International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

A set of concepts introduced in Venezuela by H. LOPEZ GARAY and R. FUENMAYOR and applied and developped at the Universidad de los Andes (Mérida, Venezuela)

According to FUENMAYOR, Interpretive Systemology has its roots in the "self-referential structure of everyday living situations", which provides it with "a phenomenological ontology"(1991 a.)

The Mérida School uses Interpretive Systemology basically as a sociological methodology and as a tool for the study of typically Venezuelian situations, as seen from a variety of thematic interpretive contexts", i.e. different frames produce different meanings. Each of these represents a specific worldview. As an example, businessmen, priests, union leaders, politicians or bureaucrats have all different views about "Public Health Services".

Thus, debates between these various views are finally rooted in different interpretive modes of society, among them:

Social Darwinism: everyone vies for himself. The State has no role to play.

Radical Liberalism: the State must only insure fair competitiveness

Socialized Liberalism (i.e. Welfare state): the State must take care of those who were, or are unable to pay for their own welfare

Socialism: the State owns and manage everything and guarantees all social services to all citizens.

In synthesis Merida's Interpretive Sociology amounts to a systemically and autopoietically colored social theory according to which the ways a social system is considered is necessarily inscribed within one or another interpretive model (generally in a recursive style)

Of course all of the four model's types are ideological, i.e. biased in some way or another

While Interpretive Systemology takes its distance from all models (but possibly not the same distance from all), it still does not state why all these so varied theories of society need (or should need) an ideological fundamentation, blind of course in each case to itself in a selective way.

What would be needed is a good general theory of ideologies, as social and cultural self-generated organizers, including about the way they emerge in specific places and times. Such a theory should include for example the old Chinese mandarinate, or HAN FEI's logistic systems and the Hindu caste system, on the same footing than the North-american variety of capitalism, the Western concept of democracy or the Islamic sharia as basic law.

Of course, Interpretive Systemology could be a step toward this wider goal.

Note: FUENMAYOR's concepts are at least partly grounded in HABERMAS' critique of objectivism. He quotes HABERMAS' critique of HUSSERL: "…While criticizing the objectivist self-understanding of the sciences, HUSSERL succumbs to another objectivism, which was always attached to the traditional concepts of theory" (HABERMAS, 1972, p. 306)

FUENMAYOR also critizes the "radical enlightment" concept (whose aim was to escape the very strong rigidity of the traditional values systems). The Enlightment, through MONTESQUIEU and ROUSSEAU, for example, pretended during the 18 C. to invent a constructed social way of being. However it is historically obvious that it is very difficult to fully disengage oneself, even from such a constructed cultural setting -obviously always based on an ideology. FUENMAYOR clearly believes that we should escape from even this form of subservience and become actors- or at least witnesses- in our own right. It seems to be quite a tall order. While absolute objectivity is a mirage, uncritical cultural relativism is a swamp because it is so difficult to take distance, from the deeply hidden prejudices one inherits from his/her own culture

In a critical comment of the Merida School work, J.C. MINGERS summarizes the proposed methodology as follows: "Briefly, this consist of:

1) developing a number of interpretations…of what the phenomena might be

2) comparing the phenomena with these different interpretations

3) conducting a debate between the various interpretations, given the results of the comparison

"This all leads, not to some particular result or agreement, but to a richer understanding and the possibility of further and deeper interpretations" (1992, p. 338)

M. JACKSON states, as a final evaluation: "Interpretive systemology is emancipatory… It demonstrate the oppressive role that organizations play in the power structure of the society" (2000, p. 299) As such, it is obviously a very useful tool. However "… using marxist explanations allow the interpretive systemologists to assert their emancipatory credentials, but only at the expense of the phenomenology they claim to embrace" (Ibid)

Such a conceptual merry-go-round of frames of references!…And glints of GÖDEL's unavoidable incompleteness and the resulting ontological skepticism.

→ Clanthink; Conversation; Design inquiry; Distinction; Frankfurt School; Metasystem transition theory; Observer; Weltanschauung