Towards a Conceptual System for Managing in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This note takes as its frame of reference the concept of ‘deep thinking’ developed by William Byers [Byers 2015]. According to Byers, deep thinking or creative thought can emerge when a problem is framed by two (or more) conceptual systems and it is found that there are areas of incoherency between the conceptual systems. A new conceptual system encompassing elements from the primary conceptual systems may arise from the effort to resolve the incoherencies. Managing in the Anthropocene is a problem domain that can be framed by two conceptual systems, one of which may be described as Newtonian, the other as evolutionary. This paper explores elements of a conceptual system for framing the problem of managing in the Anthropocene inspired by the incoherencies between Newtonian and evolutionary framings.