E-Special Issue: Introduction

Theory, Culture & Society

2016, Vol. 33(7–8) 421–440
Complexity: E-Special ! The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0263276415600105
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Oliver Human
University of Amsterdam

Abstract
This E-Special Issue collects together 11 articles from the archives of Theory, Culture
& Society. These articles all articulate and debate the contribution of what some have
described as either ‘complex complexity’ or ‘general complexity’. In contrast to
reductionist or restricted attempts to understand complexity, the articles collected
here move away from the tendency to assume mastery of complexity by expounding
a set of universal and simple laws. Rather, the position of general complexity is that
we cannot grasp the complexity of the world in its complexity, and therefore depend
upon models which are always incomplete, provisional and contingent. Yet, these
models make knowledge and action possible, and it is therefore the contribution of
general complexity to provide the means through which we can ethically and prag-
matically engage with complexity in the hope of realizing alternative, perhaps better,
worlds.

Keywords
complexity, emergence, ethics, general, novelty, restricted, systems

Since the Enlightenment, science has held a space of privilege in western

thought. Classical science, built on the works of Newton and Galileo,
conceptualized the world as operating under mechanistic and atomistic
principles. The problems we face in the world, under this conception, can
be solved by looking for the essential underlying rules or atoms which
universally constitute all phenomena and by which we can comprehen-
sively explain the world. The only limit to our ability to find these laws
was the state of knowledge or technology at any time. Under this
Platonist ideal, noise, perturbations or friction act like a curtain or
mask which it is the job of the scientist to peer through. It is, therefore,
‘the craftsmanship of a good scientist and modeller to be able to separate
those components and to see the simple principles that guide natural
phenomena’ (Chu et al., 2003: 21). In this sense, reductionism can be

Corresponding author: Oliver Human. Email: [email protected]

Extra material: http://theoryculturesociety.org/
422 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

defined as the belief that we are able to reduce ‘reality to ultimate par-
ticles as well as seeing ultimate particles, or simple systems, as represen-
tatives of wholes’ (Rasch, 1991: 77).
Under this view of science, the possibility of universal knowledge is
propagated, and the job of the scientist is to reveal the underlying prin-
ciples and essences which would explain all phenomena, everywhere, at
all times. It is this separation and reduction which has made possible vast
improvements in the state of the human condition. The different fields of
specialization allow us to produce knowledge about isolated phenomena
found within a given field. If we tried to comprehend the world in itself
we would be left with nothing more than a meditative state as the com-
plexity of what we witness renders us incapable of action. We therefore
need specialization to improve upon and further knowledge. As Laszlo
argues:

The specialist looks at carefully isolated phenomena: he is interested

in how one thing affects another. He can compute the effect by
looking at things as separate facts connected by some causal or
correlative relationship [. . .] But there is one thing such knowledge
cannot tell us, and that is how a number of different things act
together when exposed to a number of different influences at the
same time. And almost everything we encounter around us contains
a large number of different things and is exposed to a number of
different influences. (Laszlo, 1996: 3)

The problem we face with the current state of knowledge is that we need
a method through which we can understand the relationships between
different parts of a system (see Laszlo, 1996). What current processes of
globalization and global warming are bringing forth is a need to develop
means by which we can better understand the complexity of the world
around us, which is not reducible to some central or single essence. When
we attempt to face the relationships between different parts of a system
we come to the limits of the reductionist style of thought as it aims to
separate and reduce.
In critiquing the shortcomings of the reductionist approach, some
have proposed a holistic approach (see Fodor and Lepore, 1992;
Jackson, 2003; Lazlo, 1996). In brief, the holistic approach argues that
we cannot simply separate disciplines or reduce wholes to the parts which
constitute them. We must rather look at the whole itself in order to
further our understanding of the world. However, attempts at holism
often lead to some form of mysticism, which makes taking action in
the world difficult as the whole takes on incomprehensible dimensions.
A shortcoming of the holistic approach is that it is difficult to answer the
question as to what exactly the whole is and how one would deal with
such a high degree of complexity. Although providing an important
Human 423

critique of the reductionist model, the holistic approach makes similar

mistakes to reductionism. Both assume that we have unmediated access
to the objects we study and we can therefore easily study either the part
or the whole. Both assume that the whole can be easily separated from its
environment. As will become clear below, one of the problems with com-
plex systems is that we can never neatly divide the world from our inter-
pretations of it. We are always subject to some form of error.

Complexity: Restricted and General

A means for overcoming the shortfalls of both the reductionist and the
holistic approaches is to find a way of presenting phenomena in a man-
ageable form whilst keeping their complexity under consideration. In
other words, we need a means of approaching problems which is neither
essentialist/reductionist nor some form of vague holism. One way to do
this is to look at the models we create in order to deal with complex
issues. Models, as Levi-Strauss (1966: 24) argued, are helpful as they
make the complexity of phenomena manageable: ‘the intrinsic value of
a small-scale model is that it compensates for the renunciation of sensible
dimensions by the acquisition of intelligible dimensions’. The model, for
Levi-Strauss, which is smaller in scale than the phenomenon we are
observing, creates distance from the scale of the problem we are obser-
ving but makes up for that scale through the fact that we are better able
to deal with the problem we are witnessing. The phenomenon becomes
more manageable by means of excluding some aspects of the system.
The modernist assumptions inherent in early forms of structuralism,
like those made by Levi-Strauss (1966) or Ferdinand de Saussure (1983),
held that, despite the acknowledgement of reduction on which models are
built, the model still held the potential to comprehensively explain the
phenomena they were trying to understand. Although taking a step in the
right direction by considering the relations or structures which constitute
complexity, structuralism still believed in the possibility of comprehen-
sively defining the system; this time by working out the laws which con-
stitute complexity. Reductionist science believes that we can take
complex systems, such as societies or psyches, and find the underlying
laws which adequately explain the entire system. In science this attempt
was exemplified by the hope that mathematical algorithms could neatly
explain any system. Part of the possibility of such a reduction is the
assumption that we can precisely divide and isolate the system we are
examining from the environment in which we find it. The ambiance or
environment of a system was of secondary concern for the scientist. If the
world is constituted by sets of simple rules which comprise complexity at
a higher level, we need not concern ourselves with the world in which
these rules are brought forth.
424 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

In a certain way this attempt to reduce a complex problem or system

to some essential law or principle discards the complexity of the problem
(Morin, 2007). As Mol and Law argue:

[S]implifications that reduce a complex reality to whatever it is that

fits into a simple scheme tend to ‘forget’ about the complex, which
may mean that the latter is surprising and disturbing when it reap-
pears later on and, in extreme cases, is simply repressed. To talk in
this way is to denounce simplification. However, although it is
important to be suspicious of simplification in the modern
world . . . it is equally important to be suspicious of the standard
ways of reacting to these simplifications, the denunciations of sim-
plicity. (Mol and Law, 2002: 3–4)

We cannot then simply dismiss complexity. If we cannot understand

complex problems in their complexity, perhaps because of their scale
or the nature of their interactions, and if we cannot reduce systems to
some essential principles, we need some other means of thinking about
this relationship between systems and our models of them. At the same
time, as Mol and Law argue, we cannot simply dismiss simplicity for its
own sake. As I have attempted to illustrate, we depend upon the simpli-
city of models in order for the world to be intelligible to us.
It is important at this point to give a better understanding of what we
mean when we use the word ‘complexity’. Peter Allen (2000: 78–9) argues
that complexity can be produced by two means. Firstly, the situation
may contain an ‘enormous number of interacting elements making cal-
culation extremely hard work, although the interactions are known’
(p. 79). This is the definition of complexity adopted by the school of
thought spearheaded by the Santa Fé Institute (see Horgan, 1995).
According to this definition of complexity it is possible to reduce complex
problems to some mathematical algorithm under the assumption that we
can measure all the interactions. This is a reductionist model as it believes
that a system does not depend upon the environment for its existence. We
can then neatly capture the system and, if we are clever enough or have
fast enough computers, we can work the system out completely. This
view of complexity argues for a quantitative approach to complexity in
which the only difficulty is the sheer number of interacting elements
which constitute the system. It is thus possible under this approach to
reduce the system to an algorithm and thereby neatly explain the system.
It aims, therefore, for a unified theory of complexity (Chu et al., 2003).
By contrast, more recently, a definition of complexity has been devel-
oped which can be considered more ‘qualitative’ (see for instance Allen,
2000, 2001; Cilliers, 1998; Morin, 2008). This definition agrees with Peter
Allen’s second reason for the production of complexity. Here, complexity
is more a product of the nature of the interactions between parts than the
Human 425

number of parts and their interactions. It will be fair to say that the
interaction between a husband and wife is more complex than the inter-
action between the many parts which make up the engine in your motor
car. I can reduce the inner workings of a motor car to a manual which
can comprehensively describe the processes at work. I cannot, however,
reduce my relationship with my wife to a manual. Seen from this per-
spective, the ability to say anything about complex systems always rests
on a set of assumptions which one has to make in order to exclude some
of the complexity from our understanding (Allen, 2000: 80; Cilliers, 2001:
137). This implies that we can never have a comprehensive understanding
of a complex system; we can never have a model which completely
describes the system (for a good discussion of the characteristics of com-
plex systems see Cilliers, 1998: 2–7). This is a view of complexity that has
come to be known as ‘general’ (Morin, 2007) or ‘complex’ complexity
(Byrne, 2005) and largely, although not exclusively, draws inspiration
from the confluence of post-structural philosophy and the biological
sciences.

General Complexity
It is important to note that the approach or style of thinking general
complexity aims for does not argue against reductionism per se. It is
necessary to reduce in order for the world to be intelligible to us. We
need to create boundaries – exclude certain aspects of the system itself
and the environment of the system from the model we create – in order
for the system to be intelligible to us. We cannot understand the world in
its complexity. However, the boundaries we create of such systems are
always provisional and depend upon the uses to which we put our
models. Note, this does not mean that we can create just any boundary.
There must be boundaries and limits in order for a system to exist.
However, where you draw those boundaries and the status you accord
those boundaries is what is at issue here. General complexity is therefore
interested in the limits to our knowledge; it helps us to understand the
boundaries of our knowledge (see Allen, 2000; Cilliers, 2001: 140–142).
To begin with, when we are faced with a complex system we must
distinguish that system from its environment (Allen, 2000: 80). In con-
trast to reductionist complexity, general complexity argues that the
boundaries of a system are open rather than closed (Chu et al., 2003:
23). In other words, reductionist complexity, based upon the assumption
of some essential underlying law or principle, assumes that we can easily
separate a complex system from the environment in which we find it. The
boundaries of such a system are said to be closed as the system can exist
independently from the world. The argument from general complexity is
that a system cannot be neatly separated from its environment as it is
constituted by that environment. The system’s boundaries are open
426 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

(Cilliers, 1998: 4). If we consider a human being to be a complex system,

the place we grow up, the food we eat or the language we learn to speak
all constitute us as people. Every aspect of human life I decide to analyse
will always exclude the others. We cannot then neatly separate me from
the environment which constitutes me because where we draw the line
between the environment and the system would be a matter of choice for
the person making the model rather than something intrinsic or essential
to the system itself (Cilliers, 2000: 27–8). This is because the system is
constituted by these relationships.1 Therefore, Chu et al. (2003: 23)
argue that

[e]very definition of a system partitions the world into two parts,

namely the system and its ambiance. Importantly, the idealization
process that leads to a model does not only involve the simplifica-
tion of the internal dynamics of the system, but also an idealization
of the system-ambiance interactions. [. . .] No equivalent of ambi-
ance can be present in the model as ambiance. If it were, it would
simply have comprised an extra element of the system, enlarging the
system boundaries. (emphasis in original)

To the social sciences openness implies openness to future possibilities

(Clark, 2005: 166). However, the perspective from complexity theory also
offers a synchronic conception of openness. Openness is also an onto-
logical property of complex systems (see for instance Clark’s (2005)
notion of ‘ex-orbitant globality’). Complexity therefore argues against
the possibility of closing off an outside, including the possibility of a
disconnected observer. As Clark (2005: 171) notes,

unequivocal claims for a global condition with no outside, it would

appear, require a viewpoint that is itself removed from the relation-
alities it presides over: a perspective which is free of the occlusions,
partialities and doubts that we might expect from any observer
mired in conditions of unfathomable complexity. Paradoxically,
such attempts at enclosure depend on the very outside they refuse.

This is an important aspect of complex systems. The boundaries which

we draw between the system and its environment are always a product of
the description we use of such systems and therefore what we exclude
from analysis often still has an impact on the system.2 Immanence under
this conception becomes impossible – we are always plagued by that
which we exclude.
It becomes difficult in this sense to draw the boundaries of the system.
There is no determinate means of doing so; the construction of a model
always involves choice (Cilliers, 2005: 259). We can see then that model-
ling is a context-specific endeavour.3 This contextuality is furthermore a
Human 427

product of the fact that complex systems themselves are contextual

phenomena:

[I]n real systems contextuality manifests itself often through the fact
that its elements play multiple roles, fulfilling several functions
across the boundaries of systems. In a certain sense, contextuality
is a ubiquitous phenomenon: Given any part of the world, it is
always possible to find a host of different partitions resulting in
different system definitions, i.e., establish some form of contextual-
ity. (Chu et al., 2003: 25)

The ambiance or environment of a complex system is of importance for

more than just the problems it poses for the modeller. Having open
boundaries means that the system is constituted by its environment; com-
plex systems are always local. The sensitivity a system maintains to dif-
ferent inputs is determined by this contextuality. Part of the progenitor of
this concern for the local matrix of complexity is the incompressibility of
complex systems (Cilliers, 1998: 9–10). A complex system is defined by a
network of rich interactions which change over time. It is not the number
of parts interacting which defines complexity but rather the nature of
their interactions. These interactions are non-linear, meaning that one
cannot add up the interactions in a system in order to measure their
effects. In other words, ‘nonlinearity describes the property of a system
whose output is not proportional to its input’ (Borgo and Goguen, 2005:
2). Small effects can have large consequences and vice versa.4
In contrast to simplistic (Byrne, 2005) or restricted (Morin, 2007)
complexity which drew its inspiration largely from the sciences of math-
ematics and physics (Thrift, 1999: 33), general complexity is largely
inspired by the complex means through which nature regenerates and
maintains order under constantly changing conditions. However, rather
than the concern for homeostasis which cybernetics aimed to emulate
(see Ashby, 1957), general complexity realizes that complex systems are
constantly negotiating a fine line between being robustly structured
whilst at the same time being open to the constant possibility of
change and adaptation. Some have described this aspect of complex sys-
tems as the fine line between order and chaos. However, this is a mis-
leading metaphor to describe the nature of complex systems. The terms
‘structure’ and ‘freedom’ might be more useful.
Complexity depends upon structure. A system with too many degrees
of freedom can ‘act more randomly, but not more functionally . . . On the
other hand a fully constrained system has no capacity for complex behav-
iour either’ (Cilliers, 2005: 258). One way to understand this relationship
between structure and freedom is through the idea of process. The dif-
ference between a living organism and a dead organism, Capra (2005: 33)
reminds us, is the process of life. It is this concern with process, change,
428 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

fluctuation as well as constancy, resilience and robustness, all processes

rather than static states, which depend upon robust structures for their
continuation. Rather than walking a line between order and chaos, com-
plex systems are robustly structured or constrained enough to allow them
to adapt to, or remain resilient to, an ever changing environment.
A further result of the multiple relationships which constitute a com-
plex system is the notion of emergence. Emergence is a characteristic of a
system which cannot be found or reduced to the properties of the parts
which constitute that characteristic. Emergence therefore is a result of the
interactions amongst the parts of the system. What emerges cannot be
found inside the individual properties of the components but is a result of
their interaction. Emergence is nicely summed up in the old adage that
the whole is more than the sum of its parts. However, as Morin illus-
trates, because of the shape a complex system takes, there is equally a
‘subtractivity’ (Morin, 2007: 11) or suppression of possibilities which
takes place. That is, ‘a certain number of qualities and properties present
in the parts can be inhibited by the organization of the whole’ (Morin,
2007: 11). There is always an excess in complex systems; whether that
produces emergent properties or is suppressed by the organization of the
system depends upon the context of the relationships inside and outside
the system.5
However, this excess is not simply the result of the fact that certain
properties are allowed to flourish at the expense of others. A system also
requires a certain amount of internal diversity so that it can react to its
environment. Cybernetics explained this diversity as necessary to main-
tain the homeostasis of the system, a law Ashby labelled the ‘Law of
Requisite Variety’ (1957: 211). However, keeping in mind the dynamic
and ever changing nature of complex systems, one can ask Ashby: what is
considered requisite and at what time? The obvious answer seems to be
that which allows the system to remain unchanged. To a degree this is
correct – complex systems are robust, and there needs to be resistance to
an environment in order for us to be able to distinguish a system from its
environment. Yet, this still does not explain how a system successfully
changes in order to adapt to the changing or new circumstances it may
face. It is for this reason that we need to argue that, in order for a system
to be successful over time, it needs more variety than would be con-
sidered essential at any time. This is not only so that a system is able
to comprehend its environment but also so that it is able to react to ever
changing or new environments.
In contrast to Ashby, who proposes a very rationalist or optimal
amount of diversity, Peter Allen (2001: 40) proposes, ‘a “law of excess
diversity” in which system survival in the long term requires more under-
lying diversity than would be considered requisite of any time’.
Innovation, change and experimentation are therefore important aspects
of complexity, as this is what creates excess diversity (Allen, 2000: 101–2).
Human 429

It is as such that we can see that Ashby presents us with a model of

internal diversity which operates very much within the realm of a
restricted complexity, that is, a complexity which assumes that utilitarian
values, to what is requisite or ‘essential’ at the time, is what defines the
system. However, excess diversity does not only improve the perform-
ance of the system. Excess can equally have no impact on the perform-
ance of a system; it may be detrimental or it may lead to a positive
feedback trap. As Allen writes: ‘This trap results from the fact that
any emergent trait that feeds back positively on its own “production”
will be reinforced, but that this feedback does not necessarily arise from
improved performance in the functionality of the individuals’ (Allen,
2000: 91). This feedback is essentially narcissistic and in many ways we
can draw analogies between the capitalist system and the narcissism of
the positive feedback trap. In contrast to requisite variety, then, excess
diversity presents us with a model in which ‘excess’ is considered as
integral towards understanding the survival or failure of the system
and the future ‘shape’ that system may take.

Strategies and Ethics

The problems posed by complexity highlighted above (open boundaries,
contextuality, non-linear relationships, emergence and excess diversity)
all point to the difficulties of modelling complex systems. This description
of complexity places us in a unique position to begin exploring some of
the political and ethical consequences of complexity as well as the oppor-
tunities such a description could offer.
Although the language of complexity theory originates in the hard
sciences, it is important to note, as Byrne (2005: 98) does, that it is not
a matter of importing the methods and ideas of the hard sciences into the
social sciences. Complexity theory should not be seen as the universal
solution to the complex problems the social sciences face, especially at
their points of interaction with the hard sciences (Clark, 2000: 13). It is a
task, as Byrne states, of reconstruction. Even though some of the lan-
guage of complexity theory may be useful to social scientists, the use of
complexity theory involves ‘thinking about the social world and its inter-
sections with the natural world as involving dynamic open systems with
emergent properties that have the potential for qualitative transform-
ation, and examining our traditional tools of social research with this
perspective informing that examination’ (Byrne, 2005: 98).
However, complexity theory should also not be deployed in the largely
metaphorical sense as has been used by some social and political theor-
ists. This is where social or political theorists have found it useful to
describe their problems as complex systems but do not take advantage
of the language of complexity to further the social or political agenda.
Rather, these authors seek legitimacy in describing their problems as
430 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

complex without capitalizing on the insights and limitations offered by

complex thinking. The insights of complexity, as with those provided by
social science, are tools we can use to further understanding in combin-
ation with or apart from each other, depending upon the nature of the
system we aim to understand.
Yet social science already maintains a rich history of interaction with
the hard sciences. One cannot deny the impact which post-structural or
post-modern philosophy has had on the work of complexity scholars
such as Edgar Morin (2008) or Paul Cilliers (1998). Indeed, social sci-
ence, in its constant engagements with the complexity of human life and
social being, have in themselves amassed significant conceptual tools for
dealing with the problems of complexity, even though it may not have
adopted the language of complexity theory. In turn, many French struc-
turalists and post-structuralists sought inspiration from the work of
cybernetics (Lafontaine, 2007). Philosophers such as Jacques Derrida
were inspired by the works of the biologist Jacques Monod and the sys-
tems theorist Gregory Bateson (Thrift, 1999: 54). Gilles Deleuze is well
known to have looked to science for metaphors, including the work of
Prigogine and Stengers (Thrift, 1999: 55). Michel Serres equally looked to
biology, systems theory and thermodynamics (Thrift, 1999: 55). The
scope of enrichment runs in both directions but does not lead to unifi-
cation or a single explanatory approach. General complexity is not seek-
ing a single explanatory language in the style of modernist science or
restricted complexity. At this meeting point of the ‘scientific’ terminology
adopted by complexity thinkers and the terminology used in the social
sciences we see a common point developing about the context specific
nature of the production of knowledge. As Cilliers (2005: 258) notes,

Since different descriptions of a complex system decompose the

system in different ways, the knowledge gained by any description
is always relative to the perspective from which the description was
made. This does not imply that any description is as good as any
other. It is merely the result of the fact that only a limited number of
characteristics of the system can be taken into account by any spe-
cific description.

Does this then imply that all knowledge is relative? This would be to
throw the baby out with the bath water.
A product of the relational understanding of complexity is that the
project to universalize or find an essential basis for knowledge is chal-
lenged. Rather, theorists adopting a general complexity lens argue that
knowledge about complex phenomena is always local (Cilliers, 1998), a
product of the conditions under which complexity arose and in which it
was understood (Byrne, 2005: 98). However, this does not imply that
knowledge is relative. As Donna Haraway (1988: 584) reminds us,
Human 431

the alternative to relativism is partial, locatable, critical knowledges

sustaining the possibility of webs of connections called solidarity in
politics and shared conversations in epistemology . . . Relativism is
the perfect mirror twin of totalization in the ideologies of objectiv-
ity; both deny the stakes in location, embodiment, and partial per-
spective; both make it impossible to see well.

Or as Paul Cilliers (2005: 260) notes:

A true relativist, i.e. somebody that argues that there are no grounds
for any form of knowledge is, in a way, nothing but a disappointed
foundationalist. If he cannot find objective and universal points of
reference to guarantee knowledge, then he may as well give up. The
argument between foundationalists and relativists is a dead end – a
family fight.

To claim that knowledge is local, and relative to the model through

which we come to understand complexity, means that the production of
knowledge depends upon cases. We cannot produce just any model
because for the model to be productive implies that it maintains some
resemblance to the part of the system we are trying to understand. As the
complexity thinker Paul Cilliers used to remind his students, the world
speaks back. What the social sciences bring to the field of complexity are
the tools for making comparison between the different cases we have
amassed (Byrne, 2005: 101). This is the basis for making assertions in
the social sciences, such as anthropology and sociology, whereby the
search in comparing cases is not for the universal but rather the particu-
larities that allow for comparison whilst keeping in mind the moments of
antagonism between models. The particularities we include or exclude
from our models are as much a political or ethical choice as an epistemo-
logical one.
What one can note about these claims towards dealing with complex-
ity is that general complexity gives rise to a certain ‘attitude’ to approach-
ing a complex world. The fact that we have to exclude features of
complexity from our models implies that our models are always provi-
sional. This leads to a certain modesty (Cilliers, 2005) and slowness
(Cilliers, 2006) in our approach to dealing with complex systems as we
need to consider the limits to our actions, models and the world.
However, these limitations are not disenabling; they enable knowledge
and action (Cilliers, 2005: 263). The attitude which dealing with com-
plexity creates is one that is transgressive as it constantly tries to account
for and ethically deal with that which the model excludes (see Preiser and
Cilliers, 2010; Woermann and Cilliers, 2012). Furthermore, this necessi-
tates the development of the imagination as we need to creatively deal
432 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

with that which we exclude as well as adapt to a constantly changing

future (see Allen, 2000: 103). As Woermann and Cilliers (2011: 457) note,
‘imagination can help us to foster not only social sustainability, but also
to think about what environmental sustainability might mean.
Imagination [. . .] is therefore not just about seeing other ways of being,
but also about creating new ways of being.’
Finally, alongside the crucial ethical and critical insights which studies
in general complexity have offered us, general complexity also offers
resources for thinking through transgressive or progressive acts in
order to produce novel ways of life. If we acknowledge that there is
always an excess to any model we create of a complex world, and this
is partly a result of the fact that ontologically systems are always produ-
cing excess, there is always a wealth of potentialities which remain to be
taken advantage of which may lead to ways of life and the structuring of
social life radically better than the one we currently labour under
(Human, 2013, 2014; Human and Cilliers, 2013). Rather than depending
upon an event, rather than waiting for the kairos for action, with its
conservative and biblical connotations (see Boer, 2013; Human, 2014),
general complexity points us towards the ever present possibility of
acting in the present, on a small scale and within capabilities. It points,
in other words, to the constant possibility of experimentation (Human,
2013, 2014).
The study of complexity is at least as old as modern science. However,
general complexity has aimed to provide a critical corrective to the
inflated claims that reductionist complexity was seen to hold. Rather,
general complexity reminds us of the provisionality and fallibility of
the models we construct of complex systems. But having begun at this
critically reflective position, general complexity is now advancing beyond
simply being the conscience of thinking about complexity. In its philo-
sophical implications it offers an ethics of dealing with the uncertainty
and fragility we are increasingly witnessing in the world whilst providing
a rigorous critique of the conditions under which life and knowledge are
currently reproduced. In terms of the production of knowledge it is
providing strategies for dealing with complex systems in a rigorous, dis-
ciplined and ethical manner. Rather than denying the context-specific
conditions under which knowledge about complex systems is produced,
general complexity provides us with the resources necessary for dealing
with this uncertainty and contingency.

Theory, Culture and Complexity

The articles that appear in this E-Special Issue reflect the differing
approaches scholars have taken to dealing with complexity. Although
there is a fair amount of diversity in the opinions reflected, a common
theme is the move against a reductionist view of complexity. In the past
Human 433

15 years the journal Theory, Culture & Society has provided an avenue of
publication for developing this position on complexity. Although there
are many other articles published by Theory, Culture & Society which
either deal with complexity directly or draw inspiration from the field or
reflect a sensitivity to the concerns of complexity, the articles selected for
this E-special are perhaps the ones that best represent the challenges
scholars face when they deal with complex systems. What is clear from
the work collected here is that the problems we face when dealing with
complex systems are far from solved. However, the developing field of
general complexity is starting to bear fruit as to the ethical and political
strategies we should adopt when faced with limited knowledge. The
chances are high that the problems of complexity may never be solved;
however, working out the ethics and benefits of such limitations may be
the most productive contribution studies in complexity can make
towards improving the conditions for life on this planet.
If complexity is constituted by the interaction of parts at a local level
and therefore cannot be reduced to a simple set of laws, Byrne (2005), in
his article in this E-special, argues that complexity theory provides the
basis through which we can understand the contingency of the world.
This epistemological shift for Byrne equals a political shift in social sci-
ence ‘as a basis for a knowledge-based politics at every level, but par-
ticularly that of popular participatory practice’ (p. 96). Because complex
problems cannot be described by simple rules, we should engage with
complexity through the sociological technique of comparative cases. This
insight shifts the role of the social sciences in relation to public policy
from being a technocratic handmaiden of power to one in which ‘social
action might produce one possible future rather than another’ (p. 101).
Therefore, in contrast to simplistic complexity, which ‘looks like the
property of an intellectual elite’, complex complexity offers ‘an historic-
ally grounded frame of reference which can be used to inform the organic
practice of intellectuals engaged in participatory research’ (p. 108). In this
sense complexity provides a position from which to engage ethically with
systems from within those systems.
Taking seriously the idea of an open system, Nigel Clark (2005: 166)
proposes the idea of an ‘ex-orbitant globality’ that ‘extends the destabil-
ization of regional or national boundedness by social theorists to the
perimeters of our planet’. The increasing awareness of the constitutive
role of global interconnectivity and feedback loops leads analysts to dis-
regard any possible outside to this global system. ‘If there is to be trans-
formation, by this logic, it can only come about through a realization of
possibilities that inhere in the system itself’ (p. 169). This condition is
exacerbated by recent theorizations of capitalism and the current lack of
alternatives to this global order. Such theorizations are based on what
Clark calls ‘global immanence’ and claim to a global condition without
an outside. However, this requires ‘a viewpoint that is itself removed
434 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

from the relationalities it presides over’ (p. 171) and therefore contradicts
the dynamical systems theory on which it draws. If we are then to engage
at a global level, we must take into consideration a planet which is not
closed to its surrounds. It is towards such a consideration that Clark’s
notion of ex-orbitant globality points and to the responsibilities we need
to maintain which are themselves ex-orbitant in the acknowledgement of
this excessive globality.
In his article ‘The Complexities of the Global’, John Urry (2005)
argues that many social scientists are either explicitly or implicitly apply-
ing the insights of complexity to the social sciences. Urry therefore exam-
ines the overlaps and interplays between analyses of the physical and
social worlds which are giving shape to what he terms a 21st century
‘social physics’ (p. 235). After describing what he terms ‘complex rela-
tionality’, which comprises those aspects of complexity theory which lend
themselves to the interplay of social and physical sciences, Urry proposes
that Marx provides us with the best example of complexity analyses
within the social sciences (p. 240). Although Marx’s argument prefigures
‘complex relationality’, he nonetheless illuminates the effects such rela-
tionality maintains through global capitalism. With this background in
mind, Urry argues that in relation to the complex and rich intertwining
of the global and local, ‘there is not so much a reductionist but a complex
relationality’ (p. 245). Here complexity theory provides some metaphors,
concepts and theories essential for analysing the ‘intractable disorderli-
ness’ of the global (p. 249). It is for this reason that complexity theory
may provide a more useful toolbox for understanding and escaping the
power dynamics which give shape to the ‘empire’ of the 21st century.
The toolbox which complexity theory provides us with is further ela-
borated by Urry (2006) in his article ‘Complexity’. Here he provides a
useful discussion of the various terms which complexity theory has
brought to the fore, especially the ‘complexity structure of feeling’ as
an approach not neatly defined by seeing complexity theory as simply
a utilitarian toolbox of concepts. This structure of feeling has been made
possible by an array of developments in 20th century science including
changes in conceptions of time and space, the notion of emergence, as
well as the influence of cybernetics and later notions of systems and
feedback loops. According to Urry, complexity provides the resources
for overcoming simplified and neat distinctions between nature and cul-
ture or the natural and social sciences and begins to chart a way forward
to understand the rich intertwining of worlds previously kept apart.
In this sense, Nigel Clark’s (2000) earlier article, also included in this
E-special, anticipates some of this intermingling between worlds modern-
ist science kept apart. Here, in contrast to reductionist attempts to under-
stand the city, Clark calls for a baroque understanding where the
metropolis is revitalized through exploring the ‘natural life’ of the city
as a fecund domain where the natural and the social meet. Such an
Human 435

understanding of an ‘allegorical other modernity’ is complemented by

complexity theory, ‘for both encapsulate a turn away from an analytic
toward a bottom-up or synthetic approach’ (p. 21). It is because of its
‘taste for the promiscuous and the unstable’ that Clark looks to com-
plexity for furthering an aesthetic appreciation of the metropolis. It is the
possible cross-contaminations between the hard science based language
of complexity and the cultural or aesthetic dimension of sociological
analyses which Clark hopes to encourage. This is in order ‘to push for
a porosity between the study of the social and the study of the natural
that corresponds to the openness of the human organism to the greater
flux of energy, matter and life’ (p. 30). Along similar lines, John Smith
and Chris Jenks (2005) seek to contribute to the growing body of com-
plexity theory in the social sciences. They do this through illustrating the
contribution complexity theory makes to the social sciences, especially
the endeavour to move away from the humanistic concept of the human
subject prevalent in sociology. This is done by arguing for the importance
of the processes of autopoiesis found in the biology inspired philosophies
from which much complexity theory draws. The notion of autopoiesis, or
the propensity of complex systems to organize themselves, contributes
towards the type of sociology Smith and Jenks are hoping to develop.
In the continuing dialogue between complexity and post-structuralism,
Michael Dillon explores the liveliness which animates and differentiates
both post-structuralism and complexity. Although their approaches and
histories are intertwined, Dillon (2000: 1) asks what dispositions or ethos
are exemplified and championed by each? What forms of life are made
possible by each approach? Although it is impossible to neatly encapsu-
late each position, Dillon nonetheless argues that both share a commit-
ment to the ‘anteriority of radical relationality’ (2000: 4). However, the
way these two approaches understand this anteriority of radical relation-
ality is what separates them. With their different histories and relation-
ships to science, complexity theory and post-structuralism maintain a
different set of dispositions. Whereas complexity theory points towards
the strategic, post-structuralism’s concern is with the ethical. As
Dillon concludes, complexity theory and post-structuralism each point
to a different way of life: ‘knowledge of morphogenesis, intelligence,
survival, flexibility and ultimately fitness for complexity. Alterity, différ-
ance, undecidability, responsibility, and ultimately justice for post-
structuralism’ (2000: 22).
However, such separation and distinction between the forms of life or
thought shaped by post-structuralism and complexity has been chal-
lenged by the work of Paul Cilliers. In his article for this E-special,
Cilliers (2005) argues for the importance of modesty as an approach to
dealing with complex problems. This move towards a modest position, in
contrast to the increasingly positivistic and self-assertive position one is
witnessing in the scientific world, is made possible through the insights of
436 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

deconstruction. The importance of a modest position for Cilliers is not

only to avoid technical errors, but equally ethical ones: ‘a modest pos-
ition should not be a weak position, but a responsible one’ (p. 256). The
work of Derrida, alongside the model of ‘complex thinking’ Cilliers
develops more broadly, both make a similar claim, that knowledge is
provisional. Therefore in our development of the models through
which we understand complex systems, we have to make choices and
thus ‘we cannot escape the normative or ethical domain’. We are, as
such, always in trouble when dealing with complexity and cannot
escape both the epistemological and ethical choices we make when we
try to understand complex problems. Our knowledge is always limited.
But as Cilliers (2005: 263) notes, it is these limits which enable knowledge
– otherwise we would have to incorporate everything into our models,
which would be equally useless to us. In this sense, ‘knowledge is a fra-
gile, and, above all, contingent thing’. The fact that we cannot have
perfect knowledge of any system and that the creation of models involves
choice implies that ethical considerations are always already part of what
we do when we deal with complexity.
In his effort to further Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity, through
the problem of turbulence, Antony Bryant (2007) argues that the insights
of complexity may help us in furthering our understanding of liquid
modernity. This is putting the insights of complexity to the service of
post-modernism. For Bryant, there are two attractions to using complex-
ity theory to further our understanding of liquid modernity. The first is
that what appears to be chaotic and random can in fact be explained by a
few simple rules (a view I nonetheless challenge above). Secondly, ‘just
because there is a possibility of an infinite range of end states does not
mean to say that there will always be an infinite number of end states’ (p.
131). In other words, complexity harbours the insight that despite a
potentially infinite range of possibilities, robust structures still determine
which possibilities are realized. Bryant argues that exploring the harsh-
ness of modernity’s underbelly, in the form of precarious labour, short-
term contracts and insecure livelihoods, exemplified in Bauman’s concept
of fluidity, where previous structures such as class, neighbourhood or
community now take on a ‘zombie-like existence: they are neither dead
nor alive’ (p. 133), leaves us with little hope. It is the turbulence of the
fluidity of this new liquid management style which leaves a trail of debris
and waste in its path, a trail consisting of those made redundant or
unable to keep up with this ever-flowing torrent. Yet the insights of
complexity allow us to see that this is not an entirely free game; it is
structured to privilege certain results above others, leaving some rich and
others redundant.
In ‘The Place of Complexity’, Nigel Thrift (1999) explores the possi-
bilities complexity theory holds for geographers. He does this by explor-
ing how complexity theory has disseminated, both geographically and
Human 437

epistemologically, around the world through three different networks:

those of science, New Age belief systems and business practices. Thrift
argues that complexity theory might be seen as a harbinger of a ‘structure
of feeling in Euro-American societies which frames the world as complex,
irreducible, anti-closural’ and, as such, brings about a greater sense of
openness and possibility about the future. However, Thrift concludes his
argument that this optimistic portrayal of a shift in feeling in the western
world may not bring about the utopia he proposes. Rather, he concludes
with the warning that what we may be witnessing is an expansion of the
‘Euro-American mindset’, not its extinction. Seen in this way, this shift
may simply be a ‘continuation of imperialism by other channels . . . In
which case, what we may be seeing in the guise of expanded possibility
is simply business as usual’ (p. 60).
Such an accusation against complexity theory of course depends on
what ends you put it to the service of. In our co-authored article (Human
and Cilliers, 2013), Paul Cilliers and I argue that complex systems, as well
as the models we create of them, harbour an excess of possibilities.
However, in contrast to the traditional understanding of the relationship
between model and system as being defined by frames, we argue that the
philosophical notion of ‘economy’, as developed in the work of George
Bataille and later Jacques Derrida, better describes the sets of possibili-
ties created by models. In this regard, the notion of economy acknow-
ledges that there is always an excess of possibilities both ‘inside’, ‘outside’
and in the interactions between the model and the system. Such a reading
of complexity offers a different form of practice which does not depend
on stark distinctions between an inside and outside (see also Human,
2014) but rather acknowledges both the excess and dearth of possibilities
available to everyday forms of life. It is towards such a ‘general’ economy
of complexity, rather than a ‘restricted’ one, which our paper hopes to
contribute as a means of illustrating that, despite the robustness of com-
plex systems, novel possibilities always rest latent in any system and in
our engagements with complexity.

Notes
1. Not being sealed off or independent from our environment but rather being
constituted by the relationships we maintain with our environment implies a
shift in the way we conceive of autonomy. As Edgar Morin (2007: 14) has
noted, ‘for a living being to be autonomous, it is necessary that it depends on
its environment, on matter and energy, and also on knowledge and informa-
tion. The more autonomy will develop, the more multiple dependencies will
develop.’ This has implications for how we conceive of political sovereignty
or indeed individualism in liberal societies.
2. For a discussion of the radical openness of complex systems see Chu et al.
(2003); for a discussion of observing complex systems see Rasch (1991).
438 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

3. See Allen (2000) for a useful description of the assumptions we make when we
reduce complexity.
4. For a discussion on nonlinearity see Clark (2005) and Knyazeva (2004).
5. For a discussion of emergence see Dekker et al. (2011) and Morin (1992); for
a discussion of the relationships between the parts and the whole see Morin
(2007).

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Oliver Human completed his PhD in Philosophy at Stellenbosch

University. His dissertation was concerned with the notions of ‘economy’
and ‘novelty’ in post-structuralism and complexity, and he has published
on both in Theory, Culture & Society and elsewhere. He is currently a
PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam.
His present dissertation is concerned with the notion of the ‘state’ in the
context of statecraft in South Africa. He is soon to begin post-doctoral
research on the notion of ‘failure’.
440 Theory, Culture & Society 33(7–8)

E-Special Issue: Complexity

Editor: Oliver Human

Contents

David Byrne, Complexity, Configurations and Cases

Theory, Culture & Society, October 2005, 22(5): 95–111.
Nigel Clark, Ex-orbitant Globality
Theory, Culture & Society, October 2005, 22(5): 165–185.
John Urry, The Complexities of the Global
Theory, Culture & Society, October 2005, 22(5): 235–254.
John Urry, Complexity
Theory, Culture & Society, May 2006, 23(2–3): 111–115.
Nigel Clark, Botanizing on the Asphalt? The Complex Life of
Cosmopolitan Bodies
Body & Society, November 2000, 6(3–4): 12–33.
John Smith and Chris Jenks, Complexity, Ecology and the Materiality of
Information
Theory, Culture & Society, October 2005, 22(5): 141–163.
Michael Dillon, Poststructuralism, Complexity and Poetics
Theory, Culture & Society, October 2000, 17(5): 1–26.
Paul Cilliers, Complexity, Deconstruction and Relativism
Theory, Culture & Society, October 2005, 22(5): 255–267.
Antony Bryant, Liquid Modernity, Complexity and Turbulence
Theory, Culture & Society, January 2007, 24(1): 127–135.
Nigel Thrift, The Place of Complexity
Theory, Culture & Society, June 1999, 16(3): 31–69.
Oliver Human and Paul Cilliers, Towards an Economy of Complexity:
Derrida, Morin and Bataille
Theory, Culture & Society, September 2013, 30(5): 24–44.

This article is the introduction to a TCS E-Special Issue on Complexity,

edited by Oliver Human. Available online: www.uk.sagepub.com/TCS
especials.