Foreword: Challenges of, and to, Pragmatics

摘要

This issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing ranges from cybernetics through hermeneutics to semiotics. It encompasses several meanings of pragmatics, from the strict Peircean epistemological version-which is shown to have its limits even within a Peircean framework-to the nitty-gritty problems of a practical visual hermeneutics for human communication. But it begins with a continuation and extension of the discussion from our first issue of this year. That issue was the 50th Anniversary Retrospective of the American Society for Cybernetics. Not only historical in nature, this issue collected contributions to the Past President's Day held during the 2014 ASC Conference held in Washington D.C., a conference which marked 50 years since the founding of the Society. The Day included among its speakers eight Past Presidents, whose expanded contributions comprise valuable windows on the conceptual and organizational history of a unique discipline. These contributions by Past Presidents were included in this year's Issue 1, but in addition to these, a number of other speakers reflected on the history and future of the ASC. Paul Pangaro was one of them, and he graciously consented to delay the publication of his revised and expanded contribution until this issue. We are grateful to him for that, firstly because it was impossible for us to include all of these contributions in one single issue for reasons of space, and also because it enables us to continue the conversation about cybernetics that began with this year's first issue.