Truth Tables, True Distinctions. Paradoxes of the Source Code of Science

Steffen Roth ()
Additional contact information
Steffen Roth: Excelia Business School

Systemic Practice and Action Research, 2024, vol. 37, issue 3, No 2, 267 pages

Abstract: Abstract On the occasion of a growing popularity of paradox theory in management and organisation research, this article provides an introduction to the paradox of true distinctions, reports on its relevance to theory building, and presents a strategy to contain the paradox without resolving it. To this end, I draw on works by George Spencer Brown and Niklas Luhmann to contextualize theory within the paradox of observation in general and the paradox of scientific observation in particular. A special case of the paradox of scientific communication, paradox theory is then redefined as a scientific programme fascinated with the paradoxical nature of the basic operation of science. I conclude that further development work on the “source code” of science will provide “critical updates” on the opportunities and limits to metatheoretical extensions of theories of management, organisation, and society, including their digital transformation.

Keywords: Paradox theory; management and organisation research; Niklas Luhmann; Spencer Brown; digital transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11213-023-09640-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:syspar:v:37:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s11213-023-09640-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11213

DOI: 10.1007/s11213-023-09640-4

Access Statistics for this article

Systemic Practice and Action Research is currently edited by Robert Flood

More articles in Systemic Practice and Action Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().