The Limits of Language in Doing Systems Work [chapter]

Richard J. Boland
2000 IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology  
Doing systems work brings us to the limits of language as few human activities do. It uniquely joins the empathetic reading of human motivations, desires, and needs with a creative envisioning of new socio-technical arrangements in hopes of transforming the world. It is at once humble and audacious, finely detailed and grandly epic. Fundamental notions of goodness, truth, and beauty are relied upon in ways that forever challenge our ability to justifY. This paper sets five voices in dialogue to
more » ... explore the limits of language in doing system work. Thefive voices, C. West Churchman, Sir Geoffrey Vickers, Richard Rorty, Bruno Latour, and Pierre Bourdieu, represent a wide range of 2(jh century traditions in system thinking, philosophy, sociology of technology, and social theory. Their dialogue is animated, conflictual, melodic, and unnerving, much like system work itself Instead of a consensus on language, limits, or systems, they provide us a landscape and some paths for future exploration in our own dialogues. This is a fictional account of an imaginary, virtual meeting in which the voices of Pierre Bourdieu, C. West Churchman, Sir Geoffrey Vickers, Bruno Latour, and Richard Rorty create a roundtable discussion on the topic "Are there limits to language which affect the design of information systems?" The pretext for this virtual meeting is a funding initiative by the Millennium Technology Committee, an arm of the European Union Millennium Celebration Council, to conduct a series of studies on the current state
doi:10.1007/978-0-387-35505-4_4 fatcat:ga6izpzmevfkxm7vzecvbqdz64