ABSTRACT
In 1974, Heinz von Foerster initiated a quantum leap in cybernetic thinking. Following a lecture by Margaret Mead (1968), who suggested that cyberneticians apply the principles of cybernetics to themselves, Foerster distinguished between the then prevailing cybernetics of observed systems – the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and Ross Ashby – and the cybernetics of observing (systems) (Foerster et al., 1974). This posed new questions and opened an area of inquiry variously called cybernetics of cybernetics or second-order cybernetics. To me, the shift from first-order to second-order cybernetics signaled a shift in scientific attitude toward reality, from privileging the perspectives of detached observers, spectators, or engineers of a world outside themselves to acknowledging our participation in the world we observe and construct as constituents. He also added to Humberto Maturana’s (1970) proposition, “anything said is said by an observer,” (my emphasis) another proposition: “anything said is said to an observer” (Foerster, 1979; my emphasis), thus highlighting the construction in language of observational accounts for people capable of observation.
