Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Biographic Data
| ID | 3424658 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wolfgang Hofkirchner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wolfgang |
| FAMILY NAME | Hofkirchner |
| SIGNATURE | HOFKIRCHNER W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Salzburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1267-3504 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Transhumanism
Transhumanism
Social relations
Ludwig von Bertalanffy did not leave us a legacy of a social systems theory. Nonetheless, reconstructing his general approach to systems provides us with several ideas on how to build a theory of social systems. The concept of social relations easily connects to Bertalanffy's concept of relations of organization. His way of thinking underlines that social relations, as any relations of organization, are unobservables that long for theoretical mea…
Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity
“Mechanisms” at Work in Information Society
Emergent Information. When a Difference Makes a Difference
Gregory Bateson’s famous saying about information can be looked upon as a good foundation of a Unified Theory of Information (UTI). Section one discusses the hard and the soft science approaches to information. It will be argued that a UTI approach needs to overcome the divide between these approaches and can do so by adopting an historical and logical account of information. Section two gives a system theoretical sketch of such an information co…
Messages and Messengers - Von Boten und Botschaften
A Taxonomy of Theories about ICTs and Society
How is the relationship between ICTs and society to be conceived of? And how is the relationship to be evaluated? These two questions form the basis upon which an ideal-typical categorisation of different theoretical approaches can be built. The scheme presented here allows to be aware of advantages and disadvantages of certain ways of theorising
How to achieve a unified theory of information
The paper deals with the necessity and feasibility of an integrated information theory. It develops guidelines for how to conceive of information in a way that avoids the pitfalls of certain ways of thinking like reductionism, projectivism or disjunctivism
The Topos of Virtuality
Generalizing the conceptual approach to a theory of biosemiotics which is primarily based on insight from mathematical topology , we discuss here the relevance of the cognitive representation of the category of space in terms of the consequences implied by topos theory: In this sense, it is shown that a topos is a Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra for a logical theory whose models are the points of a space. We also show what kind of epistemic conclusions…
A Critical Social Systems View of the Internet
The article discusses principles that form part of evolutionary systems thinking in social sciences and humanities. It is argued that introducing the concept of self-organization relates agency and structures in a way that makes it possible to take up certain features of Critical Theory by which it can meet the demands for a critical social science. These principles are applied to the question of whether there is convergence or divergence in and …
The Dialectic of Bottom-up and Top-down Emergence in Social Systems
In this paper we will present a theoretical explanation of the relationship between so-called individual emergence and the emergence of social systems. We want to take as our point of departure the assumption that from the perspective of hierarchical systems theory self-organization on the level of social systems includes a bottom-up process as well as a top-down process. The bottom-up process refers to what in sociology is called agency, the top…
Cognition, Communication, and Co-operation in Living Systems. Biosemiosis in the Context of Self-organisation
In the perspective of an as yet-to-be-developed Unified Theory of Information as part of an as yet-to-be-developed theory of evolutionary systems semiosis plausibly coincides with self-organisation. A concept of sign processes that is flexible enough to perform two functions as follows is everything that is required for this framework. It must relate to the most various manifestations of sign processes, thus enabling a variety of scientific disci…
Position Paper Number 1 for the Workshop “Towards Criteria of Sustainability and Social Meaningfulness in Development“
This paper is the first of a number of position papers for the workshop “Towards Criteria of Sustainability and Social Meaningfulness in Development“
A Critical Social Systems View of the Internet
The article discusses principles that form part of evolutionary systems thinking in social sciences and humanities. It is argued that introducing the concept of self-organization relates agency and structures in a way that makes it possible to take up certain features of Critical Theory by which it can meet the demands for a critical social science. These principles are applied to the question of whether there is convergence or divergence in and …
Social relations
Ludwig von Bertalanffy did not leave us a legacy of a social systems theory. Nonetheless, reconstructing his general approach to systems provides us with several ideas on how to build a theory of social systems. The concept of social relations easily connects to Bertalanffy's concept of relations of organization. His way of thinking underlines that social relations, as any relations of organization, are unobservables that long for theoretical mea…
The Dialectic of Bottom-up and Top-down Emergence in Social Systems
In this paper we will present a theoretical explanation of the relationship between so-called individual emergence and the emergence of social systems. We want to take as our point of departure the assumption that from the perspective of hierarchical systems theory self-organization on the level of social systems includes a bottom-up process as well as a top-down process. The bottom-up process refers to what in sociology is called agency, the top…
Cognition, Communication, and Co-operation in Living Systems. Biosemiosis in the Context of Self-organisation
In the perspective of an as yet-to-be-developed Unified Theory of Information as part of an as yet-to-be-developed theory of evolutionary systems semiosis plausibly coincides with self-organisation. A concept of sign processes that is flexible enough to perform two functions as follows is everything that is required for this framework. It must relate to the most various manifestations of sign processes, thus enabling a variety of scientific disci…
Position Paper Number 1 for the Workshop “Towards Criteria of Sustainability and Social Meaningfulness in Development“
This paper is the first of a number of position papers for the workshop “Towards Criteria of Sustainability and Social Meaningfulness in Development“
A Critical Social Systems View of the Internet
The article discusses principles that form part of evolutionary systems thinking in social sciences and humanities. It is argued that introducing the concept of self-organization relates agency and structures in a way that makes it possible to take up certain features of Critical Theory by which it can meet the demands for a critical social science. These principles are applied to the question of whether there is convergence or divergence in and …
How to achieve a unified theory of information
The paper deals with the necessity and feasibility of an integrated information theory. It develops guidelines for how to conceive of information in a way that avoids the pitfalls of certain ways of thinking like reductionism, projectivism or disjunctivism
The Topos of Virtuality
Generalizing the conceptual approach to a theory of biosemiotics which is primarily based on insight from mathematical topology , we discuss here the relevance of the cognitive representation of the category of space in terms of the consequences implied by topos theory: In this sense, it is shown that a topos is a Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra for a logical theory whose models are the points of a space. We also show what kind of epistemic conclusions…
A Taxonomy of Theories about ICTs and Society
How is the relationship between ICTs and society to be conceived of? And how is the relationship to be evaluated? These two questions form the basis upon which an ideal-typical categorisation of different theoretical approaches can be built. The scheme presented here allows to be aware of advantages and disadvantages of certain ways of theorising
Messages and Messengers - Von Boten und Botschaften
Emergent Information. When a Difference Makes a Difference
Gregory Bateson’s famous saying about information can be looked upon as a good foundation of a Unified Theory of Information (UTI). Section one discusses the hard and the soft science approaches to information. It will be argued that a UTI approach needs to overcome the divide between these approaches and can do so by adopting an historical and logical account of information. Section two gives a system theoretical sketch of such an information co…
“Mechanisms” at Work in Information Society
Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity
Social relations
Ludwig von Bertalanffy did not leave us a legacy of a social systems theory. Nonetheless, reconstructing his general approach to systems provides us with several ideas on how to build a theory of social systems. The concept of social relations easily connects to Bertalanffy's concept of relations of organization. His way of thinking underlines that social relations, as any relations of organization, are unobservables that long for theoretical mea…
Transhumanism
Transhumanism
Epistemology (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Engineering (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Management science (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Knowledge management (3 works) · Psychology (3 works)