In May 2022, the Karl Alber Verlag will publish the anthology »Komplexität – System – Evolution. Eine transdisziplinäre Forschungsperspektive«. The publication will present the initial results of the project »Complexity in Science, Culture and Society« which was headed by Matthias Lutz-Bachmann and Harald Schwalbe from 2017 to 2020 at the Forschungskolleg and funded by the Aventis Foundation.

Complex systems or processes can be defined by the fact that they cannot be adequately understood or modeled in research by reducing them to their elementary components. Nor can exact predictions be made about the development of complex systems. We are acquainted with this problem from familiar social and political contexts such as globalization, the digitization of society, and the increasing interconnectedness of social, economic, technical, and political systems. This new publication brings together contributions that attempt to develop, from a cross-disciplinary perspective, a sound understanding of complexity as a basis for action in dealing with complex systems and processes. Central to this is a transdisciplinary definition of the evolution of complex systems, developed by the researchers at Goethe University and others who participated in the project. Complexity is considered and reflected upon in various research contexts from the perspective of very different disciplines, with the individual contributions referring to the overarching definition and demonstrating its transdisciplinary viability.

Harald Schwalbe und Matthias Lutz-Bachmann are the editors of the anthology, which brings together contributions from the disciplines of chemistry, philosophy, mathematics, social sciences, biology, literary studies, physics, linguistics and political science. Publication was made possible with the kind support of the Aventis Foundation.

Harald Schwalbe/Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds.): Komplexität – System – Evolution. Eine transdisziplinäre Forschungsperspektive. Baden-Baden: Verlag Karl Alber, 2022.

Contact
Dr. Thomas Schimmer (t.schimmer@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de; 06172 / 13977-14)