Gerard de Zeeuw

Gerard de Zeeuw (11 March 1936) is a Dutch scientist and professor Mathematical modelling of complex social systems at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Biography

Gerard de Zeeuw was born in 1936 in Banjoewangi Indonesia, in the former Dutch Indies, to relatively well-to-do middle class parents and one older brother. Gerard spent part of the Second World War in Japanese prison camps. In secondary school a Dutch professor of sociology, Free van Heek, allowed himaccess to his personal library and stimulated him to write his first paper—about action. Martha Vahl, [http://www.cict.demon.co.uk/biomemogdz.pdf "Gerard de Zeeuw: models, systems, support and research: A bio-memo"] , paper 2002.] He studied in Mathematics and physics at the Leiden University, and continued with Statistics and Econometrics at the Erasmus University with Jan Tinbergen en Henk Theil. At the Stanford University he further studied mathematical psychology, with Patrick Suppes en Bob Estes. Back in Holland at the University of Amsterdam he received his Ph.D. with the thesis entitled "Model thinking in psychology".

De Zeeuw worked almost four decades at the University of Amsterdam from 1964 until 2001. Since 1974 he has been full professor, charged with 'Research methodology' in the areas of adult education, social work and social helping, community development and social theory. Since 1993 he is full professor in the University of Amsterdam charged with Mathematical modelling of complex social systems. Since 1994 he is also visiting professor at the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside in the area of systems and management, and at the London School of Economics in the field of social and organizational psychology.

During three years he lectured at the Agricultural University of Wageningen. He was elected twice as Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Wassenaar, the Netherlands. [ [http://www.nias.knaw.nl/en/oudfellows/research_group_1971_1972/summaries_71_72/g_de_zeeuw/ G. de Zeeuw] , Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, 2007.]

De Zeeuw has sat on the Editorial Boards of the "Journals of Statistica Neerlandica" and "Systemica", and was Editor-in-chief of this Journal. In the 1990s he became associate editor of the Systems Research and Behavioral Science and the Journal of Research Practice since it's beginning in 2005.

Gerard de Zeeuw has been organizationally active. With Albert Hanken in 1970 he was cofounder and first president of the Dutch Systems Group. With the Society for General Systems Research and others in 1980 they founded the International Federation for Systems Research, first presidented by George Klir until 1986 and by Gerard de Zeeuw from 1992 to 1994. At the University of Amsterdam he has been dean of the Faculty of Andragology, Chair of the department of research methodology in the Faculty of Psychology, and Board member of the university. He is on the Advisory Board of the International Institute for General Systems Studies. He is extraordinary member of the Dutch Institute of Psychologists, for his efforts to promote the study of psychology, and honorary member of the United Kingdom Systems Society. He organized more than 100 conferences, in different disciplines. [http://itsy.co.uk/archive/sisn/Member/Gerard.htm Gerard de Zeeuw] , biography 2007.]

Some of his old students are the scientists Debiprasad Dash and Hector Ponce, editors of the Journal of Research Practice.

Work

Gerard de Zeeuw area of concern is action in society: specifically, action to improve. De Zeeuw notes that traditional approaches are inclined to generate side-effects. These are not only unpredictable: they are also usually undesirable (negative): they lead to an undermining of the intended assistance, or the creation of new problems that disable, leading to deterioration. Help given by experts undermines the independence and autonomy of those helped: those helped are disabled and, in a manner, disenfranchised by the very act of helping. To help in such a way that the act of providing help reduces the ability of those helped to help themselves is. The central problem that de Zeeuw tackles, is to facilitate helping to be carried out insuch a manner that it leads to betterment by reducing unwanted side-effects and by empowering those helped to help themselves. Ranulph Glanville, [http://www.cict.demon.co.uk/Glanville.pdf "Doing the Right Thing: the Problems of… Gerard de Zeeuw, Academic Guerilla."] , paper 2002.]

De Zeeuw has published widely concerning matters of research design and knowledge creation, social work, human action, mathematical modelling of complex social systems and agro-systems. [ [http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/events/item_zee.htm Inaugural Lecture] 3rd June 2008. Retrieved 27 May 2008.]

Andragology

Andragology, the discipline of human action from the Greek, combines interests both practical: adult education, social helping, support through the built environment; and theoretical: the acquisition of supportive knowledge. In terms of the breadth of this definition, Andragology, as a field, remains more or less unique to the Netherlands.

A basic question here for Gerard de Zeeuw was, what resources and knowledge were available or might be brought to clients—as well as therapists—which would provide strength or solace democratically. Such knowledge would support people becoming actors, bestow actorship, and create co-ordinated collectives.

Conferences

Gerard de Zeeuw has organized over 100 conferences.
* In 1969 he started a first serie, which lead to the foundation of the "European Association of Decision Making".
* In 1979 he created a second series of biannual conferences, based around the concept and name “Problems of…”. A set of central themes, constituting both a method and an approach, demonstrated in the “Problems of…” conference series over a quarter century. The themes where extracted from the work of Gerard de Zeeuw, based in a consideration of and concern for improvement, and an attempt to reduce the frequently negative side-effects of attempts at improvement by creating “high quality observations” and empowering those helped by making them actors.

Interaction of actors theory

Gerard de Zeeuw has kept interesting in exploring, what happens when observations cannot be combined so they "stand on their own", and cannot be transmitted through the language of variables. A major area of exploration is when one distinguishes between observers such as the above and well-delineated collectives of observers that behave like one. Such collectives may be characterized, for example, by members sharing intentions or values, or a special psychology. Especially interesting is when they are self-organizing as the result of members or actors interacting.

Gerard de Zeeuw was, among his most notable associates of Gordon Pask and a key contributor to the development of Interaction of actors theory. For de Zeeuw, the notion of “actor” is always central: improvement is the result of actors acting. While this position might seem commonplace, it is crucial to keep it in mind. For, in de Zeeuw’s world, improvement involves making into actors those for whom improvement is intended. Based on the generation of high quality observations, the actions we can take are:
* to improve the quality of the observations themselves (see above), and
* to improve how we understand and use the observations so they can be seen to be of high quality.Acting to change the quality of our observations to high quality, in de Zeeuw’s interpretation, we act to create improvement. Since we make high quality observations so that we may act, and act to make them high quality observations, we are involved in a self-referential, bootstrapping activity.

Research Methodology

Research approaches such as reductionism, according to De Zeeuw, are simply are standard models for action. Reductionism is a tool invented to identify observations that "stand on their own". They create self-similar sense data, extended from the "observational turn" of the 17th century. The 20th century brought a further "linguistic turn" in scientific methodology, as well as "improving observations" to "improving whatever is needed to maintain the required collectives".

In the field of Research Methodology De Zeeuw never claimed a new paradigm or methodology, however. He sees himself as one in a long chain of researchers, each trying to deal with new challenges. These challenges include:
* the challenge of observation modifying the observed,
* the challenge of observer intentions influencing observations
* and the challenge of how observers may ‘participate’

Support, Survival and Culture

His largest research project was entitled 'Support, Survival and Culture', funded on a personal basis by the Ministry of Education of the Netherlands (Dfl 10,000,000). This project represented a culmination of his long time work on research methods to study and implement ëuser valuesí, and on research designs to support individual and social action. An international evaluation committee judged the project's results to be 'excellent'.

Systems theory

In the Dutch scientific community systems theory since the 1950s has evolved along different paths:
* a technical system theory evolved in physics and electrical engineering
* a more theoretical and abstract type evolved with the mathematical systems theory
* a general concept for scientific modeling in mathematics, management sciences and related fields
* and in the social sciences in a type of mathematization, an implicit mathematical way of looking at reality.

In the Netherlands this last type of systems theory explicitly developed in the Andragogy, where Gerard de Zeeuw lead a movement. Gerard Alberts, [http://www.dho.nl/documents/Wiskunde.pdf Duurzame ontwikkelingen de rol van het wiskundig denken] , Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, zomer 2002]

Theory of communication systems

The mathematical theory of communication of Claude Shannon added a reflexive turn to the reception in communication. The signal can be considered as a message which contains an expected information value. Upon reception, the signal can obtain an update value for the receiving system. The system which receives the message is able to provide the information contained in the message with meaning if this system is sufficiently complex for the reflexive reconstruction of the information contained in the message. Loet Leydesdorff (2002). "The Communication Turn in the Theory of Social Systems". In: "Systems Research and Behavioural Science" 19:pp. 129-136.]

Besides Shannon's mathematical theory a linguistic turn in the theory of communication systems emerged with the work of Luhmann, Pask and De Zeeuw. Languages enable us to codify the relation between the uncertainty and the meaning of a message. Niklas Luhmann considered language as the operating system of society. He proposed that "meaning" be considered as the operator of social systems.

Meaning is generated interactively by using language, and can be considered as a reflexive function of language at the level of the social system. Now Gerard de Zeeuw has elaborated Gordon Pask’s paradigm by emphasizing that in a social science design one has to look for "languages" and "reports", rather than for "laws" and "facts". De Zeeuw submited that language is the evolutionary achievement which enables us to communicate using two channels for the communication at the same time: a statement can be provided with a meaning and it is expected to contain information. [Gerard de Zeeuw (1997). "Second Order Organizational Research". In: J. Achterbergh and others (eds.), "Organizational Cybernetics". Nijmegen Business School, Nijmegen.]

Publications

De Zeeuw has written a dozen books and more than 150 articles. [More than 150 of De Zeeuw's publications from 1969 to 2001 are listed in [http://www.cict.demon.co.uk/Fest.html Festschrift Professor Gerard de Zeeuw] , 31 January 2002.] Books, a selection:
* 1977. "Decision making and change in human affairs : proceedings of the fifth research conference on subjective probability, utility, and decision making, Darmstadt, 1-4 september, 1975". ed. by Helmut Jungermann and Gerard de Zeeuw. Dordrecht [etc.] : Reidel.
* 1979. "Context and Time and Problems of Context". With P. van den Eeden (eds.). Amsterdam: V.U.-Boekhandel
* 1983. "Problems of Levels and Boundaries", With A. Pedretti (eds.) London and Zurich, Princelet Editions
* 1991. "Collective support systems and their users". With Ranulph Glanville (eds.). Amsterdam : Thesis.
* 1993. "Interactive interfaces and human networks". With Ranulph Glanville. Amsterdam : Thesis.
* 1995. "Problems of Values and Invariants", With Ranulph Glanville (eds.). Amsterdam: Thesis Publishers.
* 1996. "Knowledge (Dis)Appearance". (Eds.) Delft: Delft University Press.
* 2000. "Problems of Action and Observation, Southsea and Amsterdam". With Ranulph Glanville (eds.).

References

External links

* [http://itsy.co.uk/archive/sisn/Member/Gerard.htm Gerard de Zeeuw] , biography 2007.
* [http://www.cict.demon.co.uk/Fest.html Festschrift Professor Gerard de Zeeuw] website with many links, 2002.
* [http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/events/item_zee.htm Inaugural Lecture] 3rd June 2008.