Complexity and Postmodernism

Cilliers, P. (1998). Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems. Routledge.

Type

Book

Intellectual base

Review or monograph

Year

1998

Link

https://www.routledge.com/Complexity-and-Postmodernism-Understanding-Complex-Systems/Cilliers/p/book/9780415152877

Cited from

systems_cybernetics

Cited by

2 citations across 2 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Boundary Critique

  • This sourceCilliers formalized complexity science for engineering and social contexts; distinguished complexity from complication; emphasized emergence, non-linearity, networks.

• Complexity
  • Mis-applying expertise to complex domains ("we know what's happening here, execute the plan") has produced major failures (Vietnam, housing-bubble-era risk management, early-COVID response assumptions)

    This sourceDistinguishes complexity from complication; emphasizes emergence, non-linearity, and the limits of analytic/expert mastery of complex systems — topical support for the expert-knowledge-vs-system-behavior tension at D26-090. Verified existing and supporting. (Historical examples in the prose — Vietnam, housing bubble — are not from Cilliers.)

Verification

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