Complexity and Relations

Abstract

A central feature of complexity is that it is based on non-linear, recursive relations. However, in most current accounts of complexity such relations, while non-linear, are based on the reductive relations of a Newtonian onto-epistemological framework. This means that the systems that are emergent from the workings of such relations are a narrowly reduced spectrum of complex systems. It is argued that John Dewey’s trans-actional relations, relations that are characterized by an irreducible internal distinction, can function as an exemplar of the less reductive relations seen in living complex systems. Conceptualizing complex relations and complex systems in a less reductive way allows indeterminate concepts such as epistemological limits and the generative production of meaning, which are inextricably linked, to be considered. Methodologically, such lessened reduction highlights functional systems, revealing aspects of the biopsychosocial human ‘complex system of complex systems’ that are hidden from view in a Newtonian framework.

Keywords:

• complexity
• emergence
• transactional relations
• reductionism
• complex living systems
• generativity

Acknowledgement

Thank you to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the form and the content of an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1. Dewey and Bentley’s hyphenated forms, ‘inter-action’ and ‘trans-action’, are retained to indicate where their definition of the terms is intended.