The collegue Dimitri reviews my book Sistemica, voices and paths within complexity

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BOOK PRESENTATION
by Dimitris Kioses
SYSTEMICA: Voci e percorsi nella complessita
Ed. Umberta Telfener & Casadio Luca.
Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2003, p. 600, € 45
SYSTEMICS: Voices and Paths within Complexity.
Ed. Umberta Telfener & Casadio Luca
Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2003, pages: 600.
Rigour without critical theory leads to bad theory while critical
thinking without rigour reduces to blind moralism.
Yanis Varoufakis (Foundations of Economics)
Ο υποµείνας εις τέλος ούτος σωθήσεται
(He who endures to the end shall be saved)
Mark ΙC΄13
If you belong to the peaceable home-proud persons of systemics, this
book is not for you.
If you consider that the systemic truth you have adopted touches upon,
almost, the essence of beings, then this book is not for you.
If you are looking for recipes like “what do we do with couples”, “What do
we do with adolescents”. “What do we do with addicted people” etc., this book

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is not for you. Anyway, there are legions of writers with great performance in
systemic cuisine (I won’t mention any names because I don’t want to upset
any peaceable, good-natured consciousness.
If you have built a little house (or even a little palace) and say to yourself
“I am very well here”, this book is not for you.
If, though, you come from Hydra island and you believe that it would be
interesting to find yourself inland (in Larissa), then this book could be an
Ariadne’s clue leading you to a Labyrinth where the only thing you wouldn’t
care about would be the exit out.
The book is a “lexicon, a glossary, a prime” (Telfener), for the writing of
which, with Heinz von Foester as an inspirer, “participated some 150 voices
which do not approach Systemics as a structured theory, but rather as an
attitude” (extract from the book’s back page), with both: theoretical
elaboration of concepts and suggestions for their usage in different contexts.
An effort was made for von Foerster’s wish to be satisfied, that is, to be
more than one approaches - if possible irreverent ones - to every concept.
Otherwise, it would have been a traditional dictionary, a monologue (following
Bakhtin’s notion), away from the Cybernetic perspective.
An example: Epistemology:
Epistemology is a political fact (von Foerster).
Epistemologies are neither true nor false (Scheflen).
The belief that one has no epistemology at all means that he/she has got
a bad epistemology (McCulloch).
For ontological reasons, the existence of a correct epistemology is not
possible (Maturana).
And then, a three page analysis by Telfener follows.

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The systemic scholar (the reader has no chance as far understanding is
concerned), will get in touch also with thinkers of various fields beyond
systemic psychotherapy.
Some examples:
Marcelo Cini: The “red” physicist (after detailed research, I tend to
conclude that the adjective “red” does not refer to his foot ball beliefs).
Gianni Vattimo: Philosopher.
Klaus Krippendorf: Cybernetics and not only that…
John Stuart Mill: Philosopher.
Diego Napolitani: Psychoanalyst.
Douglas Hofstadter: (Cognitive Sciences).
Gordon Pask: Cybernetics, Psychology.
Heinz-Otto Peitgen: Mathematician, specialist in fractals.
Fernando Flores: Minister of National Finance of Salvador Allende’s
Government.
Mario Ceruti: Philosopher and Politician. Introduced Complexity Theory
in Italy.
Some of the concepts that are elaborated (except those of systemic
psychotherapy):
Art, biosphere, chaotic attractor, disaster theory, culture, destiny –
pattern, emergence, weal thought, power, fractals, entropy of Kolmogorov-
Sinai …
The sixty page Introduction by Umberta Telfener, could stand by itself as
a quite dense book.

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An attractive, at some points “dark”, (but this is not necessarily a bad
thing - Heraclitus was “dark”, too!) book bringing out the beauty of Systems
Theory and Complexity. A book appropriate for training… of the trainers (at
least of those considering that they might have some theoretical gaps).
I believe that this book could be what it never has been: an international
book of reference. For reasons incomprehensible to me, it did not have the
chance to be published in English. Am I out of time and place to hope for a
Greek edition? (I gather, yes).
-Forgive me Gregory for my sin! This work could stand side by
side with Bateson’s works!
-Dear reader, I have warned you, I am not guilty of sin. If you read
this book, it will be your own responsibility…