ABSTRACT
As the various branches of social science have developed the way in which they build accounts for the world and our existence within it, they have moved away from each other and from the natural sciences. Barklow, Cosmides and Tooby (1992) note that the natural sciences have retained a common root in their development, such that any move forward needs to fit with both its ‘home’ discipline, and also be concurrent with all others in order to be accepted. This has not happened in a consistent way within the social sciences. In adopting a post-scientific perspective, postmodernism has challenged many of the contradictory yet self-sustaining frameworks that have developed. Yet in creating a world that is devoid of structure other than our own unique and individual structuring of it, postmodernism is actively engaged in preventing constructive (or ‘with structure’) dialogue between the various disciplines of the social sciences (though see Cilliers, 1998). In contrast to this, the notions of complexity provide the ideal vehicle by which a meta-view of human existence can be established within which apparently contradictory worldviews can be accommodated.
