International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

Situation resulting from the "feedback to the input x of the system (evolution of the system and its environment) obtained through the effectors controlled by the decisions" (R. VALLÉE 1990, p.40).

R. VALLÉE explains this concept as follows: "The cybernetic system S acquires a knowledge of itself and of its environment F by way of its observation organs… These perceptions generate decisions which command S's effectors. These effectors, by their simultaneous action upon S itself and upon F modify the evolution that S and F would have undergone without their intervention. An indirect consequence of that perception which S obtains from itself and of its environment is thus to modify this perception. In this sense, the system knows itself and constructs itself, and knows and constructs its environment" (1991, p.145- 146).

VALLÉE calls this process: Epistemo-praxeological cognition. He adds that "This co-evolution is akin to what Heinz von FOERSTER calls "Eigen Behavior" (von FOERSTER, 1981, p.274), but which in this case refers only to S" (Ibid)

VALLÉE's concept, also elaborated by him in various papers as a mathematical formalism, is thus at variance with MATURANA and VARELA's organizational closure, as it does not readily dissociate the system from its environment. VALLEE explains how his views "modify the notion of subjectivity" in the following terms: "In the co-evolution, or the symbiosis of two observing and acting subjects S₁, and S₂, the image that they gather from each other… is on various levels: the observation one, the decision one, or more synthetically, the action level. But, if subjectivity is underlined, objectivity is in no way excluded. The epistemological, pragmatical and praxeological images that S₁, obtains from itself and from S₂ are determined by the state of S₁, and S₂, that is only defined at a meta-level out of reach for S₁, and S₂'" (1995, p.102). These views come closer to LOTKA's "planetary engine", LOVELOCK's "Gaia" and GRASSÉ's stigmergy.

For a complete development of the epistemo- praxeological concept, see R. VALLÉE's "Cognition et système" (1995).

A quite similar concept has been enunciated by R. MARGALEF: "When we interfere with the functioning of nature, we are converted into parts of the larger system, such as the experimenter is included in the experiment" (1980, p.39).

Epistemology in a systemic sense is thus in no way independent of the very progress of rational knowledge, which eliminates former areas of ignorance (non-rational explanations or no explanation at all), but creates new ones, as the intrusion of formerly unrecognized or non-existant effects.