From Individual Intentionality to Sympoiesis in System Phenomenology

Abstract System thinking is widespread in technology development approaches such as “system engineering” and “system design.” We argue that postphenomenology, as a broadly accepted and essential philosophy of technology, has individual intentionality as a core foundational concept and, therefore, struggles to describe system thinking. We start by indicating that some contemporary postphenomenology scholars discuss system-related concepts such as intentional structures of human experience. We then turn to the fundamentals of postphenomenology to better understand how individual intentionality can be related to system thinking via consciousness. We discuss the classical system thinking concept of autopoiesis as an intentionality structure relevant to individual consciousness of psychic systems and communication for social systems. However, the relation to the world is underdeveloped in these classical system theories, so we turn to contemporary thinkers who stress both the systemic and world aspects of phenomenology in sympoiesis. This helps us formulate three system-thinking recommendations for system phenomenology related to system-environment difference, structure versus process, and sympoiesis. We provide two illustrations of how system phenomenology can help understand technological design. We conclude with a plea for further conceptual development and practical application of system phenomenology in postphenomenology, system design, and system engineering.