Knowing Systems and the Environment 47A similar claim has been made for the synergy between the ‘experiential know-
ing’ processes of Kolb (as a subsystem) and what has been called ‘inspirational
knowing’ by Bawden (1998); where the former refers to the transformation of
experience into knowledge, inspirational knowing accesses ‘innate insights’ as its
focus for transformation. It can be postulated that it is through inspirational know-
ing that we come to know our positions on ‘rights’ and ‘virtues’ and ‘aesthetics’
which are then synergistic with our experientially derived contexts and instrumen-
tal knowledge of the world, which we bring to bear in our communicative actions
with others, to change our ways with it!
And all of this occurs within a learning (sub)system which has an internal
ambience of emotions and dispositions that are embraced as essential to the trans-
formative functions of that system.
Conclusion
As the above has indicated, a fourth, vital category can, and ought to be added to
Berkes’ (1999) typology: to the ‘Ecologically Noble Savage’, the ‘Intruding Was-
tral’ and the ‘Fallen Angel’ can/ought now be included the intrinsically three-
dimensional ‘Knowing Being’. Through their cognitive competencies, humans are
capable of coming to know about matters to hand that concern them, coming to
know how they come to know that, and coming to know the epistemic contexts in
which these two ‘lower order’ processes operate (Kitchener, 1983). Such a know-
ing system can refer both to individuals and to social collectives of individuals. In
functional terms, the ‘triarchical’ organization of this intrinsic human knowing
system allows cognitive (level one) processing, meta-cognitive (level two) process-
ing, and epistemic-cognitive (level three) processing to proceed in a synergistically
interconnected manner. The epistemic dimension embraces all three of the essen-
tial ‘elements’ of human worldviews and paradigms – epistemology, ontology and
axiology.
A key conceptual implication of the knowing system is the adaptation of the
lower order systems to changes in the epistemic supra-system, which, it is sug-
gested, tends to evolve (or be deliberately developed) from the relative simplicity
of ‘dualism’ to the much more complex ‘contextualism’. The paradox here, or at
least the enigma, is that until and unless the knowing system evolves or is devel-
oped to this position, it cannot appreciate its own systemic nature (Salner, 1986).
The systems image can be further extended to present this intrinsically three-
dimensional ‘knowing system’ as the key subsystem within an extrinsic, three-
dimensional system-of-systems. A knowing (sub)system attempts to make sense
out of what it senses in both ‘the system’ which it construes or ‘brings forth’ (Mat-
urana and Varela, 1988) and of which it sees itself as an essential component part,
and the environmental supra-system in which that system is construed to operate,
and with which it is ‘structurally coupled’ (Maturana and Varela, 1988). In this