Cybernetics Society's Essay Competition 1999 - Highly commended paper - Cybernetic explanation and development

This essay reports work in cybernetics that it is believed cart shed light on methodological and conceptual issues in the study of child development. To do so, cybernetics is placed in the larger context of the philosophy of science, drawing Particularly on the work of Frederick Suppe and Nicholas R escher. The concept of explanation in cybernetics is used to elucidate cont roversies concerning "mechanistic" and "organismic" types of explanation An account is given of several models that appear to be of use in explicating the concepts of development, self-organisation and morphogenesis Finally, the distinctions between first- and second-order cybernetics (due to von Fo erster) and taciturn and language oriented systems (due to Pask) are invoke d to encompass the social dimensions of child development.