TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE 5,325326 (1913) 321

C. West Churchman, The Design of Inquiring Systems: Basic Concepts of Systems and Organization, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1971,288 pp.

Professor Churchman’s latest book is a safari into epistemology country made on the elephantine back of systems theory. The vehicle proves to be an ideal choice. It provides less philosophically inclined readers with good protection against the undergrowth of classical verbiage and the tangle of intertwined concepts. Only a few pages out one becomes assured that the Professor knows the country well and is not apt to become lost. But it is not the security of a comfortable vehicle or a knowledgeable guide that makes the expedition worthwhile, it is the fascinating country itself. Almost everywhere along the route one is impressed with the great variety of terrain in a country that most presume beforehand to be flat and monotonous. Those with an eye for potentialities will quickly see that some very important systems resources await to be developed in Epistomologyland. Some of the basic problems explored, such as the design of innovative and creative systems (in Part I) and the nature of the mode of systems change-whether deterministic, teleological, or probabilistic-(in Part II) make Churchman’s book highly relevant to those engaged in futures research.

The point of departure is the question: Is it possible to design a system whose function is to generate knowledge. Whatever the answer, the posing of this question initiates the translation of many of the problems of classical epistemology into more tractable problems in systems theory. The systems approach to the processes by which knowledge is filtered, sorted, organized, stored, and retrieved results in important new insights into what knowledge is and how it grows. Churchman begins by translating the epistemological ideas of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, Hegel, and Singer into systems language. From this comes a useful classification of the various types of epistemological systems-or inquiring syskms as Churchman prefers to call them.

An example of a parameter that characterizes an inquiring system is who or what is the guarantor of the truth or validity of the contents of the system. For Descartes, God-who is never a deceiver-is the guarantor. That is, some internal faculty such as a connection with God acts so as ultimately to preclude our being deceived. This view provides the foundation on which Authority of various sorts bases its status as guarantor. A Leibnizian guarantor is quite different. For Leibniz the guarantor is the internal consistency that obtains in the whole net of facts or propositions that constitute the corpus of knowledge. A logically self-consistent structure will through its own nature accommodate the true and reject the false. Through the intrinsic functioning of such a net internal consistency becomes an operational definition of validity. The Leibnizian guarantor in this aspect has come to play a basic role in the epistemology of science.

In the view of Locke the guarantor is a matter of agreement among a community of inquirers (with novitiate inquirers being suitably entrained). That is to say, validity derives from a consensus on what is to be taken as valid. The Lockean guarantor is the underwriter of common sense and arises quite naturally where the system inputs are simple everyday ubiquitous experiences. But when confronted with experiences that are neither ubiquitous nor invariant this guarantor requires sophistication. For example, in the scientific inquirer, consensus is not established for any set of facts but for a set of operational methodologies without whose use the validity of a fact will not be certificated. Kant, in his turn, builds on his predecessors and recognizes the necessity both for certain a priori components in the inquiring system (akin to Descartes’ internal faculty that

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precludes deception) and for the inquiring system to have the capability to examine itself and its own a priori components. The Kantean guarantor involves feedback: The inquiring system through self-examination must validate its a priori axioms that in turn validate its other contents.

From here on process replaces structure. Dynamic inquirers replace static inquirers with guarantors of self-validation and self-correction replacing guarantors of authority, organization, or consensus. Hegelian inquirers operate on the dynamic of the Hegelian dialectic: The conflict of thesis and antithesis with resulting synthesis continually restructuring and correcting the inquiring system. Lastly, the Singerian inquirer (based on E.A. Singer’s Experience and Reflection) recognizes itself to be an integral part of the entire social system. No longer can an inquiring system be considered isolated from its designers, its users, and their purposes. Knowledge, whether partial or complete, as a value must compete with other human values. The Singerian inquirer is always modifying itself and the focus shifts from design of the system to design of the process of revision. But revision needs to have some goal in mind. The fundamental dichotomy of “is” and “ought” enters the design. The “ought” rises from the collective unconscious and brings the system to the discovery of its archetype. Churchman is prepared to suggest that the archetype for human inquiry may well be that of the Hero’s Quest.

Where do these alternatives in the design of inquiring systems leave us with respect to the basic question, Can man design a system capable of generating knowledge that will operate independently of the element of human creativity that is an essential component of all inquiring systems to date. The design task now centers on: Can creativity be designed? But then, what is creativity? Churchman is driven to the resignation that the creative act is an act that cannot be designed beforehand, it may only be analyzed in retrospect. “No system can ever be designed that will produce a better art, science, religion, or politics than that created by man alone.” Creativity seems to elude objectification and insertion into a designed system. Like Descartes’ ultimate guarantor, creativity inexorably resides within.

In exploring deeper Churchman leaves behind the view that knowledge is an organized collection of retrievable information and reaches the position that knowledge is a vital and powerful force capable of energizing many types of actions. It resides in the user not just in the collection. He also feels that scientific knowledge is a limited and limiting type of knowledge. “If knowledge means the ability to pursue goals an inquiring system that produces ‘science’ does not produce knowledge.”

In addition to the new trails that Churchman blazes in the territory of epistemology, his journal of exploration communicates an additional important discovery. This is of the powers that accrue when the perspective of the designer is adopted. At his vantage point high on the slopes of Mt. Olympus, the designer’s vista does not limit him to the interrogation of the world as it is but allows him to survey the worlds that may possibly be. From this position the dimensions of freedom and value reemerge to delinearize inquiry and restore man to his full creative powers. There can be neither reason nor hope for the design of creativity until one shares the view of the Creator.

ALBERT WILSON