From 1997 to 2001, Karl H. Müller was head of the Departments of Political Science and Sociology at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna. Currently, he is head of WISDOM, Austria’s infra-structural centre for the social sciences and President of the Heinz von Foerster Society.
 
His main research interests range from issues in complex modeling within the social sciences and from interdisciplinary analyses of innovation processes in science, technology and economy to the history and the current potential of inter- and transdisciplinary research, to the frontiers of second order cybernetics and radical constructivism or to the newly emerging risk-potentials for contemporary societies in general.
 
His recent publications reflect these various interests, namely Market Expansion and Knowledge Integration. Double Movements within Modernity (Frankfurt:Campus-Verlag 1999), Socio-Economic Models and Societal Complexity. Intermediation & Design (Marburg:Metropolis-Verlag 1998), Advancing Socio-Economics (together with J. Rogers Hollingsworth and Ellen Jane Hollingsworth) (Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield 2002), An Unfinished Revolution? Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory 1958 – 1976 (Wien:edition echoraum 2007) (together with Albert Müller), Gordon Pask, Philosopher Mechanic. An Introduction to the Cybernetician’s Cyberrnetician (Wien:edition echoraum 2007)(together with Ranulph Glanville), The New Science of Cybernetics. The Evolution of Living Research Designs. Vol. I. Methodology (Wien:edition echoraum 2008), Modern RISC-Societies. Towards a New Paradigm for Societal Evolution (Wien:edition echoraum)(together with Ivan Svetlik et al.) and The New Science of Cybernetics. The Evolution of Living Research Designs. Vol. II. Theory (Wien:edition echoraum 2011).

In recent years a series of three volumes was published (Müller 2009 – 2012) on the cognitive organization and on the structures of the New Science of Cybernetics (NSC) which can be viewed also as an unpacking or re-loading of Heinz von Foerster’s vision of Second-Order Cybernetics.
 
The lecture will be focused on the one hand on the inter-, trans- or even better: on the post-disciplinary heuristics of the new science of cybernetics. On the other hand, the lecture will demonstrate with the help of concrete examples that these inter-, trans- or post-disciplinary research strategies of the New Science of Cybernetics can and must lead to more innovative and to more robust research results simultaneously.
Literature:
 
Müller, K.H. (2009), The New Science of Cybernetics. The Evolution of Living Research Designs, vol. I: Methodology. Wien:edition echoraum
Müller, K.H. (2011), The New Science of Cybernetics. The Evolution of Living Research Designs, vol. II: Theory. Wien:edition echoraum
Müller, K.H. (2012), The New Science of Cybernetics. The Evolution of Living Research Designs, vol. III: Research and Design Rules. Wien:edition echoraum