Recursivity and Contingency

Bibliographic Data

ID10691329
AuthorsDaniel Neumann (0000-0001-6079-0831, University of Klagenfurt, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume71
Issue2
Pages451-453
Publication date2021-03-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqaa039
OpenAlexW3035452294
LanguageEN
Citations received11

In Recursivity and Contingency, Yuk Hui sets out to accomplish two things: firstly, to conduct a historical survey, beginning with Kant's Critique of Judgement, of how philosophy envisioned nature and living beings as autonomous systems interacting with their environment in complex ways. Fundamentally, Hui understands this to be a breaking away from the linear causality of mechanistic thought, inherited from 17th century Rationalism, to a circular and dynamic concept of natural and artificial systems. Hui develops a historical trajectory that bridges the differences between human and machine, natural and cybernetic organism. The second goal of the book is to reassess the need for a holistic assessment of our present technological environments. Hui suggests a rethinking of our relationship with technology as starting from the genesis of technological thinking itself. Despite the historical span of roughly 250 years, the diverse range of authors, disciplines and underlying problems, Recursivity and Contingency is held together firmly by its two eponymous concepts. Recursivity and contingency describe two basic features of every theory of systems: as a system is in contact with its outside, the events occurring will be perceived by the system and possibly, but not necessarily, change its behavior. The system acts recursively on itself whether it is a machine programmed to achieve a certain function or a living organism able to pursue goals that emerge in line with its contact with the environment. But for a system's model to be more than a deterministic construct of linear causality, there needs to be an indeterminacy regarding its interaction with the environment. The concept of contingency serves this purpose, forcing ever new recursive loops and adaptive strategies. Of course, the wholesale application of this systems theory approach could be seen as an anachronistic distortion, rather than a historical method. Yet, since Hui is more interested in investigating the underlying concepts than the specific contexts, I would argue that the persistent recurrence of recursivity and contingency makes for a consistent narrative.

Causality (physics) · Cognitive science · Construct (python library) · Contingency · Cybernetics · Epistemology · Indeterminacy (philosophy) · Judgement · Sociology · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Embodied and Extended Cognition · History of Computing Technologies · Philosophy · Psychology

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