University of Johannesburg, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities
Johannesburg, The Republic of South Africa

INDECS 21(1), 1-17, 2023 DOI 10.7906/indecs.21.1.1 Full text available in pdf format.

Received: 15th July 2022. Accepted: 21st February 2023. Regular article

ABSTRACT

Several complexity theorists draw a sharp and ontologically robust distinction between (merely) complicated systems and (genuinely) complex systems. I argue that this distinction does not hold. Upon fine-grained analysis, ostensibly complicated systems turn out to be complex systems. The purported boundary between the complicated and the complex appears to be vague rather than sharp. Systems are complex by degrees.

KEY WORDS
complex systems, complexity theory, Stuart Kauffman, Sandra Mitchell, Edgar Morin

CLASSIFICATION

JEL:

C51