Syst Pract Act Res (2008) 21:1–14

DOI 10.1007/s11213-007-9079-z

ORIGINAL PAPER

Multimodal Systemic Metamethodology: An Application

to Edgar Morin’s Doctrine

Francisco Casiello

Published online: 11 October 2007

Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Abstract This paper intends to show how multimodal system methodology can be
interpreted as a metamethodology that can house different specific methodologies to be
used in action-research.

Keywords Multimodal doctrine
Domain
Modality

Determining and normative relationships
Edgar Morin’s thought

Introduction

In March and April 2002, I offered a course on Multimodal Systemic Methodology

(MMSM) in the School of Agronomy of the National University of Rosario, Argentina.
Most of the participants were university professors teaching and carrying out research on
many different disciplines. From the discussions that led to a MMSM formulation of the
problem under consideration, it became clear that the adoption of particular doctrines1 on
each modality was a possibility that MMSM allowed.2 At the same time a research group
that was dealing with regional development contacted me regarding the use of MMSM.
They were planning to evaluate the role that a ‘‘technological pole’’3 sponsored by the
University could play in local development. They intended to use Edgar Morin’s com-
plexity thought to assess the impact of the techno pole. Both events led me to think about

1
By ‘‘doctrine’’ we mean a closed system of ideas, such as a philosophical system, whereas by ‘‘theory’’ we
mean an open system of ideas, such as scientific theory, that can always be expanded and changed.
2
The problem under consideration was the viability of a community of producers of fruits and vegetables,
located nearby the city of Rosario, Argentina. A report on that experience is currently being prepared.
3
By ‘‘Technological pole’’ we mean a collection of technology industries and university related institutions
placed on a common location. The main objective of it is to near up university and industry to encourage the
development of advanced technological solutions to industrial problems and to generate new jobs for
university graduates. This designation is very usual in Latin America.

F. Casiello (&)
School of Economics, Catholic University of Argentina, E. Zeballos 668, Rosario, Argentina
e-mail: facasiello@yahoo.com.ar; facasiello@gmail.com

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MMSM as a metamethodology that would be able to house several different doctrines,

Morin’s one among them. The present publication summarizes some ideas regarding how
this can be done.
To explain these ideas in more detail, I will use the expression ‘‘multimodal systemic
metamethodology’’ to designate a method that arises when the form is separated from the
matter of the multimodal systemic doctrine. The general form consists in the modal scale
used as a resource to understand reality. The matter is the specific theoretical or doctrinal
contents of each modality. By separating form and matter, the same form can be linked to
different doctrinal matters, so that many doctrines can be viewed and understood from a
MMS approach. Since MMSM provides specific guidelines for action-research, it can
facilitate the application of particular doctrines to a given practical situation.

Multimodal Systemic Methodology

Multimodal systemic methodology was developed by de Raadt (2000) as a method for

dealing with large, complex, multiple-stakeholders problems. It is based upon the original
ideas of Dooyeweerd (1997). In Redesign and Management of Communities in Crisis
(2000) de Raadt presents the multimodal framework divided into four domains: character,
community, intellect and nature, which, subdivided, total 18 modalities, thus setting up the
basis of a method for helping understand complex situations and design operations at
different levels of a modal scale to seek out viability, a notion of community survival
heavily influenced by control theory concepts. The character, community and intellect
domains will be grouped in this paper under the field or domain of freedom, for it is within
this field where free will is exercised. It will be referred to, alternatively, as the domain of
the spirit.
In A Method and Software for Designing Viable Social Systems (2001) de Raadt shows
how to use a software package called SM3 to organize information into items and factors to
allow a more efficient processing of information. In Ethics and Sustainable Community
Design (2002) Veronica de Raadt applies MMSM to propose solution alternatives to the
situation of the Rosvik community. Later V. and J. de Raadt (2004) apply MMSM to
design operations for the community of St. Jean, consolidating the methodology as a
framework to design strategies leading to community viability.
Within this framework, modalities represent ways of being and are related to ways of
knowing. By way of being we mean conceiving entities in terms of different peculiarities,
all of which are expressions of the same being. By way of knowing we mean understanding
beings according to the way in which each particular science has opened them to
knowledge. Ways of being are interdependent or correlated with ways of knowing. This
means, for example, that to establish the consequences of a person’s fall from a given
height onto the floor, some of the considerations will have to do with this person’s way of
being as a mass of a certain density subjected to gravitation laws; but if the fall is suspected
to be intentional, the free will of the person to commit such an act will have to be taken into
account. In the first case, the person is viewed from the physical modality, in the second,
from the ethical, psychological and juridical dimensions. Note that the way of being, as it
has been said, is correlatively bound to the knowledge available from the sciences of
nature, ethics, psychology or the laws that rule the social coexistence.
Determining and normative relationships are central notions of the doctrine. Consider,
for example, a situation where the development of a community might be linked to the
availability of water that would allow the make it possible to cultivate a certain crop. Water

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availability (a factor lying on the physical modality) will then play a determinative role on
a factor of the biotic modality. On the other hand the biomass can alter the physical
characteristics of the soil, so that the biotic world can overdetermine the physical one.
When modalities belong to the domain of freedom, the word mormative is frequently used
to indicate that a particular modality affects another one. The notion of a hierarchy is also
central to this doctrine: the last three modalities: physical, biotic and freedom could be
arranged in a hierarchy where the physical modality is located at the bottom, the biotic
modality on the middle plane, and the freedom modality on the top one (Casiello 2004).

Multimodal Systemic Methodology as a Metamethodology

Even though MMSM is a well-established methodology, it has been developed allowing

some flexibility which can be exploited to think of it as metamethodology. By this we
mean a methodology that embraces several specific methodologies: a methodological field.
The first flexibility is that, while maintaining the modal form, the selection and order of
modalities can still be chosen. The second flexibility is that within the modal arrangement,
it is possible to select a particular doctrine or theory for each specific modality, that is, to
choose a particular doctrinal matter.
Many doctrinal matters will be able to fit a multimodal framework. But, in order to be
considered a multimodal doctrine, such doctrine should hold the following basic principles:
1) reality can be thought of as being expressed in several modalities or concurrent ways of
being, 2) the arrangement is hierarchical, so that the different modes are ordered from
bottom to top, 3) relationship between modalities can be thought of in such a way that
lower modalities have a determinative character on upper ones, and these latter a normative
relation over the former.
In what follows it is shown how the flexibility of multimodal methodology can be
exploited to fit particular doctrines or theories into a multimodal framework, by making
use of the flexibility mentioned before.

Selection of Number, Type and Order of Modalities

The first flexibility for a multimodal doctrine is the selection of number, type and order of
modalities. While this selection cannot be done with total independence from the second
flexibility (selection of particular doctrine for each modality), we illustrate in what follows
some criteria for selecting the number, type and order. Comments regarding how to select a
specific doctrine for the modalities will also follow.

Selection of Modalities’ Order

The order of the modalities is bound to the specific multimodality doctrine that is selected.
For example: there are some differences between Dooyeweerd (1997) and de Raadt (2000)
doctrines: not only does Dooyeweerd consider fifteen modalities while de Raadt considers
18, but Dooyeweerd’s hierarchy places the juridical modality next below the ethical one,
while de Raadt places the aesthetical modality next below the ethical, and the juridical next
below the aesthetical, among other differences. Once the doctrine is fixed, so is the
modalities order.

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Take, for example, the classic notion of ‘‘sustainable development’’, which some
schools of thought consider and ‘‘interplay’’ between ecology, economy and equity. From a
multimodal point of view, all three of them can be taken as factors (de Raadt 2000) that lie
on three different modalities: the biotic, the economic and the ethical modalities. The biotic
modality will determine the economic and ethical modalities. On the other hand, the ethical
modality on which the equity factor rests, will be the normative modality for both the
economic and biotic ones because it is the modality where freedom can be exercised the
most. In this way, the order of modalities chosen will be, in a hierarchical arrangement
from higher to lower modalities: ethical, economic and biotic.
This shows how the modality arrangement can be chosen in an elementary situation.
While more modalities should be taken into consideration for a more effective problem
description, the above illustrates how a particular line of thought: the classic sustainable
development theory, can be fitted into a multimodal hierarchy and gives clues to the
selection of the order of the modalities.

Selection of Number and Type of Modalities

If a particular multimodal doctrine is adopted (e.g. de Raadt’s or Dooyeweerd’s), then the

modality hierarchical arrangement is given. However the selection of the number of
modalities will still depend upon several factors. If one is interested in using the meth-
odology within the context of action research, the number of modalities will depend upon
those issues that are relevant to the understanding of the problem under consideration. De
Raadt (2001), for instance, bases this selection on an analysis of the informative discourse
of stakeholders, identifying items o pieces of discourse that relate factors. They are con-
stitutive parts of judgments of the ‘‘A produces B’’ form, so that the subject A and the
object B of the predicate can be located in one or more modalities. For example, an
informative expression could be: ‘‘Dry soil type produces low soybean yield’’. This
informative expression obtained from a stakeholder is considered an item, for it has the
form of a judgment linking two factors: the predicate object ‘‘low soybean yield’’ and the
subject ‘‘dry soil type’’. The first one is a biotic factor that lies on the homonymous
modality, and the other one is a factor that rests on the physical modality, both in the
domain of nature. If two or more factors lie within the same modality, the connection
among them can be dealt with by the particular science that corresponds to that modality.
From the analysis of judgments on the entire informative field coming from the stake-
holders, the number and type of intervening modalities can be established. The total
number of modalities needed for the understanding of the problem will be linked to the
number of modalities in which informative judgment’s subjects and predicate objects lie
(Casiello 2005). This shows that, within a doctrine and a particular problem under con-
sideration, certain modalities can be active while others remain inactive, depending on
whether there is at least one factor lying on a modality or not. If there are no factors lying
on a modality, then the modality is inactive and there is no need to take it into consid-
eration in the problem. More details can be found in de Raadt (2001).

Selection of Particular Conceptions for Each Modality

The second flexibility of a multimodal doctrine is the selection of a particular conception

for each modality, that is the specific way in which each aspect of reality is though of.

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Natural sciences can provide an illustrative example of this situation. Let’s say that a
particular theory is to be adopted for the physical modality. A selection could certainly be
made between a relativistic theory (i.e., according to the special theory of relativity), or
according to the Newtonian theory. The adoption of either one of the theories will be
related to the conditions of the particular problem under study: if it has to do with solar
radiation involving high velocity particles, a relativistic model should then be adopted, for
example. But if the problem requires only the description of forces in equilibrium, the
Newtonian model will be enough. This shows that even though the relativistic paradigm is
more general that the Newtonian one, so that it can be considered an improvement over the
latter, in most situations the Newtonian paradigm will be chosen anyway.
In fact multimodal thought is used more frequently to treat situations that require
modalities in the domain of freedom, where the election of a particular doctrine for each
science is much more relevant.
When a philosophical doctrine is chosen, then the modalities order and content are
heavily interlinked, and the selection of these two has to be done simultaneously.
In the next section, in order to provide a more detailed illustration of how MMSM can
be used as a metamethodology, I will try and show how Edgar Morin’s thought can be
expressed by using it.

Introduction to Edgar Morin’s Thought

Edgar Morin is nowadays widely recognized as the contemporary thinker of complexity.

His ideas are well known, for he has developed a concept of complexity somehow different
than the one arising from natural sciences, and as such he has departed partially from a
positivistic notion of complexity. The main goal of this paper is to show how the form of
MMSM and the matter of another doctrine can be combined, by using Morin’s doctrine as
an illustration.
It must be noticed that it is almost impossible to give an introduction to Edgar Morin
that would take into consideration the main points of his whole doctrine in a few brief
pages. Therefore, if the readers are not acquainted with Morin’s thought, we suggest the
reading of the following material: El Me´todo I: La naturaleza de la naturaleza (Morin
1981), El Me´todo II: Vida de la vida (Morin 1983), El Me´todo III: Conocimiento del
conocimiento (Morin 1988), El Me´todo IV: Las Ideas (Morin 1992), El cine o el hombre
imaginario (Morin 2001), Ciencia con conciencia (Morin 1984) and Sociologı´a (Morin
1999). An excellent introductory reading is the doctoral thesis of Soto Gonzáles (1999). As
a preliminary reading, Introducción al Pensamiento Complejo (Morin 2005) can also be
suggested.

Morin’s Notion of System

Morin defines provisionally a system as an interrelation of elements that constitute a global

unity. This is a fairly traditional definition that Morin extends to the one of a complex unity
where neither the whole can be reduced to the parts nor the parts to the whole; neither the
multiple to the one nor the one to the multiple, but all parts and counterparts, parts and
whole, unity and multiplicity, complement and antagonism, need to be thought of together.
Morin’s idea of a system is intimately related to the one of organization, so that interre-
lation, organization and system are reciprocal and circular concepts, different faces of one

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reality. A system is a concept that can be used to understand reality in its different
determinations: from the physical world, through the biotic one up to the field of freedom.
An important peculiarity in the Morin’s systems notion is the coexistence of systemic
equilibrium and lack of equilibrium states, a situation that allows for mobility and reor-
ganization of the system. Thus, in Morin’s systemics, an equilibrium state is not just a state
of no dynamics, but an apparent and emergent pole that hides a ‘‘lack of equilibrium’’ pole
that is a constitutive part of equilibrium. His notion of complexity, that involves concepts
such as the abovementioned one, is of qualitative, not quantitative nature.

Some of Morin’s Categories

Morin uses a collection of categories to make his doctrine explicit. Doctrines and theories
are presented by employing words with specific meaning within them: the categories of a
doctrine or theory. Among the categories used by Morin, those of genos and fenon can be
taken as important examples. They are two poles in tension between the generic and the
specific parts of each individual. This tension is characteristic of all of his interpretation of
reality. Genos is related to ‘‘origin’’ or ‘‘birth’’ and is associated with the genera to which a
species belongs: all generic attributes and determinations. Fenon, on the other hand, is
etymologically related to the word ‘‘phenomena’’ or ‘‘what appears’’, and refers to the
influence of environment. In this way, the antagonism genos-fenon means the opposition
between all that comes from genera, and as such comes along with the individual even
before birth, and the social or constructed, as a result of life experience.
Intellectual activity and consciousness will be, under this school of thought, emergent
properties.4 This shows the biological roots and, as such, the materialistic character of
Morin’s doctrine. However, he insists on the existence of an independent domain of
freedom within which human action must be designed. Morin’s doctrine says that is not
possible to deduce an ethic or a politics from natural sciences, but that those aspects of the
problem that can be explained by natural sciences should be taken into consideration when
a course of action is sought.
Because Systemic Multimodal Methodology offers the possibility of connecting
knowledge from different dimensions of social reality and to be able to keep an ethical
dimension while natural determinations are also taken into consideration, it is possible to
incorporate Morin’s thought within this framework, as it will be shown next.

Edgar Morin and Systemic Multimodal Methodology

In the following paragraphs, a description of a part of Morin’s though will be carried on.
The intention is to describe some of Morin’s ideas while simultaneously placing specific
categories used by him to interpret reality in the multimodal field. This is done in an
illustrative way and it is not intended to substitute either the familiarity with Morin’s
thought, or the need to use the original texts to treat a specific problem. It is just a
coordination task between Morin’s doctrine and the multimodal metadoctrine. This will be
accomplished by finding the number and type of modalities, by selecting the modality

4
The notion of emergence, from the systemic view point, is related to properties of the whole that, while
clearly expressed, cannot be deducted out of properties of parts. Correlatively, these former ones cannot be
deducted from the emergent ones.

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order and the specific concepts to apply in each modality or between modalities. The job is
possible because multimodal thought can be adapted to the notion of a global unity of
interacting elements, where the modal aspects are the elements used to interpret reality in a
way that is compatible with Morin’s thought, providing a multimodal way for the exegesis
of a complex reality.

Multimodal Arrangement within the Domain of Nature

This section deals with the problem of finding the number, type, order and content of
modalities within the domain of nature.

Regulative Modality

The regulative modality is chosen first because this modality determines the physical,
biotic and upper modalities, and characterizes many peculiarities of Morin’s thought. He
has remarked clearly his understanding of the world of nature in terms of complex
machines, that is, in terms of a regulative modality.
There are many peculiarities of the regulative modality. To represent self-organization
ability, for example, Morin uses the category of autos, a concept that includes the notions
of self-organization, self-reorganization, self-production and self-reproduction. To under-
stand Morin’s notion of organization, it is necessary to incorporate the categories of
constraint, subjugation, repression and fight between parts. All of them are present as faces
in any system in such a way that one face is emergent but only on the basis of hiding the
remaining faces. The formal treatment of these notions is the content of the regulative
modality.
Morin proposes a model for the living related to information theory, according to which
all living beings have, at least, a proto apparatus with main memory, a communications
center and instructions that make computing one of living beings characteristics. In some
cases, Beer’s viable systems doctrine (Beer 1989) could be appropriate to represent phe-
nomena in this modality, and can help to represent the above mentioned category.

Physical Modality

Morin also privileges the consideration of the physical world as it determines all upper
modalities,5 being the biotic one the first affected. Within the physical modality there are
not that many possibilities of doctrine selection, at least in comparison with the modalities
of freedom, within natural sciences, the current paradigms are, in general, ‘‘better’’6 than
any previous paradigm. As shown before, in some cases it is possible to decide for a
specific theory (Newton’s theory, relativity theory, quantum mechanics theory) depending
on the characteristics of the phenomena to be studied. In any case it should be kept in mind
that the dialectic of order and disorder, of organization, disorganization and reorganization

5
Within the physical modality fall physics, inorganic chemistry, mechanics, dynamics, and sciences as
such.
6
i.e., they have a greater ability to predict and explain phenomena of nature, something that is very hard to
do within social sciences.

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is already present in the physical world. When using Morin’s doctrine within this modality,
a clear emphasis on the study of cycles (water, carbon, etc.), and systems modeling
techniques, should be used. Physicochemical complexity theory, following Prigogine
(1999) ideas, should be taken into special consideration to describe phenomena in this
modality.

Biotic Modality

Within the biotic modality, Morin’s thought is heavily dominated by those systemic lines
of thought that use complex ecosystem’s dynamics.
The notion of a regulative activity of cycles, even the idea of an intelligence beyond a
nervous system that allows for a teleological behavior, has to be taken into consideration
within this modality. The concept of emergent property can be helpful here. The role of
genos and fenos, representing programmatic and environmental factors that affect living
beings, is of great importance within this modality.
Bios is the category that Morin uses to describe the biotic aspects of men, and is part of
this biotic modality. Because this modality is determined by the physical one, the dialectic
of order and disorder of the physical world is also part of this modality. In this way, the
framework to understand biotic phenomena is heavily influenced by the physical and
regulative modalities. Biocenosis, the interaction among living beings, is the way to rep-
resent vital interactions within this modality. According to the regulative modality, living
beings develop their lives facing constraints from the physical modality, something that is
well represented using multimodality. In biocenosis, relationships are not only comple-
mentary but also antagonistic, for example in cases involving fight among different species
and predatory relationships. Most of these notions are developed in El Me´todo II: La vida
de la vida (Morin 1983), where examples of species associations, symbiosis, biophagia and
so forth are shown, and they illustrate that the antagonistic and complementary relation-
ships are not only not excluded, but are mutually necessary.

Multimodal Arrangement within the Domain of Freedom

De Raadt has shown (2000, p. 48) that the specific contents of the sciences that deal with
each modality of the real depend on the epistemic, informatory, historical and credal
modalities, the four modalities that constitute the ‘‘intellectual domain’’. This can be
thought of as one reason for the existence of different theories for the sciences of nature
and many doctrines for the social sciences. Morin’s doctrine itself is a particular example.
Religious beliefs play also an important role in the social sciences, even tough this is
often not stressed enough. The psychological modality, within the domain of freedom, is a
good example of this: when selecting a multimodal approach, should the psyche be con-
sidered an spiritual emergent current of cerebral activity, or a part of a soul? Whereas
theories of natural sciences can be confronted on an experimental basis to decide in situ-
ations like this, so that one theory could be shown to prevail over the other if it can explain
certain phenomena that the other cannot, philosophical doctrines cannot be confronted in
the same fashion. That is why the creedal, along with the historical, informatory and
epistemic underpinnings, get all reflected on the doctrine adopted.

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Credal Modality

Credal is the name that de Raadt gives to the modality located on the boundary between
nature and freedom. Thus situated the credal modality determines all modalities of free-
dom. Dooyeweerd places a pistic modality on top of the modal scale that works
normatively over all modalities below. He also places a formative modality that deals with
the way in which history, culture, technology, goals and creativity are shaped in a place of
the hierarchy that is rather similar in location and concerns to de Raadt’s credal modality.
One main difference between de Raadt’s credal modality and Dooyeweerd’s formative one
is that aspects related to Faith are placed in the credal modality (de Raadt) or in the pistic
modality (Dooyeweerd). The question lies then on the consideration of the role of Faith:
does it have a determining or normative effect on all modalities of freedom?
We will follow Dooyeweerd’s approach here, based on our conviction that Faith
inspires all modalities. This will end up being compatible with Morin’s doctrine. We will
place Faith within the ethical modality, without incorporating Dooyeweerd’s pistic one on
the top of the hierarchy. Thus the credal modality will have to do only with the way in
which cultural determinations determine knowledge, language and paradigms that have
been built up for generations and by which certain aspects of realty are understood, along
with research methods and ways to verify knowledge. While these cultural determinations
open beings to knowledge, they also restrain certain things by means of rules, prohibitions,
taboos and so forth. Historical analysis is a way to search for knowledge’s genesis, to
understand the cultural determinations and appreciate those that are of value.
Relevant to this modality, Morin uses the category of logicials (Morin 1992): principles,
rules and instructions that control cognitive operations. Logicials are related to the
determinative aspects that condition the interpretation of the historical world and to the
selection and arrangement of information that is done irrationally or unconsciously, since
many of the restrictions that condition our interpretation of reality operate in a framework
that is neither rational nor conscious.
Morin also makes use of the category of noosphera (Morin 1992) as the kingdom of the
ideas, which is considered an emergent property of the biological world. Within the
noosphera, collective beliefs are capable of production, reproduction and selforganization.

Psychological Modality

Psyche is, to Morin, an spiritual emergent current of the cerebral activity that arises as the
result of the hipercomplex activity of human brain. Based upon a biologicist thought, he
understands brain not as a command center, but as a federation of regions, each of which
has its own autonomy. This hipercomplex system produces an emergent result which, to
Morin, is the psychical flow or current. However, he thinks that it is not possible to arrive
directly from the neurocerebral sphere into the field of psyche; that it is not possible to get
from neuronal anatomy and physiology and of the electric and chemical activity within
neurons and synaptic connections, into the field of the spirit.
Another category relevant to Morin’s thought is the one of word. It is a powerful
element that expresses the psychological movement, and the result of the tension between
mythos and logos, a conjunction of rational and irrational forces. Word is the result of a
correlation among the ability to remember, to project into the future and to express a
domination and participation will. Morin also treats as an asset the multiple-meaning

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character of natural language: its ability to alternate between the precise and the vague, the
concrete and the abstract.
Since MMSM uses sentences as data to conform factors and items, it is of great
importance to carry out a careful analysis of the psychological components of word that
unveils the correlated roles indicated above. We agree on all these ideas and add that we
think that psyche, must also take into consideration the human soul, for it is in its inter-
action where God’s inspiration takes place.

Informative Modality

Morin’s event is a central category of the informative modality. The event is what takes
place in any singular situation. It is the core where organization and reorganization take
place. Being the informative modality half way between the modalities of freedom and
nature, MMSM can adequately represent the holographic properties that Morin attaches to
the event. Because of these properties, it carries all the anthropologic, social and historic
background of society. Understanding an event requires to understand social activity not
only as a system in equilibrium, but also as a system where the irrational and the historical
are inseparable parts of it. This can be considered as a multimodal understanding of the
event, so that MMSM can be of much help to treat Morin’s ideas in the informative
modality.
In his methodological writings Morin (1999) stresses the importance of avoiding cap-
turing reality as a system in equilibrium. MMSM is also a very helpful in representing
unstable equilibrium states. Regarding details about compiling information, Morin’s
methodological proposals can be followed, because they adapt gracefully to MMSM.

Epistemic Modality

It is within the epistemic modality where knowledge comes about. Issues treated on El
Me´todo IV regarding the ideas are of great importance to this modality. The ideas are, to
Morin, objective entities, with reality and autonomy. They are part of the nous sphere7 or
nouspheric dimension. Morin considers that the ideas have a systemic arrangement with a
core of axioms, postulates and organizational principles, what he calls a constellation of
concepts. These systemic arrays can be either theories or doctrines. Both of them play a
very important role in this modality.
Higher capacities of human spirit, such as intelligence, thought and consciousness are
studied in El Me´todo III. These capacities are to Morin, emergent properties resulting from
countless brain interactions. Intelligence, to Morin, is not a patrimony of human kind,
while thought and consciousness are. This is so because Morin’s interpretation of intelli-
gence is closely related to its capacity to solve problems in a mechanical or systematic
way, so that it can be both implemented artificially and exhibited by other life forms. With
regard to thought, it has the ability of self generation: to produce thoughts about thoughts,
and this production is made within the dialectics of myth and logos. Myth, to Morin, has not
been left apart in contemporary world, and its consideration plays an important role in
understanding any real situation, along with rational considerations.

7
From Greek: nous: mind, intellect.

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The notion of understanding is important in this modality. Morin divides this notion
into three levels: within a theory; construction of a new theory and conception of a
conception, which allows showing the organizing principles of a theory (level of this
present article). Morin also thinks of understanding (Verstehen) as the preferred method
for sociology, leaving aside explicative and deterministic models, which have been
superseded, he states rightly, even by physics. Morin’s sociology deals with singular
events, taking them into consideration as holographic representations of the whole and
remembering that any single event must be interpreted as connected and opened to totality.
Although developing details of understanding (Verstehen) as a sociological method is
beyond the scope of this paper, it can be said that MMSM adjusts very well to sociologic
understanding.
In his methodological writings Morin (1999) remarks the relevance of the observation
and interview processes, and of activities within action-groups. By means of his way of
seeing reality in polar tension, he acknowledges the importance of the opposition between
the conceptual system and the phenomena, that is, he tries to avoid a polar decision
between the empirical practices, on one side, and the conceptual and theoretical ones on
the other side, for both are needed. This should be taken into consideration within this
modality.

Social Modality

Within the social modality, all interactions between people and institutions that allow and
facilitate social practices are considered. Morin understands social interactions in terms of
a tetra logic ring, that is, the relationship between organization, disorganization, order and
disorder, which synthesizes the notion that no interaction can be thought of without both
turbulence and organizing principles acting together. This complex vision of social
interactions is the way to conceive social relationships in this modality. To show that social
ordering is attained not only by reason but also because of disorder and error, between
reason and madness, he represents social reality abstractly as the result of the fight between
the homo sapiens and the homo demens.

Economic Modality

In his writings regarding development, Morin has shown how the different fields of
knowledge: economics, medicine and biology, drive or even absorb politics. Morin has
insisted on the subsidiary role that economy should have in relation to politics, showing
that acting otherwise has been a reason for the technocratś failure: their efforts to adapt
men to technical progress, rather than technical progress to men. In this way the main point
of the economic modality should be its role inspired by the politic modality and determined
by all modalities in the lower hierarchy treated before.
Multimodal representation can help with Morin’s treatment of economic issues because
the criticism of the primacy of economic aspects over other human dimensions and the
design activities tending to avoid this situation can be treated in a very suitable way by
MMSM. The interpretation within the economic modality of factors belonging to different
modalities than the economic one is called unidimensionalization by Morin. This leads to
an economic-centered vision of life and subjects man to economy, instead of placing the

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economy at the service of man. All these can be easily represented and operations can be
designed to avoid it, by using MMSM.

Operative Modality

We will separate the operative modality from the economic modality in the same way as de
Raadt (2000) does, even though Dooyeweerd (1997) does not do so. Within this modality,
tasks related to production and services are studied. Other activities such as those based on
cooperation and solidarity, for example, are considered within the social modality.
Morin’s ideas about intelligence are relevant within this operative modality, because
issues related to how to perform and manage specific tasks are treated by Morin in con-
nection to intelligence. The former is an art of developing strategies that combines
numerous and diverse activities, even antagonist ones. He highlights the following issues
as being especially significant: to develop the ability to prioritize what is important and
what is secondary, to think in terms of feedback loops where means and ends are specified
(something in which MMSM can prove to be really helpful), to use randomness as a way to
discovering, to find new ways to understand reality beyond known schemas and to plan
using scenarios that relate the unavoidable and the desirable.

Politic Modality

We also incorporate, following de Raadt, a political modality. Political action taking place
within this modality has to be designed, according to Morin, in terms of a program and a
strategy that take into consideration complexity and uncertainty, principles and ends. In
Tierra Patria (2004) he proposes general guidelines to design political actions based on
learning the present, obeying mid-term norms and thinking universally.
To Morin, the complex science that is needed to carry out action has to establish a link
between ethics and politics. Again, MMSM prove to be very helpful in terms of estab-
lishing this relationship, and this is why we place the political modality in a lower
hierarchy than the political one, that is treated next.

Ethical Modality

Morin’s ethical thought is related to his understanding of life as an organizing value of

complexity. This is his axiological view of life. In his biological view of life, he shows that
even though physics has been able to forget teleology, biology needs to take it into
consideration, since it is not possible to understand cellular behavior without considering
the cell as a goal seeking device. That is why in the biological modality, categories such as
code, program, communication, translation, control, inhibition and feedback are used. In
transiting from biological life towards life as a value, this biological notion has to be
divided into two living orientations: one aiming to the self and another to the species, and
uncertainty has to be taken into consideration. When this biological structure is translated
into the axiological sphere, these two aspects of life get represented through the categories
of autos and oikos: the former representing human autonomy and the latter the social
environment. Thus, since life is the orienting value for action design, four sides of an ethos

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have to be taken into consideration: an egocentric one, a genocentric one, a sociocentric

one and an anthropocentric one.
Morin grants the existence of a moral consciousness capable of guiding men against
manipulation and from being subjugated. As such, we understand that Morin’s principles
are compatible with the guiding principles of Christianity. Moreover, his ethics is centered
on the preservation of life and on recovering a fraternal identity for humankind. With these
elements he shows what he understands are the limitations of Marxism, Freud’s psy-
chology and totalitarian doctrines, exhibiting how they are part of simple, not complex
thought.
The ethical problem is presented in close relationship to the problem of action that, to
Morin, has to incorporate betting: taking chances or acting in the presence of uncertainty.
In El Me´todo II: La vida de la vida (1983), he discusses how answers to specific problems
are found in relationship to science, because anthropologic reasons cannot be torn apart
from life determinations, that is, the bios or biological modality of man, cannot be left apart
in any analysis. He states that this does not mean that ethics can be deduced from science,
nor politics from ethics, since the ethical dimensions stays independent in its own deter-
minations. MMSM collaborates greatly in taking all this considerations into action
research.

Viability

With regard to viability, the notion of guiding light ideas (Morin 2004) is highly relevant
when trying to find a course of action leading to viability. Among Morin’s guiding light
ideas the following are privileged: mankind survival and seeking humanization, that is, the
creation of conditions to overcome the apparent lack of capacity of men to become
humanity. Because of the peculiarities associated with the notion of emergence, the
identification of the activities that have to be carried out to ensure it is not easy. Because of
this some of the expected results can be taken within the ethical and other modalities, so
that the emergent result is positively affected by them. Multimodal characterization of
Morin’s thought helps a MM design of operations steer communities towards viability.

Concluding Remarks

Management sciences are in need of incorporating methodologies that can help with the
use of particular lines of thought in order to deal with complex systems effectively. This
effectiveness is related to the ability to collectively understand problematic situations of
the real world and to agree with all stakeholders on actions leading to problem-solving and
improvement of unviable situations. While particular philosophical or sociological theories
provide powerful ways of thinking reality, they usually lack a methodology that can
expedite its application to particular situations. MMSM can be thought of as a metha-
methodology that can be adapted to specific doctrines while retaining its capabilities to
help with the design of specific operations leading to system viability. MMSM funda-
mental propositions are retained as the form, while allowing the incorporation of most of
the material view of specific doctrines. This has been illustrated by carrying out such
incorporations with Morin’s doctrine, thus justifying the designation of MMSM as a
metamethodology.

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