Description
Book SynopsisCritical Heuristics of Social Planning has been recognised as the seminal work on critical systems thinking. Ulrich offers a new approach both to practical philosophy (which has until now remained rather unpractical) and to systems thinking (which has reduced the systems idea to a tool of merely instrumental, rather than practical, reason). Critical systems heuristics (CSH), as the approach is now generally called, provides planners, practitioners and policy makers with a conceptual tool for practising practical reason. It will enable them to identify and discuss systematically the value implications of policies, plans, problem definitions, or program evaluations. In addition, the book offers the most thorough-going introduction available today to the espistemological foundations of critical systems thinking, including a practicable model of cogent argumentation on disputed value implications of designs. A must for practitioners and scholars who are interested in a self-critical and pr
Table of ContentsCONTEMPORARY MODELS OF RATIONAL DISCOURSE.
Karl R. Popper's Critical Rationalism: Blind Criticism?
Jurgen Habermas' Critical Theory: Toward a TransformedTranscendental Approach.
FROM KANTIAN A PRIORI SCIENCE TO CRITICAL HEURISTICS.
Introduction to Kantian A Priori Science.
Kantian A Priori Science and the Systems Idea: TheCritically-Heuristic Turn.
Kantian A Priori Science and the Process of Unfolding: TheDialectical Turn.
APPLICATION.
Toward a "Purposeful Systems" Paradigm of Planning.
Project Cybersyn: The Chilean Experience with Cybernetics,1971-73.
Health Systems Planning: The Case of the 1976 Areawide HealthSystems Plan for Central Puget Sound.
Epilogue.
Bibliography.
Indexes.
