Complexity science and intentional systems

TL;DR

This paper explores how complexity science can enhance understanding of intentions and meaning communication in social sciences, proposing new inquiry methods to address educational research challenges.

Contribution

It develops a framework for applying complexity science to analyze intentions and meaning in social systems, advancing interdisciplinary approaches.

Findings

Complexity science offers new tools for studying social intentions.

Emergence and self-organization are key to understanding meaning communication.

Proposes novel assessment practices based on complexity principles.

Abstract

In their position paper entitled "Towards a new, complexity science of learning and education", Jorg et al. (2007) argue that educational research is in crisis. In their opinion, the transdisciplinary and interdiscursive approach of complexity science with its orientation towards self-organization, emergence, and potentiality provides new modes of inquiry, a new lexicon and assessment practices that can be used to overcome the current crisis. In this contribution, I elaborate on how complexity science can further be developed for understanding the dynamics of intentions and the communication of meaning as these are central to the social-scientific enterprise.