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Systems Research and Behavioral Science Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006) Published online inWiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI:10.1002/sres.689

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Research Paper

A Philosophical Discussion of the Root Definition in Soft Systems Thinking: An Enrichment of CATWOE Andrew Basden1* and A. Trevor Wood-Harper2 1 2

Information Systems Institute, University of Salford, Salford, UK School of Informatics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

After a brief review of some problems in CATWOE analysis in Checkland’s soft systems methodology, we suggest that they may be ameliorated by employing Dooyeweerd’s multi-aspectual philosophy. A systematic approach is taken to reconceptualize each element of CATWOE within a Dooyeweerdian framework, the relevant portions of which are explained. In the process our understanding of CATWOE is enriched and made easier for the SSM apprentice to grasp. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Keywords CATWOE; soft systems methodology; Weltanschauungen; Dooyeweerd; philosophical underpinning

OVERVIEW OF SSM AND CATWOE Soft systems methodology (SSM) was originally devised by Peter Checkland (1981) in an attempt to bring the insights of systems theory to situations involving human beings. Its central thrust has been succinctly summarized by Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2001) as ‘to improve realworld situations by orchestrating changes of appreciation through a cyclic learning process’. ‘Appreciation’, derived from Vickers (1968), speaks of a diversity of norms, relationships and perspectives among those involved in, or affected by, the human activity system. Such * Correspondence to: Andrew Basden, Information Systems Institute, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

diversity must be not only acknowledged but also ‘orchestrated’, so that all those involved or affected may receive their due, and do so in a coherent way. ‘Changes’ speaks of dynamically bringing about new insights into the situation rather than merely gathering existing perspectives together. But always, as Checkland has argued, the generation of new insights must be grounded in the ‘real world’, sensitive to the concrete situation. SSM may be seen as having four main phases, of finding out about the situation, modelling, comparison and taking action, all usually undertaken by a group of participants. Finding out, comparison and action are ‘above the line’, in being related to the problem situation, while modelling is, crucially, ‘below the line’, deliberately abstracted from the real world so that new Received 12 September 2003 Accepted 15 February 2005

RESEARCH PAPER insights may be generated. SSM thus exhibits a tension between abstraction and the real world that can be problematic, as we discuss below. This paper focuses on the modelling activity and in particular on CATWOE, a conceptual tool that is responsible for the quality of the modelling process.

CATWOE CATWOE suggests six elements on which it is useful to focus in constructing the root definition of the proposed system (Checkland, 1981, pp. 224–225): C—customers: ‘beneficiaries or victims affected by the system’s activities’. A—actors: ‘agents who carry out, or cause to be carried out, the main activities of the system, especially its main transformation’. T—transformation process: ‘the means by which defined inputs are transformed into defined output’ (where input is current situation and output is desired situation). W—Weltanschauung: ‘an outlook, framework or image that makes this particular root definition meaningful’. O—ownership of the system: ‘some agency having a prime concern for the system and the ultimate power to cause the system to cease to exist’. E—environmental constraints: ‘features of the system’s environments and/or wider systems which it has to take as ‘‘given’’’. Of these elements, T is core of any root definition, E grounds it in the real situation, and C, O and A focus on human activity. Of W, Checkland (1981, p. 18) says ‘This concept is the most important one in the methodology’. By making Ws (perspectives) explicit during analysis new insights can be generated that might, as BergvallKa˚reborn (2001) puts it, ‘break away from selfimposed constraints and frames of mind’. CATWOE seems to have stood the test of time, remaining substantially as it was in the 1970s. It deserves its high reputation, not only because, as Jackson (1982) says, SSM is ‘the most selfconscious (and certainly the most rigorous) Copyright
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Syst. Res. attempt at an interpretive systems methodology’, but mainly because it works. It has been found (Smyth and Checkland, 1976; Checkland, 1981, p. 224) that if any of these elements are omitted then the root definition is impoverished. But it does not work as well as it might. A number of criticisms have been levelled at CATWOE in use. It has been argued by several authors (Jackson, 1982; Mingers, 1980, 1984; Bergvall-Ka˚reborn, 2002; and others) that SSM has a tendency to result in conventional and regulatory proposals, rather than radical proposals for change. Jackson (1991a) and Mingers (1980) argue that it cannot easily deal with conflict, and Mingers (1992) argues that CATWOE lacks a theoretical underpinning. A particular cause for concern is learning CATWOE. The way it is formulated and taught serves to introduce novices to the methodology and way of thinking, but it is not sufficient when novice becomes apprentice and tries to tackle real-world problems, learning to use SSM in a ‘professional’ way. What Checkland (1999, p. A35) calls ‘Mode 1’ use, in which the analyst considers each element of CATWOE explicitly, should evolve into ‘Mode 2’, in which the understanding of both the elements and how to employ them in a variety of situations has become tacit. But such learning is hindered because some of the concepts are ambiguous or even misleading and experience suggests that truly professional Mode 2 use of CATWOE involves extra material in the form of notions, skills and attitudes that are not an inherent part of the SSM package but might come from ‘other systems thinking’ (Checkland, 1981, p. 169); both this extra material and how to use it within CATWOE extend the learning period. In this paper we make a proposal that seems promising: CATWOE can be enriched in a way that is sensitive to the spirit of SSM and provides the apprentice and seasoned professional alike with a richer understanding of each element that makes incorporation of extra material unnecessary. To achieve this, we transplant CATWOE from an interpretivist philosophical framework to one based on the philosophy of the late Herman Dooyeweerd (1896–1977), a Dutch philosopher whose magnum opus, A New Critique of Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. Theoretical Thought (1955), is not only broad in scope but also radical in its insights, especially in the areas of meaning and existence, unity and diversity, theory and practice, and human activity systems. First, we review some of the problems with CATWOE and discuss attempts to overcome them. Then we introduce the main portions of Dooyeweerdian thought that we shall need. This puts us in a position to discuss how each of the elements of CATWOE may be reconceptualized using Dooyeweerd. Finally, we discuss how the identified problems have been addressed, the practicality of a Dooyeweerdian version of CATWOE and some problems with this approach. PROBLEMS IN SSM AND CATWOE Here we briefly outline a number of problems that have been encountered in CATWOE, mainly as a digest of a review paper by BergvallKa˚reborn et al. (2004), to which the reader is referred for more substantial discussion, but with a few additional points. Customer, C The term ‘customer’, which is supposed to mean ‘beneficiaries and victims of T’, has unfortunate connotations of a recipient of goods or services, or ‘the person or persons whom the system is intended to serve’ (Taylor and DaCosta, 1999). Thus, in practice, it is all too easy to overlook important beneficiaries or victims, especially those who do not participate in the analysis, such as non-human victims like animals or the environment. There is also a widespread tendency to focus on the positive benefits of T and neglect the possible negative impacts that T might have. Frequently, therefore, C is often conceived too narrowly and Mingers (1992) suggests using Ulrich’s notion of ‘affectee’. But Checkland (1981, p. 48) warns against this: ‘Within CATWOE the most common mistake is to define as C . . . some persons who are affected by the system but at several removes’. To resolve the tension between these contradictory pieces of Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER advice, we need to understand the dangers of conceiving C too narrowly and too widely. Obviously, to conceive C too narrowly leads to the danger of overlooking important beneficiaries and victims, and Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al. (2004) argue ‘it is often the indirect impacts that determine the real success or failure of a system’—that is, ‘at several removes’. Unfortunately, Checkland does not explain the dangers of conceiving C too widely, so we can only speculate what these might include. An obvious danger is that the analysis can lose focus, become confused or become inefficient, as attention is given to irrelevant factors. A more substantive danger is that we concentrate on beneficiaries or victims that we cannot do anything about. These problems suggest it would be useful to find a way of understanding C that does not exhibit a tendency to ignore negative impacts, that avoids the danger of overlooking important beneficiaries and victims, and that provides a way of identifying the benefits and victims at ‘several removes’ that we can do something useful about. Actor, A Very few problems have been reported around the notion of Actor. Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al. (2004) report minor variations in how the term is understood–between those who cause T and those who carry out T. Being a relatively stable concept, Actor ‘does not often play any important part in reported SSM studies’. However, they do draw attention to the need to consider competencies of actors, especially when working together in cross-disciplinary teams. Transformation, T In the traditional way CATWOE has been formulated, T is expressed in terms of input and output: Input state

T ! Output state But this is often misunderstood, perhaps too influenced by Checkland’s roots in the chemical Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER industry where input is transformed by heat and pressure into output. ‘The most common error’, Checkland (1999, p. A22) observed, ‘ . . . is to confuse the input which gets transformed into the output with the resources needed to carry out the transformation process’. To overcome this, a different formulation has been recommended: Need for X

T ! Need met However, Checkland (1999, p. A22) remarks: ‘Unfortunately, they then often slip into writing down such transformations as ‘‘need for food’’ transformed into ‘‘food’’. What a fortune you could make in the catering industry if you knew how to bring off that remarkable transformation!’ Moreover, while the ‘input–output’ form can be used both when an awareness of a problem motivates exploration of possible solutions (input known) and also when the final desired state is known, the ‘needs’ form restricts analysis to the latter. But the problem goes deeper than formulation, to difficulties in the concept itself. It presupposes than input and output can be conceptualized, which is not always possible in design and in situations where one learns as the transformation proceeds. Jayaratna (1994) criticizes T for being a ‘black box’, so that attention is drawn away from the inner nature and logic of the process itself. Mathiassen and Nielsen (2000) argue that T is seen as discrete, goaldirected change but should be extended to cover ongoing processes (such as management of resources and maintenance). Really useful Ts embrace a variety of aspects of the situation. Bergvall-Ka˚reborn and Grahn (1996) argue that when we are exhorted to find a simple T, this tends to generate narrow T statements that, especially in the ‘needs’ form, often feel empty rather than rich and creative. For example, in their application of SSM to the Baltic ferry disaster, in which they consider a system to make ferries safer, they point out that it is too easy to focus on the technical aspect of making ferries safer, whereas the whole issue of safety involves several aspects—social, economic, ethical and so on, as well as technical. Copyright
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Syst. Res. These problems affect both the apprentice and the seasoned professional. It would be beneficial to find some way of understanding T that will tend to lead the analyst to uncover its richness in whatever type of situation is faced, and allow analysis of a wider range of types of transformation.

Weltanschauung, W Weltanschauung, W, is a perspective that gives T its meaning. The notion of W is indispensable in analysis, especially to stimulate fresh insights: looking at the system from the perspective of different Ws helps us see T from a variety of angles. But little guidance is given on how to select those that should be applied. If we rely solely on those advocated by the participants, then there are dangers that we shall overlook important perspectives, either because no participant holds them or because a participant holds several perspectives but offers only one during analysis. Conversely, there is a danger that we spend time on a set of closely related Ws that differ only in minor ways. W has proved to be a difficult notion to grasp, especially by the apprentice. Fairclough (1982) found eight different ways in which it has been used, and to clarify the concept Checkland and Davies (1986) distinguished three different types of W: W1, W2, W3. W3 consists of perspectives taken generally by society of situations of the kind being dealt with. For example, a situation to which information technology is to be applied can be viewed by some as political and by others in terms of data and information (Davies and WoodHarper, 1989). W2 consists of perspectives taken in SSM itself, but ‘above the line’ during finding out, comparison and action, and is thus those perspectives from which the situation is seen as problematic. W1 is the perspective taken in SSM ‘below the line’ during modelling, from which it is believed that a proposed system and the changes (T) it brings about will be effective in solving the problem; it is a kind of ‘thinking cap’ (Checkland, 1981, p. 220), and is the W of CATWOE. But there is difficulty in practice in separating W1, 2, 3, even when the analyst fully understands the Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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difference between them, since thinking about W2, W3 is necessary to thinking about W1. A more serious problem is that trivial Ws frequently result, such as found in Checkland and Scholes (1999): Organized provision of health care is feasible and desirable; it can be planned and organized. A mission-related feasible.

concept

is

necessary,

To state that ‘X is feasible’ does nothing to fulfil the purpose of W (to make T meaningful in context). To state ‘X is desirable’ without explaining why it is desirable is little better. The second example also merely restates its T (‘need for concept relevant to sector mission ! need met’). Such Ws ‘neither help us discuss and explicate differences in perspective, nor pinpoint what makes T meaningful’ (Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al., 2004). Though sometimes such statements might refer to cultural feasibility and desirability, being stated as above does nothing to articulate these cultural issues. SSM has been criticized by Jackson (1991a) for being less useful in conflict situations. Mingers (1980) pointed out that conflict often arises when participants in the analysis come with conflicting Weltanschauungen. Though CATWOE analysis might reveal conflict, it can do little to heal it. These difficulties might arise from the fact that Ws are taken-as-given assumptions, bordering on being tacit knowledge that is difficult to elicit (Mingers, 1992). Therefore we need an understanding of W that encourages us to articulate the assumptions, especially those of a cultural nature, and distinguish a wide range of ways in which T can be meaningful, that helps us differentiate salient from trivial Ws, and that can help to heal as well as reveal conflicts. Owner, O The notion of Owner, O, has always proved difficult. Checkland often crystalizes the meaning as ‘Those who could stop the T’—but this is too wide because he then has to qualify this Copyright
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immediately by saying it does not include terrorists who might ‘stop’ T by blowing the whole system up, but involves ‘formal power’. But what constitutes formal power is not always clear: does it reside, for example, in the restaurant proprietor or the chef, on both of whom the success of the restaurant depends? Under a liberal, individualistic paradigm, the notion of Owner often has connotations of ‘strong influential beneficiary’ (Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al., 2004), which focuses the analysis too much on the aspirations of the Owner and can lead to confusion between Owner and Customer. Such connotations are inappropriate for many public organizations, where Ownership seems to reside in several places: both the project manager and the State may be deemed Owners, and also perhaps the voters. We can see multiple Ownership also in the case of businesses like the restaurant above. Reflecting on these problems, in the light of the original definition of O as ‘having a prime concern for the system’, Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al. (2004) focus on responsibility rather than power and suggest the notion of Owner should be ‘those with authority and responsibility over the system defined, and with a prime concern for its performance’. It would seem useful, therefore, if a way of understanding O were found that is oriented towards responsibility and authority rather than aspirations, and provides a sound means of differentiating clearly between the variety of manifestations of these that complex situations often exhibit.

Environment, E Although Environment, E, is assumed, under systems theory, to be the wider system, in CATWOE the focus is on constraints. The challenge is to identify constraints on T that seldom change and must be accepted, regardless of how many alternatives are considered for the other elements. Mingers (1992) believes that too little attention is given to E. Frequently, important constraints are overlooked during analysis. There is a tendency to focus on very general constraints Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER and to be satisfied with conventional ones like cost and time. There is also a tendency to make E a statement of the status quo, which hinders the generation of fresh insights. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate between constraints that should be accepted and those that might be changed, especially in dynamic situations where the environment is changing, such as volatile economic or political scenarios. Wilson (2001) also questions the systems theory assumption that E constraints necessarily originate in the external system; for example, in Checkland’s fence-painting system, the constraint of hand painting originates from a decision-maker within the system. If analysis is restricted to external constraints, then some important ones might be overlooked. In view of all these problems, BergvallKa˚reborn et al. (2004) suggest it would be beneficial if we found a way of understanding E as a diversity of constraints, internal as well as external, that would avoid mere statement of generalities or of the status quo. They suggest it would be useful to differentiate determinative constraints such as the law of gravity from normative constraints, which are often socially constructed.

CATWOE as a Whole The problems we have identified are of several types: ambiguity as to what the elements mean and how to identify them, tendency to generate insipid proposals that do not stimulate participants to new insight, difficulty in ensuring a wide coverage of possibilities and difficulty in coping with conflict. Some of these might arise from a deeper problem, identified by Mingers (1992), that CATWOE has no theory behind it. Lack of theoretical basis is of more than academic interest because it manifests itself as problems in practice. Without a principled account of each element of CATWOE, when the apprentice encounters situations that do not fit what they have learned they do not know how to apply their knowledge, and experienced professionals also have no basis on which to refine the concepts as CATWOE develops in years to come. Copyright
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Syst. Res. SOME POSSIBLE METHODS OF OVERCOMING THE PROBLEMS Over the last 20 years, various attempts have been made to overcome some of the problems. Most have taken one of two approaches: redefining the elements of CATWOE or employing external material in addition to SSM.

Redefining the Elements Concepts may be made less ambiguous by redefining them. As we saw, this has happened to T, W and O during the first 20 years of SSM. Sometimes a more radical redefinition of the concept has been attempted. For example, in order to overcome some of the problems with T being too discrete and goal-directed, Mathiassen and Nielsen (2000) argue that T should be rethought as ‘interaction’ with situations, and Wilson (2001) suggests dropping the word ‘system’ and focusing on the central verb of the T process. Checkland (1999, p. A23) has suggested reconceptualizing O as part of the ‘wider system’, the Environment. But this suggestion can lead to problems in practice. Not only does this proposal do little to differentiate O from C, but it leads to further complexity, dividing environmental constraints into those the O imposes and those imposed upon O. BergvallKa˚reborn et al. (2004) discuss these and other redefinitions. Checkland (1999, pp. A22–23) has also suggested that a simpler form with only three elements might be used: the alternative PQR form (‘Do P by Q in order to contribute to achieving R’). It is supposed to complement CATWOE, but is often assumed to replace it. Although PQR seems to address some of the problems above, it is less useful for analysis since it does not encourage the analyst to focus on W and it removes the explicitly human elements (C, A, O) (Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al., 2004). Such changes, often made in response to specific misunderstandings, can help, but they often generate further problems, as we have seen with T. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the modifications will be consistent with each other Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. or with the overall vision of CATWOE and SSM. For example, Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2002) points out that restricting W of CATWOE to W1 seems inconsistent with obtaining a rich view of T.

Employing Additional Material That CATWOE analysis tends to generate insipid proposals and that it gives little help in healing conflict are unlikely to be solved by merely redefining individual elements. To address such problems, Checkland (1981, p. 169) and Checkland and Scholes (1990, p. 156) suggest that SSM may be supplemented by ‘other systems thinking’. Strategic assumption surfacing and testing (SAST) (Mason and Mitroff, 1981) might be used to widen the coverage of possibilities, while critical systems thinking (CST) (Jackson, 1991b) might be brought in to help handle conflict. Assumption Surfacing and Testing SAST can be very useful for making Ws explicit, and it turns conflict into a virtue. It proceeds by four stages. First, people representing a wide range of perspectives are assembled into groups, such that when participants with similar viewpoints are grouped together the divergence of view between groups is maximized. Within their groups, participants unearth their most significant assumptions. Stage three is dialectic debate, in which each group states their key assumptions and attempts to understand those of other groups. Stage four, integration, involves coming to agreement about the overall key assumptions and negotiating strategy. If no agreement is reached, points of disagreement are noted and research is carried out to resolve them. SAST has advantages over simply employing experts (because experts’ assumptions are never exposed) and employing devil’s advocates (which tends to be overly destructive) (Mason, 1969). SAST could be used within SSM to bring diverse and disparate Ws to the fore. Jackson (1991a, p. 142) argues that its adversarial nature is essential for highlighting hidden differences of interpretation when there is apparent consensus that rests on shaky foundations. Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER But we might question how well it would work in such a role. The adversarial nature of SAST might lead to participants defending their positions rather than opening them up to scrutiny, and it might cause problems for some, such as those exhibiting Asperger’s syndrome. The dialectic process in stage three assumes that all participants are willing to take the trouble to understand the views of others; it is questionable whether this assumption is always valid. A deeper question is what constitutes ‘similar’ and ‘divergent’ views, and even a ‘wide range’ of views in setting up the groups in the first place. Critical Systems CST, espoused by Jackson (1991a) and based on the thinking of Habermas (1972, 1986) and his notion of emancipation as a goal and ‘ideal discourse’ as a means, claims the ability to cope with conflict and differences in perspective. A noted strength of the Critical approach is its ability to bring power relations and political and economic structures into the debate as the origin of Weltanschauungen. Jackson (1991a, p. 177) makes the contrast: ‘Habermas’ work opens up the possibility of political action to accomplish real change; it is potentially radical. Checkland’s methodology confines itself to working within the constraints imposed by existing social arrangements; it is regulative’. However, while SAST is a defined method that can perhaps be bolted onto SSM, CST is more of an overall approach in its own right and might be more difficult to incorporate within SSM. It might even prove antithetical to the whole spirit of SSM; as Wilson (1997) points out, it can exhibit internal contradictions, such as that it can lead to the paradoxical situation of an authoritarian requirement to participate openly. More fundamentally, Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2001) questions Jackson’s claim that Ws are grounded in political structures, suggesting that it of often the other way round, with changes in values and attitudes driving the political and economical changes. Problems with External Material Even if SAST, CST or any other external material were to be combined with SSM, use of such can generate its own problems. Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER If the external material is incommensurable with SSM, inner tensions might arise that eventually jeopardize the whole combination. For example, in comparing Checkland and Habermas, Jackson (1991a, pp. 177–179) argues that despite apparent similarities it is the differences that run deeper. Both seek to integrate theory and practice but ‘Habermas . . . certainly would not countenance the collapsing of theory into practice that SSM endorses’. Both take human action seriously, but Checkland’s approach is ‘incapable of understanding the social structure that condition . . . Ws’ whereas ‘Habermas’s social theory . . . is able to understand the dependence of certain Ws on the social structure’. A more practical problem is that the apprentice needs to learn, and the professional always needs to actively keep in mind, this extra material, with not only its explicit, logical and visible content but also its different history, background, assumptions, stories, values, perspectives and visions. It takes a long time to learn such cultural nuances of two ways of thinking and even longer how to employ portions of each in a harmonious and fruitful manner. Instead of adding external material to SSM, it might be better if the CATWOE elements themselves were to be understood, and presented during the initial learning process, in such a way that they naturally imply what is helpful to, for example, encourage radical insights or cope with conflict situations.

Retaining an Evolving Vision for CATWOE How do we achieve such a difference in understanding while retaining the original vision of SSM and CATWOE? While Peter Checkland is still with us, his hand is on the tiller and he can always steer, but after he leaves us we will need some way of ensuring that further development of CATWOE and SSM remains true to his original vision, and yet does not ossify into a set of rules. One way of ensuring this is to have some kind of theoretical foundation that explains why the six elements, C, A, T, W, O, E, are all valid, useful and necessary, and what their place is, and gives us a foundation on which to stand as we discuss Copyright
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Syst. Res. what shape each should take and what the relationship is between them in a principled and integrated manner. There are two types of theory: scientific and philosophic. Scientific theory takes a different form for each type of science (mathematics, biology, sociology, etc.) and therefore provides too restrictive a view for our use if we wish to retain a holistic approach, whereas it is one role of philosophy to provide an integrating view over all types (Hart, 1984). But the philosophy needs to be one that is sensitive to real life and to the richness of situations found therein. Checkland himself makes reference to a plethora of philosophers: Aristotle, Bacon, Brentano, Broad, Carnap, Chomsky, Comte, Democritus, Descartes, Dilthey, Durkheim, Galileo, Habermas, Hegel, Heraclitus, Horkheimer, Hume, Husserl, Kant, Kuhn, Leibniz, Levi-Strauss, Locke, MacIntyre, Marcuse, Ockham, Parmenides, Parsons, Peirce, Polanyi, Popper, Pythagoras, Russell, Socrates, Thales, Toulmin, Whitehead and Wittgenstein. In this veritable tour de force of philosophers, he attempts to underpin the main subjectivist thrust of SSM and the importance of the life-world. But Checkland’s philosophical profligacy results in inconsistencies at the roots of his arguments. To Probert (1997), Checkland’s appeals to early modern natural science philosophers and to Popper seem inconsistent with subjectivism. Whether Probert is right or not, there does not seem to be a single, coherent philosophical thread running through SSM that can provide a coherent account for or justification of all parts of SSM. While subjectivism and phenomenology might be the most common philosophical flavours in SSM, it is difficult, using them as a philosophical framework, to account for why each of the elements, C, A, T, W, O, E, are important or useful and to cope with conflict. In the rest of this paper we examine how one philosophy might be able to account for each of the elements of CATWOE in ways that address most of the problems identified above, and their relationship with each other within the whole that is CATWOE and SSM. The philosophy is that of the late Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977), Professor of Jurisprudence at the Free University of Amsterdam and a co-initiator (with Dirk Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. Vollenhoven) of what is known as the philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea. This little-known approach is starting to attract interest in a number of fields, including for example urban sustainability (Lombardi, 2001), management (de Raadt, 1997), documentation (Basden and Burke, 2004), analysis (Winfield, 2000), political theory (Cameron, 1997), and even the history of art (Rookmaaker, 1970). In parallel work to ours, Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2001, 2002) has applied Dooyeweerd’s thought to SSM. In (2002) she has given a clear account of parts of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy and discussed how it might address three general problems therein. Here we adopt a more systematic approach, applying Dooyeweerd’s thought to each of the elements of CATWOE and the problems just identified. To address specific issues, we must first provide a more detailed account of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy than that found in Bergvall-Ka˚reborn. How her approach and ours complement each other is discussed at the end of the paper.

RESEARCH PAPER presuppositions Plato and other thinkers of his time made have been made by most Western thinkers since. But Dooyeweerd’s thinking is not of Plato’s footnote, and he started from different presuppositions, some of which are: *

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DOOYEWEERD’S PHILOSOPHY Dooyeweerd published his main work, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, in 1955, but it is only now that interest in his work is growing. His thought speaks particularly to the postmodern situation and the diversity that characterizes contemporary life, yet in a way that involves a definite normativity and does not abandon coherence. As Smith (1999, pp. xii–xiii) points out, it parallels ‘the work of Heidegger, Gadamer, Derrida, Foucault [who] have all, in one way or another, pointed to the faiths which ground philosophical discourse . . . [and] sets about unmasking as a myth all that masquerades under the pretense of neutral or objective reason’. For a fuller introduction to Dooyeweerd’s philosophy as such, the reader is referred to Clouser (1991) or Kalsbeek (1975). The Difference in Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy ‘All else is a footnote to Plato’ said the philosopher A. N. Whitehead (1929). Plato’s ideas lie at the root of most of Western thinking, and the Copyright
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*

*

Meaning and existence. Echoing the Greek thinkers, Gaines (1997, his italics) says ‘The most fundamental properties which we impute to any system are its existence and persistence over time’, whereas Dooyeweerd held that the most fundamental is meaning and that existence derives from meaning. Things do not have meaning, as a kind of property, they are meaning. Law and entity. In contrast to Peirce (1898), who said ‘the first germ of law was an entity’, Dooyeweerd held that entity emerges from law. On this basis, Dooyeweerd differentiated sharply between the law side and entity side of the cosmos. The entity side comprises all that exists or occurs in the cosmos, as concrete, observable reality and includes all our experience, past, present, future and potential. The law side comprises the framework within which all can exist or happen and is not directly observable. Universals cannot be found within the entity side (nor can they be derived therefrom as various forms of empiricism hoped) but only in the law side. The nature of philosophical and theoretical thought. Dooyeweerd refused to presuppose that we can take for granted either the nature of philosophical and theoretical thought or even that they are important. Instead, he undertook a ‘new critique of theoretical thought’ which made the theoretical attitude itself a critical problem for philosophy. Going deeper than Kant, he made a thorough survey of thinkers over the past 2500 years, and offered not just one but two ‘transcendental critiques’ of the necessary conditions for theoretical thought, both of which show it is based inescapably on an extra-theoretical ‘religious root’. Dignity of everyday life. For most of our history, the everyday, pre-theoretical (or ‘naı¨ve’) attitude has been deemed inferior to the theoretical or scientific attitude. Husserl and the phenomenologists started to afford some Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER dignity to the everyday ‘lifeworld’, by using it, and especially its stock of assumptions, to explain inter-subjectivity. But Dooyeweerd afforded the lifeworld even more dignity by making it the starting point for his thinking rather than merely an object of study. It is with the lifeworld that his ‘new critique’ starts. Non-self-dependence. Dooyeweerd argued that, from the Greeks who focused on entities to the hermeneutic tradition that focuses on the sovereign human ego, most Western thinking has presupposed that it can find the selfdependent foundation or explanation for the cosmos within the cosmos itself. Dooyeweerd himself presupposed that nothing in the cosmos is self-dependent, but that all depends on a transcendent Divine creator for its meaning, its existence and its ability to act, even though there is immense freedom in these. Whereas Western thinking has been driven by three ground motives—the motives of form–matter (Greek), nature–grace (mediaeval) and nature–freedom (modern)—he adopted the creation–fall– redemption ground motive (Hebrew).

*

These presuppositions are not independent of each other and some of the connections between them will become apparent in the discussion that follows. Meaning The presupposition that is most relevant in enabling us to present positive and practical proposals about CATWOE comes from the primacy of meaning: Meaning is the being of all that has been created and the nature even of our selfhood. (Dooyeweerd, 1955, Vol. I, p. 4, his italics) Things do not have meaning, they are meaning—Being arises from Meaning. But what constitutes this Meaning as we experience it? Dooyeweerd investigated the nature of meaning, its origin, diversity and coherence. Meaning is not, ultimately, found in semiotics, as the content, denotation or connotation of a sign, nor is it the subjective significance that we as individual subjects impart to other Copyright
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Syst. Res. things by our (apparently) sovereign egos. Rather, these types of meaning are founded on, and enabled by, a deeper type of Meaning, which is not unlike the way we use the term when we talk of the ‘meaning of life’. Meaning is a framework within which we live freely, being, doing, knowing and attributing subjective meaning of our own to things. This notion of an enabling framework is not unlike Foucault’s view of power that pervades all or the ‘Da’ in Heidegger’s ‘Dasein’. But, unlike these thinkers, Dooyeweerd held Meaning in this sense to have a Divine Origin. He believed the essence of Meaning to be ‘referring and expressing’ (Vol. I, p. 4) and it ‘constantly points without and beyond itself’ (Vol. I, p. 10). The meaning of anything is its reference to an Other, which might be within the entity side, in the law side, but ultimately refers to the Divine Origin. This propels any thought properly based on his philosophy inevitably towards connectedness, holism and responsibility.

The Law Side What, Dooyeweerd asked, enables all to meaningfully exist and occur? His answer was: law. But Dooyeweerd’s notion of law differs from our conventional notions of law in two important ways. One is that law must not be confused with rules, regulations or social norms. Law is the framework within which all meaningful existence and functioning is possible whereas social norms, though possibly based on such law, are socially constructed in and for specific situations and contexts. Rules and regulations are made explicit, usually in verbal form, whereas law can never be thus fully explicated. The other is that whereas in conventional liberal Western thinking law is seen primarily as constraint or authoritarian demand, to Dooyeweerd law is an enabler that has strong connotations of promise. (For example, compare ‘Keep to the laws of syntax’ with ‘If you obey the rules of syntax of the language and community you are communicating with, then they will understand you better.’) Indeed, it is law-promise—as we shall call it now, partly to distinguish it from the conventional Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. concept—that enables freedom because without it nothing is possible. The law side, the framework by which everything exists or occurs, is diverse, and Dooyeweerd saw this diversity in terms of a spectrum of distinct aspects. Each aspect is both a sphere of meaning and a law-sphere, which enable meaningful existence and activity of a particular type. Dooyeweerd’s theory of modal aspects is the part of Dooyeweerd’s positive philosophy that is of most help to us. We briefly outline it here to give the reader an overall grasp of it as we begin to apply his thought to CATWOE, and will augment this with more detailed explanations of specific portions of his thought where they are needed. Dooyeweerd’s Suite of Modal Aspects But the proposer of such an idea has an obligation to say what these aspects might be. Dooyeweerd accepted this challenge. Gleaned from a lifetime of sensitive reflection on both the discourse of a wide variety of thinkers over the past 2500 years and also his own intuitive experience, Dooyeweerd delineated 15 aspects, which he introduced on the first page of his work (Dooyeweerd, 1955, Vol. I, p. 3): A[n] indissoluble inner coherence binds the numerical to the spatial aspect, the latter to the aspect of mathematical movement, the aspect of movement to that of physical energy, which itself is the necessary basis of the aspect of organic life. The aspect of organic life has an inner connection with that of psychical feeling, the latter refers in its logical anticipation (the feeling of logical correctness or incorrectness) to the analytical–logical aspect. This in turn is connected with the historical, the linguistic, the aspect of social intercourse, the economic, the aesthetic, the jural, the moral aspects and that of faith. In this inter-modal cosmic coherence no single aspect stands by itself; every-one refers within and beyond itself to all the others. Though he defined an order among aspects, Dooyeweerd was chary about drawing up too systematic a list or defining them in precise terms. Nevertheless, to facilitate our discussion, it is useCopyright
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RESEARCH PAPER ful to compile a systematic list of Dooyeweerdian aspects, with an attempt to express their kernel meanings, from his writings together with reflection by those who have employed them in the context of information systems: *

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The quantitative aspect concerns discrete amount. The spatial aspect concerns continuous extension. The kinematic aspect concerns flowing movement. The physical aspect concerns energy and mass. The biotic aspect concerns life functions and the integrity of organisms. The sensitive aspect concerns sensing, feeling and emotion. The analytical aspect concerns distinction, abstraction and logic. The formative aspect concerns deliberate shaping and achieving; history, culture, technology. The lingual aspect concerns symbolic meaning. The social aspect concerns social interaction, relationships, roles and institutions. The economic aspect concerns frugality, skilled management of limited resources. The aesthetic aspect concerns harmony, surprise, fun. The juridical aspect concerns ‘to each, their due’: rights, responsibilities, restitution. The ethical aspect concerns self-giving love, generosity. The pistic aspect concerns faith, commitment and vision of who we are and what is Divine.

The apparent simplicity that the kernel meaning of each aspect in such a list implies is misleading. Within the sphere of meaning of each aspect is a whole constellation of meaningful concepts that are objects, relationships, properties, events, processes, goals, constraints, freedoms, norms and the like. The expression of the kernels above is not precise—it never can be because of the fundamental limitations of language—but rather indicates something near the centre of the constellation. It is important to realize that Dooyeweerd believed his suite—and any other suite—can never be an absolute truth. In a section entitled ‘The system of the law-spheres is an open one’ Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER (Dooyeweerd, 1955, Vol. II, p. 556), Dooyeweerd said: In fact the system of the law-spheres designed by us can never lay claim to material completion. A more penetrating examination may at any time bring new modal aspects of reality to the light not yet perceived before. And the discovery of new law-spheres will always require a revision and further development of our modal analyses. Theoretical thought has never finished its task. Any one who thinks he has devised a philosophical system that can be adopted unchanged by all later generations, shows his absolute lack of insight into the dependence of all theoretical thought on historical development. However, for a given time and purpose (such as to enrich CATWOE), we take a particular suite of aspects, making a temporary commitment to it even while maintaining a critical distance from it. There are indeed reasons to prefer Dooyeweerd’s suite to others, but we do not discuss them in detail here. One is that most other suites seem to be a subset of Dooyeweerd’s. For example, Bunge’s (1979) ontology of levels consists of the physical, biotic, psychic, formative and social aspects only. Another is that Dooyeweerd’s suite emerged from a lifetime of reflection on both everyday life and the writings of thinkers over 2500 years. A third is that Dooyeweerd’s suite has been worked out philosophically to a greater degree than most others have, in terms of their characteristics and their philosophical roles. Hartmann (1963) discussed some characteristics and roles of his aspect-like ‘strata’ but Dooyeweerd’s treatment is more comprehensive, and is necessary for our re-conceptualization of CATWOE. Even Hartmann’s (1963) ‘strata’, which share with Dooyeweerd’s aspects irreducibility and mutual dependency, are a more limited notion. Philosophical Characteristics and Roles of Aspects Although Dooyeweerd made few ontic claims for his 15-member suite of aspects, he made a Copyright
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Syst. Res. stronger claim for the notion of aspects as such. Whereas many other suites of aspects are postulated largely as irreducible categories that should be separately taken into account in analysis, it was one of Dooyeweerd’s ‘insights’ that they have a modal character and that they necessarily cohere (Henderson, 1994, pp. 37–38). This gives aspects both philosophical characteristics and philosophical roles, which we will now outline. The most obvious characteristic of aspects is their irreducibility of meaning, which entails that in no case can the meaning of one aspect be reduced to, or derived from, that of another. Attempts to do so denature it and end in antinomy (Dooyeweerd used the example of Zeno’s paradox to illustrate the results of reducing the kinematic to the spatial aspect). It is an abhorrence of reductionism, and his suggestion of ways to counter it, that makes Dooyeweerd of interest to systems thinkers. As we suggest later, irreducibility gives us a basis for separating out distinct Ws or Cs. The second characteristic is that the aspects are also related, by two types of relationship— analogy and dependency—that express their coherence. Analogy means that each aspect contains echoes of the others (e.g., causality is of the physical aspect but there is something that can easily be mistaken for causality in other aspects, such as historical repercussion). By inter-aspect dependency Dooyeweerd recognized that aspects depend on each other for their full meaning, and this defines the order in which the aspects are normally placed. They do so in both directions. In the foundational direction, later aspects depend on earlier ones for their actualization; for example, biotic life functions depend on appropriate physical functioning. In the anticipatory direction, the full meaning of an earlier aspect cannot be opened up without reference to the meaning of a later; for example, irrational numbers remain meaningless curiosities until their anticipation of the spatial aspect is recognized. Relatedness of aspects can help us during analysis. Third, the earlier aspects are of a determinative character, in that the outcome of response to their laws (e.g., laws of physics) is (largely) Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. determined, whereas the later aspects are normative (e.g., laws of linguistics), allowing and indeed enabling freedom. The human subject finds not only freedom within the laws of a normative aspect but even freedom to go against its laws. We will find this characteristic helpful when considering E. Finally, the kernel meanings of aspects can never be grasped by the intellect but may be grasped by the intuition—which arises from Dooyeweerd’s presupposition of the dignity of the everyday attitude of thought. It motivates analysts to take people’s intuitions seriously. The philosophical roles of aspects mean that aspects lie at the foundation of other basic philosophical notions. To summarize Dooyeweerd’s lengthy discussion, aspects provide: *

*

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distinct ways in which things may be meaningful (and therefore distinct perspectives that people can take of things); distinct rationalities and ways in which we exclaim ‘That makes sense!’; distinct ways in which things function, enabled by aspectual laws; distinct types of repercussion to our functioning (e.g., physical causality, social response); distinct clusters of norms inherent in aspectual law (e.g., the lingual norms of clarity and truthfulness, the ethical norm of self-giving); distinct ways in which things can exist or come into existence (e.g., a pebble has existence by reference to the physical aspect, a poem by reference to the aesthetic aspect, a policy by reference to the juridical aspect); distinct basic types of property (e.g., physical mass, aesthetic rhythmic scheme); distinct ways of knowing, so that each aspect has a distinct epistemology and distinct criteria for scientific validity (so scientific areas such as physics, psychology, sociology or theology centre on specific aspects).

Much emerges from these philosophical roles, as we shall explain in our discussion below. In particular, Dooyeweerd’s theory of entities is founded on the notion that aspects are modes of being and becoming. Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER Which Aspects Are Important? Every thing and every event or process exhibits every aspect, at least in principle. A poem has an aesthetic aspect, of course, but it also has a lingual aspect, in that it is written or spoken, a formative aspect, in having structure and having been formed, a physical aspect, in being conveyed by some medium, and a quantitative aspect, in the number of stanzas. It also has a juridical aspect, in the author’s rights, and a pistic aspect, in the view of the world it portrays. Likewise, an event or process, such as the creation of the poem, exhibits all aspects, not only the aesthetic process of creating it as a poem itself, but also for example a social aspect, by which the poet interacts with colleagues, a lingual aspect of expressing the idea, a formative aspect of forming the structure, an ethical aspect, when the poet wants to put themselves into the poem rather than writing doggerel, and so on. But Dooyeweerd posed the question of what makes one type of entity or activity different from another—a poem from a hospital from a steam engine from a government, a poem from a love letter from a business report. A related question is: what stays the same about an entity as it transforms? He gave the example of a book that remains the same book even when he annotates it or it loses its covers and yet ceases to exist (as a book) when thrown into the fire. To answer such questions Dooyeweerd proposed that each type of entity (or activity) exhibits a different profile of aspects, in which each aspect has a different degree and type of importance; he called this a structure of individuality. But in such a profile, certain aspects are more important than others. He identified a number of ways in which aspects may be important, of which we mention the following: *

*

The qualifying aspect (or qualifying function) of an entity is the aspect in which this general type of entity is always meaningful. For example, the qualifying aspect of a poem is the aesthetic. The leading aspect may be seen as a specialization of the general type for a specific purpose. For example, a poem that is a eulogy has a pistic leading aspect. Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER *

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The founding aspect is important in the coming into being of the entity. For example, a poem is founded in the lingual aspect. What Dooyeweerd called subjective aspects are those that are particularly important for an individual—for example, a book might be used as a door-stop (physical aspect). The facilitating aspects—though Dooyeweerd did not name them such—are the aspects on which the above aspects depend for their proper functioning (inter-aspect dependency). For example, the aesthetic aspect of a poem often depends on economy of words (economic aspect) and on cultural connotations (social aspect). Others that Dooyeweerd also discussed, such as ‘internal leading’ aspect in the case of social institutions, though we do not mention them here.

It is immediately obvious that, for a system (entity) or transformation (activity) there are likely to be aspects that are important in such ways, and we will find the qualifying and founding are most salient to us. However, which aspect is the qualifying, founding, leading or any other aspect of a system must be identified by analysis. Aspectual Analysis This suggests that CATWOE analysis might be enriched by analysing the aspects of the system—and the suggestion is justified below for most elements. Some aspects will turn out to be more important than others, in ways just mentioned, and those of lesser importance might then be given less attention. But it is usually not possible, a priori, to identify which aspects are more, and which less, important, so it is usually advisable to consider each and every aspect of a system. Aspects should only be omitted from our analysis by deliberate choice, and not through neglect. While the qualifying and founding aspects might be immediately apparent, the important leading and subjective aspects might only emerge upon reflection or during the discourse of stakeholders. It is all too easy to overlook aspects that we take for granted, so we need an analytical Copyright
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Syst. Res. technique that will bring them to light. SAST (Mason and Mitroff, 1981) offers some facility in doing this but will only surface those that are important to participants, and it has other disadvantages mentioned earlier. Often there are important aspects that no participant would be likely to consider. One simple way of surfacing all aspects is to use Dooyeweerd’s suite as a checklist. But a better method, more flexible and that makes use of the participants’ cognitive links, especially those based on interaspect relationships, is Winfield’s (2000) MultiAspectual Knowledge Elicitation (MAKE). MAKE is a structured method of identifying all the relevant aspects of an area of expertise, grounded in the Dooyeweerdian notion of aspects. The participants’ knowledge of the human activity system may be considered such an area of expertise. Typically, the analyst starts by asking the interviewee for a couple of main aspects, then asks them to identify concepts within those aspects. In the process concepts from other aspects emerge, which become recognized explicitly. The process continues until the interviewee is satisfied with the map of aspects and concepts. Sometimes what initially seems to be the qualifying or leading aspect is replaced by another. MAKE stimulates participants in a nonadversarial way, and has been shown to empower participants to consider oft-overlooked aspects and issues and to liberate them to speak about issues that they might feel are embarrassing. It has proved particularly successful in making taken-asgiven assumptions explicit so they can be seen and questioned. (It might offer an alternative to Jackson’s (1991a, p. 142) claim that only an adversarial process can expose differences when apparent consensus rests on shaky foundations.) In our discussion below, we will assume that MAKE or some other method of aspectual analysis will be applied.

HOW DOOYEWEERD CAN ENRICH CATWOE In discussing how Dooyeweerd’s philosophy might help us address the problems we identified earlier, and perhaps enrich our view of Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. CATWOE, we will discuss each element in turn. We will find that some of the philosophical roles are particularly relevant to certain elements of CATWOE. As spheres of meaning, aspects help us understand W and the perspectives that people hold. As enablers of functioning, aspects provide a basis for understanding T. As spheres of law and clusters of norms aspects help us to understand E, our understanding of E is also enriched by the difference between law and entity side. As types of repercussion we can understand C and O. We will discuss them in that order. For most elements, we outline how the element may be understood from a Dooyeweerdian stance, how a number of problems may be addressed, and how it might be enriched. In some places we also discuss implications for practical analysis. At various places we introduce more detailed portions of Dooyeweerd’s thought.

W: Weltanschauung as Meaning If W is ‘an outlook, framework or image that makes . . . meaningful’ (Checkland, 1981, p. 225) and is ‘the most important [concept] in SSM’, and if Dooyeweerd’s philosophy has meaning at its centre, then it is reasonable to start with W and ask whether Dooyeweerd’s thought can give us a useful account of W. W as Aspectual View Checkland (1981, p. 276) accepts Dilthey’s notion of W as ‘a totality compounded of three elements: our cognitive representation of the world, our evaluation of life, and our ideals concerning the conduct of life’, and he mentions Dilthey’s categorization of Ws (naturalism, subjective idealism and objective idealism). Dooyeweerd also referred to Dilthey’s theory in connection with Weltanschauungen in the course of formulating a comprehensive theory of presuppositional stances. Part of this is that a W often centres on an aspect, in its role of being a way in which things may be meaningful. This is reasonable when we consider that, just as Dooyeweerd claimed that things are only meaningful in terms of aspects, Checkland claimed Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER that what we do (Checkland’s example is putting a man on the moon), ‘is only meaningful to us, in fact, in terms of a particular image of the world or Weltanschauung, which in general we take for granted’ (Checkland, 1981, pp. 18, 215). We see this if, for each W given as examples in Checkland and Scholes (1999) (except the trivial Ws that fail to explain why T is meaningful), we identify at least one Dooyeweerdian aspect in which the W might be meaningful: *

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p. 37 ‘Amateur painting can enhance the appearance—aesthetic aspect p. 65 ‘This structure will generate wealth’— economic aspect p. 111 ‘The definition of an acceptable norm for ‘‘state of health’’ can be helped by formal evaluation’—analytic aspect p. 134 ‘Computer technology can improve efficiency’—economic aspect p. 136 ‘Departmental autonomy in this expertise is good’—social (organizational) aspect p. 145 ‘CCTA needs to look ahead strategically’—pistic aspect p. 159 ‘NPL concept is powerful enough to bring about change’—social (authority) aspect p. 188 ‘Internal conflicts can waste energy; it is worthwhile and possible to avoid/alleviate them’—economic aspect p. 189 ‘Credibility depends on doing what clients are urged to do’—pistic aspect p. 196 ‘Staff function support of a Director’s role is worthwhile’—social aspect p. 201 ‘Projects embody entrepreneurial enterprise and can be set up and run in ICL’— formative aspect p. 220 ‘There is a need for staff support of DG at a time of reorganization’—social aspect

(There is one in which it is difficult to assign a single aspect, that on p. 296, when SSM is applied to itself: ‘Use of SSM can yield learning; the systemicity of SSM’s approach can be modelled by using SSM’s modelling technique’. It is often the case that such recursive or meta-application involves trans-aspectual phenomena, of which learning is one.) If Ws are centred on aspects, this immediately suggests ‘a means of putting on different kinds of thinking caps’: to consider the situation from a Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER chosen aspect, from one distinct part of the framework that is Meaning, and ask what assumptions are made from this aspect. Doing this helps to make assumptions more explicit. This can make the concept of W easier not only to grasp but also to apply in practical analysis. Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2002) explores how aspects can help us see how Ws differ from each other. Diversity of Ws Dooyeweerd maintained that human life exhibits every aspect (though some might be less important than others and some might be latent rather than actual). So any human activity system will do the same. Therefore a W centred on almost any aspect is a candidate for being relevant and useful as a ‘thinking cap’, which implies that almost any participant’s view can be welcomed. The multi-aspectual nature of human activity systems also suggests, in contrast to advice frequently given in the SSM community that a separate analysis for each W should be undertaken, that it might be useful to uncover all relevant Ws within a single analysis in order to maintain a coherent picture. This multi-aspectual (multi-W) version has three advantages over mono-aspectual (single-W) analyses. One is that it helps ensure that no aspectual W is overlooked. It is all too easy to overlook aspects because most of the time we are not aware of them and our functioning in the aspects is of a tacit nature. Another is that it enables participants to consider not only the diversity of Ws but also the relationships between Ws. Suppose, for example, an accountant and a lawyer undertake separate analyses of Ws commensurate with their expertise. There is a danger that areas of overlap such as legal aspects of accounts or economic aspects of lawyers’ activity can easily be overlooked. A third is that, when a single person holds several perspectives, the interrelationships are likely to be important but tacitly held and a multi-aspectual analysis can make them explicit. SAST (Mason and Mitroff, 1981) could perhaps be employed to undertake such multi-aspectual analysis but it provides no mechanism for ensuring that all Ws are surfaced, as opposed to those Ws that participants hold. So, as Copyright
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Syst. Res. mentioned above, Winfield’s (2000) MAKE might prove more useful since it is grounded in Dooyeweerdian philosophy and generally leads to most aspects being surfaced. Trivial Ws To understand why some Ws are trivial we employ the notion of the facilitating aspects (inter-aspect dependency). For a system to function well in a given aspect requires that it also functions well in earlier aspects (e.g., full social interaction requires lingual functioning). These earlier aspects also provide ways in which things can be meaningful, so we could view the situation therefrom, but to do so would provide only limited meaning. To say that T is ‘feasible’ does just this, viewing the situation from the formative aspect of shaping things to enable T in the service of a more important aspect, or from the social aspect if it refers to cultural feasibility. This implies that trivial Ws are not totally unmeaningful but rather that, when an aspect is merely to facilitate another, the analyst should be pointed towards the aspect it facilitates. By thus recognizing facilitating aspects, a Dooyeweerdian approach not only accounts for trivial Ws, but also tells us how to identify them when they arise, and thus motivates the analyst to seek more important aspects. It will be noticed that nothing we have said so far has differentiated between ‘below the line’ and ‘above the line’, nor between W3, W2, W1. While W3 (societal W) is covered by portions of Dooyeweerd’s theory of Weltanschauungen that are not discussed here, W2 (above the line) and W1 (below the line, abstracted) may both be seen as centred on aspects. This makes it easy to employ W2 analysis as a foundation for W1 analysis, or vice versa, which overcomes the problem that it is not easy in practice to think of one without the other. Conflict Checkland (1981, p. 219) speaks of ‘the tenacity with which we hold on to Ws’ and tenacity in the extreme leads to conflict. In his discussion of Weltanschauungen, Dooyeweerd (1955, Vol. I, p. 121) spoke of absolutization of aspects, by which one aspect assumes such overriding importance Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. that others are ignored or even suppressed. When an aspect that a participant believes to be important is suppressed, conflict can ensue, especially when non-dominant views are marginalized. SSM can reveal the root of the conflict (in W), but not heal it. Dooyeweerdian thought suggests how we might heal as well as reveal. Ultimately, because aspects are irreducible in meaning to each other, there is no guarantee of mutual understanding between those who absolutize different aspects, because, to each, what the other says is meaningless or ‘radically misconceived’ (Spaul, 1997). If Dooyeweerd is right, then the only way to heal (as opposed to cover up) such conflicts is by the adversaries being willing to relax their absolutizations. Aspectual analysis, especially as carried out by MAKE (Winfield, 2000), provides a non-threatening way of helping participants to admit the importance of other aspects. In this process, Dooyeweerd’s ethical aspect is important in providing a norm of self-giving. (Dooyeweerd’s approach may have advantages over those proposed by the Critical camp. Jackson (1991a, pp. 169, 175–176) criticizes SSM for making W, in some sense, an absolute foundation, and suggests instead, following Habermas, that W depends on social structure. So conflicts can be resolved by changing social structures or power relations, or by engineering the debate process towards Habermasian ideal dialogue. Dooyeweerd agrees with the criticism—indeed that is the nub of his criticism of the Diltheyian notion (Dooyeweerd, 1955, Vol. I, p. 120) employed by Checkland. But he would also criticize the Critical camp’s tendency to make social structures or ideal dialogue an absolute foundation; only the Divine is absolute and nothing is a self-dependent ground for anything else. So an approach that relies solely on changing structures is unlikely to be successful in the end.)

T: Transformation as Multi-aspectual Human Functioning Not only are aspects ways in which things can be meaningful, but they are also distinct types of Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER ways in which entities, systems and especially humans can function—physically, analytically, communicatively, ethically, etc. Since T in a human activity system is carried out by people, we see T as human functioning in an aspect. For example, in Checkland and Scholes (1999) we find the following selection of Ts, for each of which the main difference made by the transformation is meaningful in a given aspect: *

*

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p. 65 ‘Need for supported wealth generation—T ! Need met via a structure of main operations and enabling support’—formative aspect (supporting, structuring, enabling, operating) p. 68 ‘user—T ! user helped by information provision’—lingual aspect (informing) p. 70 ‘users and ‘‘key’’ users—T ! users and users identified . . . ’—analytic aspect (identifying) p. 245 ‘relationships—T ! managed relationship . . . ’—economic aspect (managing) p. 250 ‘Need for trained, experienced people—T ! Need met’—formative aspect (training and experiencing)

This view of T helps overcome the ‘most common error’ (Checkland, 1999, p. A22) of confusing what gets transformed with the resources used since there is no suggestion of input and output, but rather of meaningful human functioning to transform a situation— and this can be signified by a central verb in the way Wilson (2001) suggests, related to any aspect that is deemed important as suggested in the parentheses above. With such a view we can sometimes see T as ‘interaction’ and not necessarily goal-directed, as recommended by Mathiassen and Nielsen (2000) especially for maintenance processes: goal-directed activity has the formative as its founding aspect; other activity does not. The Multi-aspectual Nature of T Since all human activity exhibits every aspect, T will always be multi-aspectual. For example, if we are the team that transforms ferries from unsafe to safe (see earlier), we might function not only in the physical aspect of metal-working, but also in the analytic aspect to decide what detailed Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER changes to make, the formative aspect to design the new safety features, the lingual aspect to communicate these decisions throughout the team, the social aspect to ensure the team coheres as a group, the economic aspect as we manage the limited resources (of time, materials, etc.) available, the juridical aspect as we take national and international law into account, the ethical aspect of self-giving when we do, or refuse to do, more than is strictly required, and the pistic aspect as we see ourselves as engaged on a mission to save future lives. Some hint of this multi-aspectuality can be found in some T statements in Checkland and Scholes. In the first instance above, for example, we find not only the formative aspect but also the economic activity of wealth explicitly mentioned. If we were to consider the T in more detail we would find other aspects; Checkland and Scholes say that the participants identified 26 ‘problem themes’ related to it—though they do not tell us what they were—and were unwilling to place them in order of importance, implying all were seen as important. Recognizing the multiple aspects of T, and seeking to identify those which are important, gives the participants a rich view of T, immediately overcoming the problem of the narrow technical approach mentioned by BergvallKa˚reborn and Grahn (1996) and of T often feeling ‘empty’. The quality of analysis will be enhanced to the extent that all relevant aspects are considered. Winfield’s MAKE (2000) is good at highlighting the importance of oft-overlooked aspects. This can generate new insights and thus reduce the tendency towards conventional proposals. But complexity and aimlessness can be a danger of a multi-aspectual analysis of T. This may be overcome by focusing on the qualifying or leading aspect of T in order to find the aspect that characterizes T as such (Bergvall-Ka˚reborn, 2001), while all the time being sensitive to all other aspects.

E: Given Constraints and Enablers Dooyeweerd did not much use the word ‘system’. But, in saying Copyright
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Syst. Res. In veritable naı¨ve experience things are not experienced as completely separate entities (Dooyeweerd, 1955, Vol. III, p. 54) he shows an affinity with a fundamental tenet of systems thinking, namely that the environment is always important to understanding the system. Dooyeweerd’s understanding of this is, however, somewhat different from that of most systems thinking, being reminiscent of Heidegger’s notion of ‘there-being’. But there are two more fundamental differences: a proposal of two radically different Es, and a proposal of multiaspectual Es. Aspectual E Dooyeweerd held that created reality as a whole has two ‘sides’: entity side and law side. So a system (entity) may be said to have two, not one, environments: *

*

The entity-side environment comprises all the entities outside the system together with their activity and how this impinges in concrete terms on the system. It comprises all actual entities, relationships, events, concrete regulations and so on. The law-side environment is the law framework that enables the system to exist, function and be meaningful. It comprises the laws of all the aspects.

The traditional notion of E as constituted of entities outside the boundary of the system speaks of the entity-side environment, and this can account for a number of the problems that arise with E. The entity side is concrete actuality. If we make this the basis of what we take as given, then it is all too easy to treat the status quo as given, and difficult to consider new possibilities. It also means that a changed E is a different E, making it difficult to analyse a changing environment. When thinking ‘below the line’ (abstracting) we want to consider that which is general rather than specific, which implies that it is usually better to focus on the law-side E, that is, the aspects. Indeed, the definition of E in CATWOE is cast in terms of the constraints imposed on T rather than the entities or events themselves. Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. Constraints from both sides arise because of the aspects, entity-side constraints from the aspectual functioning of entities in E and law-side constraints directly from the aspectual norms that pertain for the system. Either way, it is useful to focus on aspects of E. Multiple Es If this is so, then there will be distinct types of constraints that should not be reduced to each other or overlooked. For example, on the entity side, physical constraints involve those entities that are physically near the (physical manifestation of the) system, and juridical constraints involve such entities as local regulations, while on the law side physical constraints mean taking physical laws into account and juridical constraints means, for example, ensuring the T does not generate injustices whether local, national or international law allows them or not. Either way, it is not only useful but advisable to identify all the relevant aspects of E. This diversity of types of constraint can be identified by means of an aspectual analysis, which, as noted above, helps the analyst identify those aspects—and hence types of constraint— that are frequently overlooked. Recognizing this can free us from focusing too narrowly on financial, technical or organizational constraints. By considering the aspects, we are considering what is in some degree universal, pertaining across all situations and in all contexts, and this can help us differentiate constraints to which we should accommodate the system from constraints that should be changed. In particular, as Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al. (2004) have suggested, the determinative aspects provide constraints that often cannot be changed, while constraints that arise from normative aspects may often be changed. We are also in a position to deal with a changing environment because changes are of the entity side (events, things, etc.) rather than the law side, and we thus have grounds for differentiating constraints that change (those imposed from the entity side) from those that remain despite a changing situation (those that pertain from the law side). Since, to Dooyeweerd, law is enabling and not just constraining, in the non-determinative Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER aspects it is aspectual law-promise itself that not only allows but enables freedom. This can be helpful in SSM, in extending the notion of E beyond that which constrains T to that which enables T. So, for example, ‘E: Corporate business objectives’ (Checkland and Holwell, 1998, p. 160) might be seen as an opportunity to enable fresh Ts as well as constrain. Seeing E as enabling as well as constraining can stimulate creative thought about new possibilities. The System Boundary and Dooyeweerd’s Entity Theory An attractive possibility of a Dooyeweerdian approach is that, if we think in terms of system boundary, we can distinguish a different boundary for each aspect. For example, the physical boundary around a system might be different from the biotic boundary, psychological boundary, economic boundary or legal boundary, which, respectively, give us for example loadbearing ground, air pollution, the feelings of staff and local community, the sources of raw materials, and relevant national and international legislation. This can explain why confusion occasionally occurs about where to draw the boundary. However, the system boundary that is so important in systems theory was of little interest as such to Dooyeweerd. This is because the existence of a thing (system) is not constituted in its component parts and emergent properties but in the aspects themselves; a poem, for example, does not exist as a poem by virtue of ‘emerging’ from its component words, but it exists by virtue of the poet functioning in the aesthetic and lingual aspects. Likewise a human activity system would ‘exist’ by virtue of the functioning in various aspects that happen to be important for it (qualifying, founding, etc.). In such an approach the boundary is almost a non-issue, and need not be considered. Instead, the aspects that constitute the existence of the system permeate the system (rather like Foucault believed power does), so distinguishing ‘inside’ from ‘outside’ makes little sense. This makes sense of E constraints on T that appear to come from ‘inside’ the system—as Wilson (2001) suggests the requirement is, in Checkland’s Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER fence-painting system, that painting shall be done by hand (formative aspect). Whereas systems theory assumes that any system may be seen as part of a yet wider system (Checkland, 1999, p. A23), Dooyeweerd contested this assumption. He believed that meaningful entities are wholes in their own right and cannot be part of any other wider whole. While he acknowledged the salience of the part–whole relation in the case of, for example, a lung and its body, he believed that what we often loosely deem a part–whole relation is in fact a whole– whole relation, which may be of various types. A particularly interesting class of relations that Dooyeweerd explored was what he called enkaptic relations, in which two or more wholes are ‘encapsulated’ together. He identified a number of types of enkapsis, including foundational enkapsis (the relationship between Praxiteles’ sculpture of Hermes and the marble from which it is carved), subject–object enkapsis (hermit crab and its shell), correlative enkapsis (tree and forest) and territorial enkapsis (city and its football team). A more complete discussion can be found in Kalsbeek (1975). The relationship between a system and its environment is often that of correlative enkapsis, though it can be of other types. Recognizing these different types of relation can be very useful in removing confusion about the relationship of a system to E. For example, the transformation ‘Ordinary city

T ! World class city0 might be constrained by the city’s orchestra, university or football team. Recognizing that the relationship here is that of territorial enkapsis (Kalsbeek, 1975) can extricate the analysis from confusions and paradoxes that might otherwise arise. C: Repercussions The two philosophical roles we have employed to consider T and E—aspectual functioning and aspectual law—can help us both underpin and enrich the notion of Customer, C. When human Copyright
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Syst. Res. beings function in any aspect they respond to the laws of the aspect but, because aspectual law involves promise, there are always repercussions of this functioning, and they will impinge on various entities. The transformation, T, therefore, has repercussions that are meaningful from within each aspect and these impinge on ‘the beneficiary or victim of the system’s activity’ (Checkland, 1981), which are the customers, C. Since CATWOE analysis is ‘below the line’ it is often preferable to consider the more general law side than the more concrete entity side, and thus to consider aspectual repercussions rather than the concrete beneficiaries and victims on which the repercussions impinge. Considering aspectual repercussions enables us to consider new possibilities for C rather than being overly constrained by the obvious. What repercussions occur as a result of our functioning is not determined by any form of causality (except in the physical aspect). There is latitude of response and repercussion—which is how Dooyeweerd would account for the freedom we experience and the difficulties in predicting the impacts of our activity. We may even go against the law-promises of a normative aspect, but to do so usually results in repercussions that are harmful either to ourselves or to others. Therefore, for any T there are repercussions, whether beneficial or detrimental—and this is how we can understand victims as well as beneficiaries. Aspectual analysis can move us away from considering only benefits and forgetting victims. Since human activity in enacting T is multiaspectual, there may be a host of different types of repercussion from the single transformation—for example, in the case of ‘make ferries safer’, a wider ferry might no longer use certain harbours (physical repercussion); if passengers embark in groups of four, families may be split (social), new laws might be enacted (juridical), and so on. This means that an analysis of repercussions likely in every aspect of T can help identify a wider range of customers and ways in which they might be affected as victims or beneficiaries, and so help the analyst avoid ignoring important Cs. It can even recognize the Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. impacts on animals, plants and physical entities as well as on people. Analysis of repercussions ‘at several removes’ (Checkland, 1981, p. 48) is made more practical since the aspects provide a framework for distinguishing the different types and degrees of indirect impact. Full repercussions in any post-social aspect usually occur via social activity. Consideration of some long-term repercussions is facilitated by considering later aspects, which can have repercussion time-scales of decades or more. For example, the abolition of slavery in the UK involved lengthy juridical activity in Parliament and the gradual change in attitude of entire populations over many decades; this is of the pistic and ethical aspects. To Dooyeweerd the aspects contain an intrinsic normativity that pertains whatever perspective the stakeholders take. While many in the SSM community might not wish to avail themselves of this, preferring instead to retain a subjectivist stance, it can often provide very helpful guidance in practical situations concerning which possibilities to explore. It also allows SSM to answer those who castigate its lack of normative foundation.

O: Ownership and responsibility The Owner, O, has a ‘prime concern for the system’, but what constitutes ownership is not clear, despite Checkland’s various attempts to clarify this. Omitting the element from CATWOE is not an option because it has been found that doing so impoverishes the root definition (Checkland, 1981, p. 224). Repercussions of T will occur, as just discussed. Do we just acknowledge this, or should responsibility be borne for them? A theme that pervades Dooyeweerd’s thinking is that of human responsibility, and Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al. (2004) have found this useful in understanding ownership, defining O as the person (or group) who bears overall responsibility for T. The main responsibility the Owner has is purely juridical, namely to ensure all customers receive what is their due—which means (from the discussion of customer above) that O has Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER responsibility for all the repercussions T might have, both positive and negative, both long and short term. This, of course, is now a recognized principle in many legal systems. But diverse other types of responsibility arise from the relationships that the juridical aspect makes with other aspects—for providing resources to implement T (economic aspect), for ensuring all actors work properly together in achieving T (social and aesthetic aspects), and so on. This widens the notion of O as being not only that which has formal power to stop T, but also that which can enable T and also has the right and duty to guide T towards a beneficial outcome. But Checkland’s notion of stopping T contains an important insight that should not be lost. What is becoming known in the Dooyeweerdian community as the shalom principle says that for a system to operate well its functioning must be in line with the law-promises of every aspect, and that functioning that goes against even one aspect can (in principle) jeopardize the whole. This can lead us to consider multiple responsibilities and thus perhaps multiple Os. In the case of the restaurant, the chef is responsible for the aesthetic aspect of the cuisine, the biotic aspect of safety of the food and its value as sustenance, and the sensitive aspect of giving customers a good feeling, while the legal owner is responsible for ensuring supply of locational and human resources (economic aspect) and legal matters (juridical aspect). If functioning in any of these aspects is deficient then the whole enterprise may be seriously jeopardized. Recognizing the multiple aspectual types of responsibility helps to identify a wide range of possible Os, whether vested in one or more persons. But on what basis may we differentiate the owner(s) on the one hand from either the actors (A) who have some responsibilities for T and the rat or terrorist whose activities can bring the system’s activity to a halt? The answer is, in the main, to make use of the characteristic of interaspect dependency, differentiating the important aspects of T from those on which they depend. Functioning in later aspects depends on good functioning in earlier aspects, including, in most Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER cases, the physical. If this is interrupted then much of the functioning in later aspects is disturbed, and possibly terminated. Having identified the aspectual diversity of such responsibility, then we are in a position to consider their coherence. Responsibility is a juridical notion and it is customary to bring all responsibilities together into one overall responsibility—one that ‘has a prime concern for the system’. This we can define as the Owner of traditional CATWOE. Thus we have in Owner a concept of diverse but integrated responsibilities that can be uncovered by aspectual analysis. It moves us decidedly away from the Western liberal connotation of O as chief beneficiary, and gives us grounds for considering ‘owner’ of public bodies where, though there might be no single private owner, responsibilities remain and can be meaningfully discussed. Such a notion of O should make it possible to move away from a reliance on rules of thumb and exceptions to those rules, to a more explicit formulation that underpins the distinction between Customer (stakeholder) and Owner, between those who are beneficiaries and those with responsibility. Checkland’s question (1999, p. A24–25) of whether O is part of the wider system is seen to be a pseudo-question under a Dooyeweerdian scheme. O is not ‘part of’ any system, but rather speaks of a juridical aspect of ‘what is due’ in the system, of responsibility along with the right or power to exercise that responsibility. As we saw earlier, Dooyeweerd’s view is that the aspects pervade the system and are neither inside nor outside it. Nevertheless, it is valid to ask what relationship the entity that we call the Owner has with the system. In suggesting that O is part of the wider system, Checkland (1999, p. A23) is showing that he recognizes that O sits uncomfortably as part of the system itself, but, as we argued earlier, his suggestion generates its own problems. However, if we adopt the Dooyeweerdian idea of enkaptic relationships between two wholes we are no longer restricted to trying to explain everything in terms of the part–whole relation. It would seem that the O-system relationship is just one such type of enkapsis. Copyright
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Syst. Res. A: Actors and competencies Though the notion of Actor, A, exhibits few problems, a Dooyeweerdian view might underpin the enriched view of A suggested by Bergvall-Ka˚reborn et al. (2004). The definition of A as ‘agents who carry out, or cause to be carried out, the main activities of the system, especially its main transformation’ suggests that A is qualified by the formative aspect of achieving and shaping. On this basis, then, the formative aspect of achieving and shaping. On this basis, then, it would point the analyst to competencies. A competence is a formative functioning that is directed towards one or more aspects; each aspect offers a distinct competence (for example, lingual, social, economic, legal). In particular, by identifying the system’s qualifying, leading and founding aspects, we can discuss what types of competencies will be required for the process of implementing T. When T is an ongoing process, the formative aspect takes on a different flavour, and the competencies required are those to do with sustaining as well as achieving. Overview of Dooyeweerdian Approach Thus we can see that Dooyeweerdian philosophy can enrich our understanding of the elements of CATWOE in ways commensurable with SSM. First, it provides a philosophical explanation of why each element of CATWOE is important. W is central because Meaning is primary. T, E and C are integral parts of human functioning seen as response to normative aspectual law-promises that have repercussions. O and A are qualified by two of the most important aspects of a transformation: the juridical aspect of responsibility and the formative aspect of cultural shaping and achieving. Second, it provides a richer understanding of each element (in the original order): *

* *

*

C no longer focuses on individuals but on diverse repercussions. A helps us consider varieties of competence. T is no longer input–output but multi-aspectual human functioning. W is not to be ‘as pure, as simple, as possible’ (Checkland and Davies, 1986), but is the Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res.

*

*

perspective(s) given by any aspect(s) chosen from the spectrum of Meaning. O is not power but multiple responsibilities that cohere. E is twin: not only ‘wider system’ but, more, aspectual law-promise that enables and guides in diverse ways.

Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2002, p. 45) claims that a Dooyeweerdian approach can overcome the tendency, especially of inexperienced analysts, to ‘plump for bureaucratic-type models’, and suggests that it enables the analyst to generate more defensible models. Our analysis of the diversity inherent in each element, and our suggestion that aspectual analysis focuses on meaning and can bring oft-overlooked aspects to light, support these claims and explain why. Mingers (1992) claims that CATWOE needs a theoretical underpinning; our proposal can provide one. Since this all occurs on the basis of a single philosophy, and most from the notion of modal aspects, the coherence of the underpinning is likely to be ensured. DISCUSSION Addressing the Problems We may summarize how the problems we identified earlier under each element can be ameliorated, if not overcome, as follows: C: Seeing Customer in terms of repercussions of T in many aspects clarifies its meaning, removing the misleading economic connotations and encouraging more equal consideration of victims as well as beneficiaries. It allows multiple Cs to be considered within a single analysis, especially stakeholders who are not represented, even animals or the environment. The degree to which customers are considered ‘at several removes’ can be controlled more easily. A: Relating A to the aspect of formative power helps us consider the variety of aspectual competencies that will be needed to carry out T. T: Seeing T as human functioning qualified by an aspect brings us close to centring it on an Copyright
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RESEARCH PAPER active verb, as Wilson (2001) recommends, and it becomes possible to analyse ongoing, maintenance transformations, as Mathiassen and Nielsen (2000) called for. Recognizing the multi-aspectual nature of T encourages us to devise rich, creative T statements and makes T less of a ‘black box’ (Jayaratna, 1994). The kernel meanings of aspects are sufficiently intuitive to be understood directly, so that the input–output and ‘need for’ formulations that have caused problems might no longer be needed. W: Aligning Weltanschauungen with aspects provides guidance on which Ws to consider, which is particularly useful for the apprentice and encourages consideration of a wide range of Ws. It is applicable to W1, W2 or W3 as needed, but it might no longer be so necessary to distinguish these. Taking account of interaspect dependency helps us recognize when Ws are trivial. Ensuring all aspects are considered helps to surface assumptions and can make us aware of perspectives that are under-represented. Considering several aspectual Ws in a single analysis, rather than separately, enables us to consider relationships between perspectives as well as the perspectives themselves. By sensing tendencies to absolutize an aspect we can reveal the roots of conflict before it develops, and perhaps heal it by inviting participants to draw back from absolutization. Finally, the inherent normativity of aspects provides a basis for critiquing rather than merely accepting Ws, thus answering one of Jackson’s (1991a) criticisms of SSM. O: A Dooyeweerdian focus on the juridical notion of responsibility for aspectual repercussions and authority over the aspectual functioning that is T naturally relates to responsibility and authority, as recommended by Bergvall-Kareborn et al. (2004). Since T is multiaspectual functioning, there is no difficulty with multiple Os. False Os like terrorists may be omitted from the analysis by differentiating the facilitating aspects from the main ones. E: Recognizing two Es (law-side and entityside) helps differentiate constraints that arise Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER from the intrinsic normativity of aspects from the effect of functioning of entities in the ‘wider system’. In either case, a focus on aspects can broaden the range of constraints we consider, lessen the likelihood of overlooking important ones and take us beyond expressing the status quo as a constraint. E seen as enabler as well as constraint in each aspect helps us think creatively about new possibilities afforded by it. By differentiating determinative (earlier) aspects from normative (later) aspects, it can be clearer whether the constraint is something that can be changed or must be accepted. A Dooyeweerdian notion of E is useful for internal as well as external constraints not only because the aspects permeate the system, but also because Dooyeweerd recognizes types of relation other than part—whole (viz. enkapsis). However, there is one problem we identified earlier that this approach might not overcome: because the aspects are themselves universal, the tendency to express E in very general terms might even be exacerbated. It may be, though, that the clear distinctions between the 15 aspects will in practice stimulate the analyst sufficiently to avoid this problem. By defining the elements in these ways, it is no longer so necessary to resort to ‘other systems thinking’ (Checkland, 1981) to overcome shortcomings in CATWOE. For example, by recognizing the aspectual nature of Ws and the dangers of absolutization, we can obtain the benefits that SAST and CST might bring without the problems inherent in employing them that were discussed earlier. However, ‘other systems thinking’ may still be incorporated if desired.

On the Practicality of a Dooyeweerdian CATWOE In the light of these benefits, we suggest that CATWOE and SSM may be taught, right from the start, in Dooyeweerdian terms with a focus on the issues mentioned above. Moving from novice (Mode 1) to apprentice to seasoned professional (Mode 2) involves internalizing Copyright
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Syst. Res. CATWOE. We have yet to subject this proposal to extensive testing, but we can report from our initial experience of using Dooyeweerd and CATWOE over several years, especially in Mode 2, along with reference also to that of others such as Bergvall-Ka˚reborn and Grahn (1996) and Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2001, 2002). Initial experience leads us to believe that a Dooyeweerdian way of thinking is easily learned and used, and that it would certainly not hinder the move to Mode 2 and might even accelerate it. First, Dooyeweerd claimed that the kernel meanings of the aspects are grasped by intuition rather than theoretical thought, and the findings of Winfield (2000) and Lombardi (2001) support our own findings that this is so. Once the aspects have been learned, which does not usually take long, even lay people find they can work well with them. The aspects seem so natural that Mode 2 use sets in very quickly. Second, the Dooyeweerdian understanding couches the elements in the common-sense meaning found in everyday life: W as meaning, T as functioning, E as constraints and enablers, C as repercussions, O as responsibility and A as facilitation. Once one has grasped the notion of aspects, remembering what the elements mean right in the immediacy of the analytic situation does not need rules and qualifiers (such as ‘O: can stop T—but only with formal power’) but only an intuitive grasp of the aspects. However, all this assumes it is practical for the novice to learn the aspects and the apprentice to use them effectively and efficiently. Fifteen aspects of each of six elements would seem rather daunting. However, in practice, this is not so. The number of possibilities can immediately be reduced because it is seldom meaningful to combine elements seen from different aspects. Either we can consider one aspect of the whole system—of all six elements together—in turn, or we can consider all aspects of a single element, for example all types of repercussion when considering C. It can also be useful to allow a dialectic between these two approaches. The qualifying and leading, and some subjective, aspects should be focused on in the first instance, then others as necessary. Winfield’s (2000) MAKE is good for doing this. Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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Syst. Res. Dooyeweerdian analysis may be undertaken both ‘above the line’, of the situation as it is encountered by the participants, as well as ‘below the line’, of imaginary or possible situations. The reason for this is that, to Dooyeweerd, actuality (above) and potentiality (below) are both equally real and meaningful because the aspectual framework supports and enables both. However, Dooyeweerd held that the result of our analytical separation of aspects does not constitute reality, but rather our analytical view of it. Over the longer term, we can expect to have to adapt CATWOE to new types of situation not currently envisaged. This understanding of CATWOE provides a philosophical foundation on which to build and allow such adaptation to be undertaken in a principled manner. Problems with Dooyeweerdian Philosophy As might be expected, Dooyeweerd’s thought is not without problems. It is too early to know what the real problems are, because it is yet to be applied widely and subjected to the critique that arises from such application. However, the reader might like to be aware of the following problems: *

*

*

Much of Dooyeweerd’s writings are in Dutch, and the English translations are few or poor. This means that there is a scarcity of Englishspeaking scholars who fully understand his thought. Dooyeweerd’s different starting point and presuppositions, from those made by most thinkers today, gives his ideas an unusual feel that some philosophically inclined thinkers find disturbing. For example, some dismiss his aspects because they mistakenly believe they are a branch of essentialism. But it seems that lay people find less difficulty, and especially with the aspects. Dooyeweerd had a strong Christian faith and saw his philosophy as commensurable with that faith and, sometimes, an outworking of it. This might cause a problem in these days and in any academic culture that wishes to distance itself from the Christian faith. Whether it is necessary for those who employ

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RESEARCH PAPER the portions of Dooyeweerdian philosophy that we have discussed here to have a Christian faith in order to use them is a matter for debate, but experience suggests otherwise: one of the authors of this paper has a Christian faith while the other does not.

CONCLUSION Dooyeweerd’s thought is like a jewel unearthed from a previous age, and Smith (1999) suggests that, though Dooyeweerd’s magnum opus was published in the 1950s, his thought was ahead of its time and possesses characteristics that make it particularly fruitful in today’s culture of thought. Its recognition of the importance of the lifeworld, its ability to account for diversity and coherence, its centring on meaning rather than existence, and its recognition of the central role of free, responsible human functioning mean that Dooyeweerd’s thought is commensurable with the spirit of SSM. Therefore it is not surprising to find that we have been able to offer a philosophical account of the elements of CATWOE that expands our understanding thereof in ways that are sensitive to their original meaning. Notice that we have not replaced CATWOE so much as enriched it, enabling it to address some of the more important problems. Those of the Critical camp would replace it altogether, and even Checkland’s (1999) PQR proposal tends to be seen as replacing CATWOE, but here CATWOE remains intact, in a form that can now face its critics without the need to employ external material such as ‘other systems thinking’ that might sit uncomfortably with it. We believe this version of CATWOE can enrich the analysis carried out by the professional and might also be easier for the apprentice to learn and assimilate, thus moving more quickly to full Mode 2, professional use. As mentioned earlier, our work parallels that of Bergvall-Ka˚reborn and others in applying Dooyeweerd’s thought to SSM. In BergvallKa˚reborn (2002), for example, we find a very readable account of some of Dooyeweerd’s thought and of how the notion of qualifying function or aspect may enrich SSM, giving more Syst. Res. 23, 61^87 (2006)

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RESEARCH PAPER copious examples than we have. The two approaches complement each other, each discussion containing material not found in the other. For example, Bergvall-Ka˚reborn (2002) discusses Dooyeweerd’s theory of entities in more detail than we have done here, the changes that occur in an entity or system, aspects as they are experienced, and the use of Dooyeweerd’s thought for design, while we have covered more of the roots of Dooyeweerd’s thought, the philosophical roles of aspects and how these relate to the elements of CATWOE, aspectual repercussions and responsibilities, and enkaptic relationships. We have also given some attention to the problems faced by the SSM apprentice as well as the seasoned professional. But in addition, the overall approaches differ. Her application to SSM is more descriptive and discursive while ours is more systematic. While she addresses three general problems in the model-building phase of SSM, we have addressed specific problems for each of the six elements of CATWOE, and we have tried to give an explicit account for what each element is and why it is important. The focus of her work is mainly on the notion of qualifying function as that which distinguishes one view of a system from another, whereas our focus is on coherence within the diversity of the many meanings that is the system. In this paper, we have made a suggestion that can be taken and tested. From initial experience, it seems promising both from a philosophical and practical point of view. It may be that other strands of philosophy can also provide valuable enrichment of CATWOE but we do not discuss that possibility here, nor do we attempt to argue that Dooyeweerdian philosophy as a whole is superior to others. Rather, we invite the reader to see our proposal as demonstrating how any philosophical enrichment of an accepted conceptual structure like CATWOE might be undertaken. But if the reader finds the Dooyeweerdian approach attractive, they might like to join us in subjecting it to widespread testing, critique and refinement, in order to set CATWOE on a foundation from which we can develop it in a future that will present new challenges. And the next step is to see if it is useful to extend this enrichment to the whole of SSM. Copyright
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Syst. Res. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to thank Birgitta BergvallKa˚reborn and Anita Mirijamdotter of the Technical University of Lulea˚, Sweden, for stimulating discussions and fruitful ideas, without whom this paper would not have happened.

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