Anticipation and the Dynamics of Expectations

The operationalization of socio-cognitive structures in terms of observables such as texts (e.g., in discourse analysis and scientometrics) or the behavior of agents (e.g., in the sociology of scientific knowledge) may inadvertedly lead to reification. The dynamics of knowledge are not directly observable, but knowledge contents can be reconstructed. The reconstructions have the status of hypotheses; hypotheses can be tested against observations. Whereas agent-based modelling (ABM) focuses on observable behavior, simulations based on algorithms developed in the theory and computation of anticipatory systems (CASYS) enable us to visualize the incursive and recursive dynamics of knowledge at the individual level as different from the potentially hyper-incursive dynamics at the intersubjective level. The sciences can be considered as “strongly anticipatory” at this supra-individual level: expectations are discursively reconstructed in terms of next generations of expectations. This reflexive restructuring is embedded in historical dynamics on which it feeds back as a selection environment. The agents and texts entertain discursive models and thus be considered “weakly anticipatory” participants in the communication.