Self-organization, knowledge and responsibility

Purpose - The main purpose of this paper is to consider knowledge production as a social self-organization process, to clarify ethical implications of such an approach, and to relate it to the thinking of Heinz von Foerster. Design/methodology/approach - The method employed is the one of dialectical constructions, i.e. existing contradicting approaches on knowledge research are identified and classified and a constructive synthesis of these approaches is made. Findings - Since Heinz von Foerster's pioneering work, information-generating systems are considered to be self-organizing systems. We see knowledge as only a particular kind of information: it is the manifestation of information in the social realm. Thus, the creation of social information is due to the self-organization of social systems. Heinz von Foerster has given us some indications of how knowledge and self-organization could be applied to society. In this paper, we try to sketch a position of our own while taking into consideration Heinz von Foerster's relevant ideas. Practical implications - The research results in this paper imply that a knowledge-based society can only survive if it is designed in a participatory and socially and ecologically sustainable way. Hence a practical implication is that participation and co-operation need to be advanced in order to guarantee human development. Originality/value - The innovative aspect of the paper is that it suggests that all social self-organizing systems are knowledge-producing systems and that considering knowledge as a co-operative process implies responsibility for solving the global social problems. It combines knowledge research and systems thinking based on ideas on self-organization by Heinz von Foerster in order to describe social systems.