Re: Rosen as philosopher, his delayed impact

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Kevin,

Thanks for the informative post. Very helpful. Some questions,
comments:

Kevin de Laplante wrote:

>      New Kevin:  In my experience, Rosen is regarded as something of a
>     god among systems theory types, even when they're not doing systems
>     theory in the way he might have wanted.  But the natural community
>     to appeal t to promote interest in Rosen's work, is, I think,
>     philosophers, and philosophers of science in particular.

Do you think another angle might be to attempt to bring philosophy
into any and all areas of study in similar ways as Rosen did? Judith
has mentioned that one of his values/comments was a commitment
to follow a problem or question where ever it led. As is often the
case I think the path goes deeper, and/or inward. Rosen had the
courage and capacity to follow issues to or toward the deep core,
and this seems to me naturally to get into philosophy. I also think
that while he followed this path or way in biology, math, modeling
(and also social issues, planning, etc.), one could just as easily say
that the general mode of study, inquiry, work has potential to help
transform almost any other field. Ecology, design, engineering,
agriculture, philosophy itself...etc. So in addition to taking Rosen
to philosophy to see what his work implies there, could we take
philosophy to any/all fields in manner similar to what Rosen did for
theoretical biology?

>     Now, Rosen wouldn't be regarded as a "peer" philosopher (if I can
>     use that term in a non-elitist way), but he could be regarded as a
>     scientist whose work had strong bearing on philosophical issues, and
>     who tried to address them in ways he thought appropriate in his
>     work, and who may have insights that stimulate new directions of
>     thinking on classical philosophical topics.  Einstein is a good
>     example of someone whose work had deep philosophical import, and who
>     wrote on philosophical topics, but who was not regarded as a peer
>     "philosopher" by philosophers (or himself!  Abraham Pais, a
>     physicist and biographer of Einstein, once was asked whether he
>     thought Einstein was a philosopher.  He replied, "At his best,
>     no.").   Same for David Bohm, Kurt Godel, Niels Bohr, etc.  Or going
>     back, Newton, Darwin, etc.

This is an interesting and helpful set of examples. Maybe that issue of
following a problem to its ultimate, total, final or whole implications
is shared among these luminaries?

>     Now, the advantage that these guys have is that their names are
>     associated with scientific developments or theories that made an
>     impact on their respective fields, so there is a natural interest in
>     their views on foundational topics.  Rosen doesn't have that
>     advantage.

Part of my interest in Rosen's work is that it seems to be a resource
or contribution or legacy or corpus that has not yet been fully
appreciated, applied, understood, tested or extended. Thus there is
this huge "potential gap" between the quality or power of the work
he left us and the fruition or actualization of that power as in real
world structures, functions, ideas, systems able to do work. So maybe
his impact on his field and others has not yet "happened"? It is like an
untapped reserve of oil or gold or some valuable resource that is
waiting "underground" for conditions to be right for its harnessing to
do good works for the betterment of humans and life itself (maybe
oil and gold are not good examples - I am thinking "resource" able to
do work or create value). Part of this gap between the potential and
the actual Rosen impact comes from his own style and mode of work -
how he wrote, who he wrote for, etc. Maybe some comes from the
world not being willing or able to deal with the full implications of his
work. His life was also cut short. For whatever combinations of
reasons, this work goes largely under-utilized and until we take it out
to the world and extend what he did, we can't know about the full
range of what the actual impact can be.

There may be a handfull of others who are doing work or developing
theory or providing concepts and tools similar to Rosen and similarly
able to open new frontiers. I always cite Bob Ulanowicz and I believe
his work is compatible/complementary. I am now reading some
Christopher Alexander (The Timeless Way of Building), an architect,
and so far he seems to be saying the same thing. I think work of Brian
Fath and Bernie Patten is that deep also. The folks in the movement to
build integral ecology and related integral theory may be allied as well.
But no one has said or is saying exactly what Rosen said, and so I still
see a huge potential value in his work that we have an opportunity to
explore and develop. So he himself may not be or become an Einstein
in terms of recognition, but if an Einstein-like worker harnesses/applies
Rosen contributions in the way Einstein used Galileo and other
contributions, Rosen's work could aid in creating a new Einstein-like
figure. Continuing to put Rosen's work out to the world can only
increase the chances for this to happen. So I look forward to your
article!!

Dan