Ben Sweeting

Cybernetics of practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which cybernetics leads to distinctiveways of acting. Design/methodology/approach – Paralleling von Foerster’s argument that it makes more sense to speak of the cybernetics of epistemology than the epistemology of cybernetics, the author argues that cybernetics is not one form of practice amongst others but an account of what it is to practice, understood as where we relate how we act to how we understand so that each informs the other. The author explores the potential difference that adopting this understanding of practice makes in practice and shows its significance by establishing connections between the eponymous cybernetic example of steering and questions regarding teleology in ethics. Findings – While all practice is cybernetic in the sense of involving a relationship between understanding and acting, the relationship between cybernetics and practice is not a neutral one. Understanding practice in cybernetic terms enables us to pursue goods internal to the practice, which, in turn, makes a difference to how we act. Practical implications – The author argues that how we understand the relation between our understanding and our acting (our theories of theory and practice) leads to significant differences of action in practice. Originality/value – The author argues that cybernetics has non-neutral, and ethically significant, consequences in practice that are beyond the application of cybernetics to practice or the advantages of adopting explicitly conversational ways of acting.

Living in Cybernetics: Papers from the 50th Anniversary Conference of the American Society for Cybernetics

On the 3rd of August 2014, the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) celebrated their 50th anniversary at their annual conference, which that year was held in Washington, DC, hosted by George Washington University. The choice of venue reflected the fact that the first conference of the ASC was held in the same city in 1964. The proceedings from this celebratory conference are presented in this special issue of Kybernetes. The last three conference proceedings have been published in this ISI rated journal, showing the commitment from both sides to advance the field through the dissemination of cybernetics research. The conference took place from the 3rd to the 9th of August 2014, with the theme of Living in Cybernetics.