Citation
Rudall, B.H. (2005), "Special issues dedicated to the life and work of Heinz von Foerster", Kybernetes, Vol. 34 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2005.06734aaa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Special issues dedicated to the life and work of Heinz von Foerster
Special issues dedicated to the life and work of Heinz von Foerster
The recent double issue: Developing second-order cybernetics (SOC), Kybernetes, Vol. 33 Nos 9/10, 2004, highlighted developments in SOC and discussed its future developments. This initiative was the forerunner of the issues that have been prepared to honour the late Professor Heinz von Foerster who is regarded as one of the leading and inspirational figures of modern cybernetics and systems and whose name is synonymous with SOC.
We are consequently very grateful to Dr Alexander Riegler of the Centrum Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, for accepting our invitation to be the guest editor of Part I of these “in memoriam” issues. This he has done after extensive consultations with those who knew Heinz von Foerster and with others who have developed his ideas. The result was that 21 authors were invited to contribute to Part I of our issues. The contributions were not only written to pay tribute to him but also to provide an interpretation and an analysis of his life's work. This has entailed extensive dialogue with authors and referees spanning the last two years.
It is, of course, impossible to produce a dedication that would do true justice to the power of von Foerster's intellectualism and to his prodigious contributions to cybernetics and systems. We do believe, however, that this “in memoriam” double issue will provide a worthy celebration of his work for those who knew him and also for those who will undoubtedly find encouragement and inspiration for their own life's endeavours.
Further issues compiled by Monika Broecker, who has been invited to be the guest editor of Part II of this sequence of tributes to Heinz von Foerster, will also be published in this Volume 34 of our journal. The succeeding issues will also contain all the regular sections and contributed papers. Special feature issues are also being prepared on a wide range of important topics which includes Biocybernetics and Sociocybernetics as well as selected mainstream papers based on the contributions made to the main cybernetics and systems conferences.
Brian H. RudallEditor-in-Chief