosenza, Palermo, Nuevo León, Université de Laval à Québec, Brussels, Barcelona, Guadalajara, Valencia, Vera Cruz, Santiago, the Catholic University of Porto Alegre, the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, and Candido Mendes University Rio de Janeiro.
The University of Messina in Sicily, Ricardo Palma University in Lima, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the French National Research Center in
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 26, 2021
This book partly offers a translation of Morin's Introduction à la pensée complexe. It contains 5 essays that were collected in the original, French book (that I also read). Nevertheless, I definitely recommend this English edition, because there’s also a foreword with an excellent introduction into the life and work of this giant of modern French philosophy and sociology (unfortunately less known than Sartre, Derrida or Foucault). And there are 4 extra, even more interesting essays, but without mentioning where they were published before.
As this book is a collection of essays, it isn’t a systematic introduction into the complexity-thinking of Morin: there’s a lot of repetition, some articles are rather polemical (against the classic science paradigm), and in general Morin gives rather fragmentary insight into the alternative that he proposes. Only in the last appendix he offers a short but systematic view on the complexity of the world.
Passing over the flaws in the structure of this book, the fundamental intuition of Morin, and of complexity thinking in general is very fascinating. The classic Western approach (the paradigm that has been ruling our world since Descartes) is based on simplification, disjunction and reduction. This approach has resulted (and still does) in spectacular new insights into our world, especially in natural sciences, and, based upon this, in enormous technological advances. But according to Morin this kind of thinking in the 20th Century has reached its limits. Both in natural sciences, but more so in human sciences and in our globalized world in general, a lot of issues have emerged that can’t be explained nor resolved through the classic approach.
Morin and complexity thinking in general, propose an alternative, namely a real paradigm shift. In broad outlines he pleads to acknowledge that reality is complex in different aspects, and that there’s a high level of uncertainty in our relation to this reality, because subject and object cannot really be separated. In our reality order, disorder and organization always interact in such a way that you have to take chance, coincidence, and emergence as valid, acting principles. So instead of linear thinking, reductionism and simplification Morin says we must focus on conjunction, interrelation with the eco-environment, auto-organisation and dialogue.
Morin doesn’t offer a really worked out alternative. But in his essays several times he stresses the use of strategies instead of programs: strategies are more realistic, because they are flexible and acknowledge that at all times there can be surprises that force us to change route. In that way he was a precursor of the now very popular notion of ‘disruption’. Instead, Morin opens up to freedom and emergence, but always understood as complex concepts (concurring and antagonistic with determinism and dependence).
One last remarkable feature of Morin’s thinking is his outspoken rejection of holism. Since the 1970’s holism often also is presented as an alternative for reductionist western science. According to Morin holism just is another form of reductionism, because it’s only focussing on the whole and deducting the most wild and unlikely views from it. I think he’s right. Instead Morin says we have to focus on the complex relationship between the parts and the whole, the interaction between them, even the retroaction between them, opening up to nonlinear thinking and uncertainty.
In general Morin’s view is a breath of fresh air, presenting new perspectives on reality. Perhaps this book isn’t offering all the answers (but then again, that just isn’t possible according to Morin), but it’s a nice start to begin to look differently at things.
(For a review on what this book has to say to historians, see my History-alias on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
As this book is a collection of essays, it isn’t a systematic introduction into the complexity-thinking of Morin: there’s a lot of repetition, some articles are rather polemical (against the classic science paradigm), and in general Morin gives rather fragmentary insight into the alternative that he proposes. Only in the last appendix he offers a short but systematic view on the complexity of the world.
Passing over the flaws in the structure of this book, the fundamental intuition of Morin, and of complexity thinking in general is very fascinating. The classic Western approach (the paradigm that has been ruling our world since Descartes) is based on simplification, disjunction and reduction. This approach has resulted (and still does) in spectacular new insights into our world, especially in natural sciences, and, based upon this, in enormous technological advances. But according to Morin this kind of thinking in the 20th Century has reached its limits. Both in natural sciences, but more so in human sciences and in our globalized world in general, a lot of issues have emerged that can’t be explained nor resolved through the classic approach.
Morin and complexity thinking in general, propose an alternative, namely a real paradigm shift. In broad outlines he pleads to acknowledge that reality is complex in different aspects, and that there’s a high level of uncertainty in our relation to this reality, because subject and object cannot really be separated. In our reality order, disorder and organization always interact in such a way that you have to take chance, coincidence, and emergence as valid, acting principles. So instead of linear thinking, reductionism and simplification Morin says we must focus on conjunction, interrelation with the eco-environment, auto-organisation and dialogue.
Morin doesn’t offer a really worked out alternative. But in his essays several times he stresses the use of strategies instead of programs: strategies are more realistic, because they are flexible and acknowledge that at all times there can be surprises that force us to change route. In that way he was a precursor of the now very popular notion of ‘disruption’. Instead, Morin opens up to freedom and emergence, but always understood as complex concepts (concurring and antagonistic with determinism and dependence).
One last remarkable feature of Morin’s thinking is his outspoken rejection of holism. Since the 1970’s holism often also is presented as an alternative for reductionist western science. According to Morin holism just is another form of reductionism, because it’s only focussing on the whole and deducting the most wild and unlikely views from it. I think he’s right. Instead Morin says we have to focus on the complex relationship between the parts and the whole, the interaction between them, even the retroaction between them, opening up to nonlinear thinking and uncertainty.
In general Morin’s view is a breath of fresh air, presenting new perspectives on reality. Perhaps this book isn’t offering all the answers (but then again, that just isn’t possible according to Morin), but it’s a nice start to begin to look differently at things.
(For a review on what this book has to say to historians, see my History-alias on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
August 22, 2015
Edgar Morin, now in his 95th year, is a polymath whose intellectual contribution resonates widely in France, Southern Europe and Latin and South America. However, he has received relatively little exposure in English-speaking parts of the world. Much of his work remains inaccessible to English readers, and this includes his multi-volume magnum opus La Méthode (2.500 pages in the French edition). The present volume is therefore all the more welcome. A longish and rather generic introduction by series editor Alfonso Montuori sketches out Morin’s intellectual development. It is followed by nine essays, some very short others somewhat more expansive, on the notion of complexity. (Remarkably I couldn’t find references to the original publications from which these essays have been extracted.)
Morin is operating here at the intersection of cybernetics, information theory, evolutionary biology and philosophical anthropology. He is more a philosopher than a hardcore systems thinker. His main ambition is to put in place the foundations of a ‚scienza nova’ that is able to transcend the debilitating shortcomings of a worldview dominated by reductionistic Western science. This ‚complex thinking’ will not, however, offer a panacea for the mess we have worked ourselves into. It is a thinking „which knows that it is always fundamentally local, situated in a given time and place, for it knows in advance that there is always uncertainty.” Morin’s intellectual forays are riddled by paradox. Life and non-life, autonomy and dependency, order and disorder are inescapably intertwined. Complex thinking needs to try and transcend these apparent dichotomies. A simplistic and static ‚holism’ will not do. The truths that we can find will always be ‚biodegradable’ - „in other words, mortal - and, at the same time, alive.”
The nine essays in this volume swirl around these key ideas and there is inevitably some overlap. But that’s fine as it helps readers to keep track of Morin’s idiosyncratic and challenging thinking. Solutions or practical guidelines are nowhere to be found in this book. However, Morin has published expansively on the implications of his complex thinking for human affairs. His Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millennium, published by the same house, is probably a good place to start exploring his conception of geopolitics.
All in all, I strongly recommend this book as a stimulating contribution to the systems thinking literature.
Morin is operating here at the intersection of cybernetics, information theory, evolutionary biology and philosophical anthropology. He is more a philosopher than a hardcore systems thinker. His main ambition is to put in place the foundations of a ‚scienza nova’ that is able to transcend the debilitating shortcomings of a worldview dominated by reductionistic Western science. This ‚complex thinking’ will not, however, offer a panacea for the mess we have worked ourselves into. It is a thinking „which knows that it is always fundamentally local, situated in a given time and place, for it knows in advance that there is always uncertainty.” Morin’s intellectual forays are riddled by paradox. Life and non-life, autonomy and dependency, order and disorder are inescapably intertwined. Complex thinking needs to try and transcend these apparent dichotomies. A simplistic and static ‚holism’ will not do. The truths that we can find will always be ‚biodegradable’ - „in other words, mortal - and, at the same time, alive.”
The nine essays in this volume swirl around these key ideas and there is inevitably some overlap. But that’s fine as it helps readers to keep track of Morin’s idiosyncratic and challenging thinking. Solutions or practical guidelines are nowhere to be found in this book. However, Morin has published expansively on the implications of his complex thinking for human affairs. His Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millennium, published by the same house, is probably a good place to start exploring his conception of geopolitics.
All in all, I strongly recommend this book as a stimulating contribution to the systems thinking literature.
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October 22, 2024I'm reposting this review on the (exactly) 100d birthday of Morin. Congrats, Mr Morin! In this review I’m focussing on what Morin has to offer to historians. For a more general review, see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
What Morin has to say about the deficient, classic Western way of looking at reality, with its simplification and reductionism, wasn’t a real surprise or new insight to me. I guess that nowadays only a few remaining positivist historians will maintain that through the scrupulous use of the historical method, critically analysing the sources, one can reach the past “as it really was”. Postmodernism and the famous “Linguistic/cultural Turn” have shown us that the real truth is difficult or even impossible to reach. But even before, honest historians could not but admit that their work necessarily and fundamentally always is flawed, because of their own inherent subjectivity and because the sources are always incomplete. So I think historians, perhaps more than other scientists (natural and human) were already very familiar with the notions of uncertainty and complexity. In other words: that the past is a foreign country, is a basic intuition in the historian’s work.
At the same time, this is no plea for scepticism or total relativism. On the contrary, we mustn’t stop trying to get a grip on the past reality, the best we can, in all transparency and in dialogue with other views. In this way Morin has to offer some interesting indications or signposts. His notion of nonlinear thinking (borrowed from cybernetics and information theory) for example is very useful: as historians we have to stop obsessively searching for cause and effect in a linear way, and - in the same vain - stop presenting our historical narrative as a clear and unequivocally (linear) picture of causes and effects. It’s the classic obsession of every historian to search for coherent explanations and to present a coherent narrative, but in doing this we are mutilating past reality. In line of complexity-notions as “emergences”, “retroactive/feedback loops”, “recursive causality”, we must acknowledge that not all causes and effects can clearly be distinguished; an historical development in general is much richer (and reality is much “thicker”) than a simple story.
I’m convinced complexity thinking can make us see this in a much clearer way, and sharpen our sensitivity for these difficulties. But then, the issue is: does complexity thinking offer concrete tools to use in the historical work, to overcome these difficulties? In that sense, I’m a bit disappointed by this book of Morin: he’s quite vague in his alternatives, and so not very useful in practical historical work. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for an historian or philosopher with historical skills to tackle this.
But then again, one thing is clear: Morin is an outspoken opponant of determinism, and in that sense I guess he also has almost all historians on his side. Reality, and thus also history, is so complex that you can’t predict events, even when you have analysed them through and through. Morin isn’t explicit about this, but I’m convinced that he also isn’t a fan of the attempts to condense developments and processes into clearly defined patterns or laws, quantitatively or not, because they tend to eliminate uncertainty and improbability.
Another aspect in the book of Morin is also interesting: his mantra that the parts and the whole of a system or organization are very condensely interrelated; the whole is in the parts and the parts are in the whole, with their interrelation forming a much richer phenomenon, best captured with the word 'entanglement'. I guess that for historians this also means that Microhistory indeed can offer a more global view on History. Not History as a whole, of course, but by focussing on a very delineated subject one can offer a much broader picture, depending on certain methodological conditions, and always viewing the subject in its complex interrelation with its environment. So, also in this respect, historians already for some years are taking into account aspects of complexity thinking.
In the end the great message of Morin, for us in general and for historians in particular, is: let’s be humble, let’s acknowledge that reality is very complex, and past reality perhaps even more so. So let’s move in such a way that we take this into account and offer the best possible story of past events, always open for other views and for correction. “the basic idea of complexity is not that the essence of the world is complex and not simple; it is that this essence is inconceivable”
Rating 3.5 stars
What Morin has to say about the deficient, classic Western way of looking at reality, with its simplification and reductionism, wasn’t a real surprise or new insight to me. I guess that nowadays only a few remaining positivist historians will maintain that through the scrupulous use of the historical method, critically analysing the sources, one can reach the past “as it really was”. Postmodernism and the famous “Linguistic/cultural Turn” have shown us that the real truth is difficult or even impossible to reach. But even before, honest historians could not but admit that their work necessarily and fundamentally always is flawed, because of their own inherent subjectivity and because the sources are always incomplete. So I think historians, perhaps more than other scientists (natural and human) were already very familiar with the notions of uncertainty and complexity. In other words: that the past is a foreign country, is a basic intuition in the historian’s work.
At the same time, this is no plea for scepticism or total relativism. On the contrary, we mustn’t stop trying to get a grip on the past reality, the best we can, in all transparency and in dialogue with other views. In this way Morin has to offer some interesting indications or signposts. His notion of nonlinear thinking (borrowed from cybernetics and information theory) for example is very useful: as historians we have to stop obsessively searching for cause and effect in a linear way, and - in the same vain - stop presenting our historical narrative as a clear and unequivocally (linear) picture of causes and effects. It’s the classic obsession of every historian to search for coherent explanations and to present a coherent narrative, but in doing this we are mutilating past reality. In line of complexity-notions as “emergences”, “retroactive/feedback loops”, “recursive causality”, we must acknowledge that not all causes and effects can clearly be distinguished; an historical development in general is much richer (and reality is much “thicker”) than a simple story.
I’m convinced complexity thinking can make us see this in a much clearer way, and sharpen our sensitivity for these difficulties. But then, the issue is: does complexity thinking offer concrete tools to use in the historical work, to overcome these difficulties? In that sense, I’m a bit disappointed by this book of Morin: he’s quite vague in his alternatives, and so not very useful in practical historical work. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for an historian or philosopher with historical skills to tackle this.
But then again, one thing is clear: Morin is an outspoken opponant of determinism, and in that sense I guess he also has almost all historians on his side. Reality, and thus also history, is so complex that you can’t predict events, even when you have analysed them through and through. Morin isn’t explicit about this, but I’m convinced that he also isn’t a fan of the attempts to condense developments and processes into clearly defined patterns or laws, quantitatively or not, because they tend to eliminate uncertainty and improbability.
Another aspect in the book of Morin is also interesting: his mantra that the parts and the whole of a system or organization are very condensely interrelated; the whole is in the parts and the parts are in the whole, with their interrelation forming a much richer phenomenon, best captured with the word 'entanglement'. I guess that for historians this also means that Microhistory indeed can offer a more global view on History. Not History as a whole, of course, but by focussing on a very delineated subject one can offer a much broader picture, depending on certain methodological conditions, and always viewing the subject in its complex interrelation with its environment. So, also in this respect, historians already for some years are taking into account aspects of complexity thinking.
In the end the great message of Morin, for us in general and for historians in particular, is: let’s be humble, let’s acknowledge that reality is very complex, and past reality perhaps even more so. So let’s move in such a way that we take this into account and offer the best possible story of past events, always open for other views and for correction. “the basic idea of complexity is not that the essence of the world is complex and not simple; it is that this essence is inconceivable”
Rating 3.5 stars
December 28, 2012
I learned about Edgar Morin in Dec. 2009. My uncle, the Mayanist, told me about David Abram and his book "The Spell of the Sensuous." Curious, I looked at Abram's website on wildness, and found that one of his supporters was Bradford Keeney. I bought Keeney's "Shaking Medicine" for my wife for her birthday, then discovered on his CIIS website that one of his research interests was Edgar Morin. I was struck by his similarity to Francisco Varela, and so got this book from the UCLA Library.
I read it over the winter break and into January. Thinking about self and not-self, I noted in my journal, "...Morin's chapter on the nature of the subject in "On Complexity" cast new light on this conundrum for me. With no reference to Buddhist thought, he still dealt in a complext way with the idea of subjectivity. I got the sense it might be possible to talk about the subject in Morin's sense in a way that would make sense in the paradigm of Buddhist anatman (not-self)....
"...Buddhists see "self" as EMERGING from the interactions of the skandhas. Hindus/Christians see "self" as EMANATING from a "higher" realm. Both are right and both are wrong. Morin would have us hold both ideas simultaneously despite their contradictions."
I read it over the winter break and into January. Thinking about self and not-self, I noted in my journal, "...Morin's chapter on the nature of the subject in "On Complexity" cast new light on this conundrum for me. With no reference to Buddhist thought, he still dealt in a complext way with the idea of subjectivity. I got the sense it might be possible to talk about the subject in Morin's sense in a way that would make sense in the paradigm of Buddhist anatman (not-self)....
"...Buddhists see "self" as EMERGING from the interactions of the skandhas. Hindus/Christians see "self" as EMANATING from a "higher" realm. Both are right and both are wrong. Morin would have us hold both ideas simultaneously despite their contradictions."
July 16, 2014
For non-integrally oriented readers: This a dense and impressive text that shows the dangers of simplicity and promise of taking a more complex and nuanced view on everything. A truly impressive mind who also shows nice hints of heart and humor.
For integral enthusiasts: Edgar Morin is a worthy addition to the cannon of integral thinkers and these essays are important for perspectives outside of Ken Wilber / AQAL. It will expand your understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the integral view expressing itself in different forms, and offer new ways of explaining the importance of paying attention to the subjective as well as the objective, the singular and the plural, and nested heirarchies. Morin's understanding and elucidation of complexity is complex; while some of his points could easily be seen as post-modern "green," many others clearly exhibit the characteristics of "turquoise" construct-aware as described by the research of Susanne Cook-Greuter. Of course I'd like to see more discussion of developmental levels, but all in all I think incorporating Morin's perspective is necessary for us to remember that the map is not the territory, and that integral too is ever-evolving.
For integral enthusiasts: Edgar Morin is a worthy addition to the cannon of integral thinkers and these essays are important for perspectives outside of Ken Wilber / AQAL. It will expand your understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the integral view expressing itself in different forms, and offer new ways of explaining the importance of paying attention to the subjective as well as the objective, the singular and the plural, and nested heirarchies. Morin's understanding and elucidation of complexity is complex; while some of his points could easily be seen as post-modern "green," many others clearly exhibit the characteristics of "turquoise" construct-aware as described by the research of Susanne Cook-Greuter. Of course I'd like to see more discussion of developmental levels, but all in all I think incorporating Morin's perspective is necessary for us to remember that the map is not the territory, and that integral too is ever-evolving.
July 25, 2016
Extremely stimulating. Morin is one of the thinkers who wishes to unify the sciences. His plan largely involves systems thinking; he also maintains a strong commitment to ethical concerns and and practical matters (interestingly, he develops his own style of paradoxical tolerance he calls "complex thought;" it appears to me like a useful means to avoid combative positions and attempt a more charitable synthesis of ideas; to absorb contradiction rather than outright reject it). There was a fair amount of repetition towards the end. I give it four stars because this was an appetizer. I want to read La Methode, supposing it ever becomes fully translated.
September 26, 2024
Morin's insistence on the vital importance of forgiveness. For Derrida, forgiveness "should be an exception, at the edge of impossibility. For Morin, forgiveness is a resistance to the cruelty of the world
August 29, 2024
Weak approach to complexity.
February 20, 2014
i wish la methode were available in english
May 15, 2015
Much better to read than the similar hard to read books of Focault and Heidegger!
November 21, 2015
No easy read, but quite inspiring and (thankfully) short.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews