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The only complete description of a complex system is the system itself. However, since we cannot understand complexity in all its complexity, we are forced to model complex systems in order to render them meaningful. Models therefore reduce complexity, and are both an outcome of our mental constructions and empirical considerations. Complexity thinking necessitates an engagement with the nature, limits, and consequences of knowledge production, which raises both technical and ethical considerations. In this chapter, this complexity-informed view of knowledge is further explored at the hand of philosophical positions that are sensitive to the normative dimension of knowledge creation. Specifically, Foucault's work on archaeology and genealogy is introduced in order to demonstrate how our knowledge practices are informed by largely unconscious epistemic frames, are construed on the basis of unreliable premises, and develop according to complex historical processes. The implications that Derrida's deconstructive philosophy hold for drawing attention to, and dealing productively with, the limited status of our models and the impossibility of the closure of meaning are also explored. Both these philosophical positions reinforce the view that the epistemology of complexity cannot be construed as a value-free programme. The very real consequences that this position holds are explored at the hand of the question of the foreigner, who we seek to understand, but who—by definition—resists assimilation into our conceptual schemas.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-39047-5_4

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