Jean-Louis Moigne is a specialist French in the Systémique and epistemology constructivist; initially Engineer, then professor of university.

Biography

Jean-Louis Moigne was born the March 22nd 1931 with Casablanca (Morocco). Married to Maguy, they have 3 children.

• Engineer of the Central School Paris (1955). Graduate ITP Harvard Business School and Sloan School off Management MIT (1970-71).
• industrial Career 1959-1971: Group Shell France: Lubricating developments; Operations research; Data processing of Organization; Central planning; South-western, Logistic regional management.
• Professor (1971-1997), then Professor emeritus of the Universities, (sciences of the systems, sciences of the engineering of the organizations,…), in Aix-en-Provence, University of Aix-Marseilles III
• Cofounder, in 1975, then Directing (1988-1997) of the GRASCE (Group of Research on the Adaptation, the Systemic one and Economic Complexity), associated with CNRS since the origin.
• Since 1997, associated member of this Group from now on integrated into the GREQAM, UMR CNRS Marseilles
• Member of the editorial boards of several international scientific magazines (System, Information, Decision, Organization).

The biography which follows was realized starting from talks that Jean-Louis Moigne granted during the year 1998 within the framework of the preparation to the publication of his “Mixtures” (a collective work produced in his honor, to which great authors contributed - among whom one counts, inter alia, Herbert Simon, Edgar Morin, Ernst von Glasersfeld, P. Tabatoni, H. Bartoli - which was published under the title Between Systémique & Complexité: way making , with the P.U.F in 1999).

Jean-Louis Moigne was born on March 22nd, 1931 in Casablanca: he is the elder one of a phratry of three children. His/her father, Emile Moigne, had embraced a career of engineer who had led it to settle in Morocco during a few years in order to contribute to carry out there a hydraulic stopping which made speak about him at the time and which was inaugurated after 1940. Emile was itself the son of an officer of Gendarmerie, of country and Breton origin, which had profited from the " promotion sociale" what authorized the institutions the third republic after the war of 1870 - and who probably gave the first name of Emile to his son in reference to Emile Zola. As much of military wire of officers, Emile Moigne will follow his schooling in a military College (" Flèche") before integrating the Naval college and confronting themselves with the war of 1914-1918 as a young naval officer. The war caused him some troubles of health which required that he reconvert himself then into the civilian: the army thus paid him a schooling with Supélec, and it is as an electrical engineer that it had to contribute to the electric industrialization of Morocco. Emile will meet the mother of Jean-Louis there, girl of an officer of the Genious, which took part at the time in construction of the railroads in Morocco. Let us note in the passing that this maternal grandfather marked the early childhood of Jean-Louis much: he was the seventh boy of a family of nine children - which had emigrated of Hollow (where his/her father was mason) towards Nievre where there was to seem-you it more work… - and learned how to read and write only at age the nine years, thanks to the insistence of the teacher of the village who found it rather gifted and intelligent. It will continue until in class of " Taupe" and the Polytechnic school integrated towards the end of the 19th century: a brilliant career of officer of the Genius in the French Army was offered then to him. He will marry the girl of a merchant of covers of Versailles, with which he had two girls: one of them will be the mother of Jean-Louis. From 1910, promoted Colonel of the Genious, his career continues in Morocco. The mother of Jean-Louis knew very young person the existence thus relatively pionnière of French in Morocco at that time - it was for example one of the first women to lead a Ford T to Casablanca! -; and inherited qualities mainly the maternal grandfather Jean-Louis, that everyone appreciated for its wisdom and its field crop, its dignity and its respectuosity, its qualities of technician and scientist of quality, opened in the world in progress, available and always attentive with the others. They are this availability and this open-minded which one finds today at Jean-Louis: they will undoubtedly count among decisive qualities which will mark its work - testify to it its ceaseless plea in favor of humility, the interdisciplinarity and the open-minded of the scientists, like its will to encourage us to enrich our epistemological culture unceasingly in order to better deliberate on our actions in complex situation. This frame of mind will often lead the Jean-Louis young person, towards adolescence, to enter in conflict with his/her father - of nature sometimes more rigid, which seemed more authoritative to him…

In 1933, the economic crisis pushes Emile Moigne to be returned to France, where it will continue his career of engineer with the CPDE (which will be absorbed later by EDF) before finishing it in Saint-Gobain - where he will become specialist in the questions of hygiene and safety. Of return of Morocco, Jean-Louis started to find each summer his Breton family roots (Moigne made there build a house after the death of his/her maternal grandfather in 1935), before turning over to the Parisian residence, not far from the Clichy Place. He will then make all his schooling in Paris: initially at the elementary school of the street of Florence to Paris, then with the College Chaptal - an establishment of the town of Paris located in the district of the station Saint-Lazare, rather " banlieusard" and popular, exempting an austere teaching in the line line of the designs heiresses of Jules Ferry - where it will continue his studies until in " Taupe". All in all, he knew in Paris a childhood without family problems nor school difficulties, but which was marked however by a fragile health, which will be worth to him to redouble its class of " Maths spé" and to integrate the Central School of Paris only into age the 21 years (like " 5/2"), in September 1952.

From 1952 to 1956, the young student in engineering centralien impassions himself for his studies - of which it waits much -, but while taking care well not to not focus his attention on questions which would be only exclusively technical. One can summarize his will to go beyond what one normally requests from all centralien which is honoured, by triple engagement out of the strict schooling with the E.C.P.: an engagement citizen (it is the time of the government of Pierre Mendès France), a teaching engagement and a scientific engagement. Already convinced at the time of the need for the men for permanently wondering about the direction of what they do and, therefore, to transform their actions recursively, he very often regrets the critical little of direction and careful thought concerning the French educational system. For example, one sees emerging in his spirit an interrogation which still makes it reflect today: why, in our schools of engineers, sign-you one not really engineerings (or engineering) but rather sciences " appliquées" ? Prepare-you one suitably engineers of tomorrow by also approaching little what will make the essence of their daily newspaper in the working life, namely the design of complex projects in complex situations for which the application of hard sciences (known as " fondamentales") generally only one secondary utility will have? It will very often on the occasion to be expressed on teaching questions in general, because it has already the taste of the writing and engagement: it will be able in particular to exert - and sharpen! - its talents in the bulletin of the pupils of the E.C.P. (" bourdonnements") it will be some time the writer-in-chief. This engagement will be worth also its first " publication to him; sérieuse" that it signs in the name of the secretariat of the J.E.C. - one of associations coeds in which it militated - at the 24 years age (in the review " Economy & Humanisme" , at the end of 1955, at the sides of the economist Alfred Sauvy in particular): it is about an article in which he proposes with enthusiasm and conviction a true revolution for the school - rather than one ènième reform! -, so that it prepares its pupils… with the life, quite simply! In this first article (" For a teaching which prepares with the vie" , Review " Economy & Humanisme" n°94, p.73/81, November-December 1955), one already sees it approaching in filigree of the topics which will be very familiar thereafter for him:

1. Necessary interdisciplinarity of teaching: instead of too early specializing the pupils in their school course, the young person Moigne rather suggests giving them a solid general culture which would enable them to communicate conveniently with the other members of the company and the company in general - it is attacked in particular in this article with the insufficiencies of vocational training, too specialized according to him. On this subject, it quotes a sentence of P. Fraysse (" The producer is also father, citizen, traveller, reader, spectator, man in a mot") who is rather revealing topics which will not cease impassioning it thereafter.

2. The bond which one would gain to create between doing it and knowledge: " We think that the best “consumer of information” is that which can be initially a “producer of information” by the attitude constantly activates than it has in front of “the fact” (attitude without which it is not culture nor even of true opening) " he says on page 79 of this article.

3. Or the fundamental role of information in the capacity of a system (of teaching, in fact) to adapt and to change: for example, he proposes to create a National center and regional centres of information and professional forecasts in order to help the pupils, their professors and the employers with better conceiving their future actions and their orientations…

During this period of schooling, it meets Maguy (at the time of holidays in Brittany) which it will marry only after its return, in April 1959, of the war of Algeria (it is indeed mobilized for 30 long months of military service at its exit of the Central School), and with which it will have 3 children (born in 1960,1963 and 1965). One can say that Maguy was a fundamental and essential support emotional and material, on whom Jean-Louis always could count.

The young engineer, at the time of entering the working life, is interested of close with Operations research, a " news science" who develops recently and whom he discovered in 1954: it seems to raise of new challenges in the field of the decision-making aid. The oil company Shell-France will engage it on its return of Algeria and will allow him to live this passion by integrating its team of economic calculation and R.O after one period of " setting with the épreuve" in a service of R & D on the lubricant-engines. He saw this period with enthusiasm and progresses quickly in the hierarchy of the company: at 35 years, it is responsible for the Central Plan of Shell-France; it will be then named Directeur of the logistic organization for the whole of the South-western area in 1967. The development and the daily use of the models of R.O constitute for him a graying experiment, although it is conscious owing to the fact that they are only models among as well others as it still remains to imagine to help the persons in charge of companies to decide in complex situation.

In 1970, the chairman of Shell-France, which knows and appreciates its critical spirit and creative, proposes to him to try the adventure of the teaching of the " new sciences of the management" at the University. This so singular proposal must be included/understood in its context, after the “events” of May 1968: the Nationale minister of education then seeks to make fruitfully meet the world of the students, the academics and the company. It has thus the idea to irrigate the university education by the reflections that persons in charge of high level company could have drawn from their track records and with this intention creates a statute of “associated professor” in the French universities, with the support of the FNEGE (the National Foundation for the Teaching of the Business management, whose creation was supported in particular at the time by French employers). Jean-Louis Moigne agrees to try the adventure. He starts by following an international program of formation to the U.S.A. - in Harvard and Sloan School off Management of M.I.T. - in 1970-1971, where he will meet in particular professors Z. Zannetos and Herbert Simon. Of return of America, it will be named " Professor-associé" in November 1971 with the University of Aix-Marseilles III. The scientific range, the originality and the national and international diffusion of its research tasks, will enable him to be integrated definitively in the body of the Professors d' Université in September 1986.

Directing cofounder then of the GRASCE (during its creation, these initials meant Groupe of Research in Analysis of System and Economic Calcul, but when Moigne takes the direction of it, he will propose to make it become with the beginning of the year 1990 the Group of Research on the Adaptation, the Systemic one & Economic Complexity - this laboratory was always an Research unit Associated with the C.N.R.S., which enormously produced in theoretical research but also in research-action in relation to the world of the companies) at the University of Aix-Marseilles III, active member of the AFCET (French Association for Economic Cybernetics & Technique) and of many scientific committees and organization reviews of search for international diffusion and scientific congresses international, founder and president of the AEMCX (European Association for the Modeling of the Complexity - now associated with Association for the Complex Thought chaired by Edgar Morin within the network " Intelligence of Complexité"), cofounder and president of the club Epistemology of the University of Aix-Marseilles III, enthusiastic organizer of think tank intended for the leaders and managers of companies, Jean-Louis Moigne was not satisfied to develop original and promising problems of research: he also provided a considerable energy to support the diffusion and the application of this research in the most various fields. Before its departure with the retirement at the end of 1997, the institution allotted to him the title of Professor emeritus of the Universities.

Work

Privileged fields of research: characterized by the titles of its principal works and articles.

• sciences of the systems and sciences of engineering,
• sciences of computation (data-processing and artificial intelligence),
• sciences of the organization,
• information sciences,
• sciences of the decision,
• sciences of cognition and the communication,
• sciences of management
• epistemology of sciences of the complexity and sciences of ingenium

Jean-Louis Moigne developed epistemology constructivist through his work in three volumes " Constructivisme" and its " What do I know? " , " Epistemologies constructivistes" , works which one can find notes of reading on the www.mcxapc.org site.

For a presentation as of its English work, to see " With Principal Exposure off Jean-Louis Moigne' S Systemic Theory" by Darek Mr. Eriksson or " Moigne' S Defense off Constructivism" by Ernst von Glasersfeld. The latter article also evokes the controversy which exists with what one could call the academism.

Work

To evoke the work of an important academic is never easy thing; to write of sound living is obviously even less. Moreover, the retirement of Jean-Louis Moigne in 1998 forever be only one stage in its career, which enables him today to devote all its energy to the progression of its work, far from the daily annoyances caused by the tasks of teaching, but also of direction of an important research laboratory associated with CNRS (the GRASCE), that it assumed during many years… The intellectual course to which one will testify here is thus still in perpetual enrichment, a system (of thought) who is at the same time active, stable, and which changes irréversiblement, téléologiquement and recursively! This is why it is necessary to speak here about a " matter of étape" during a long way… which is done while going - and the walker Moigne is particularly determined to still explore the ways of complexity for long years.

During 25 years during which he will have been teacher-researcher, the research topics of Jean-Louis Moigne appreciably evolved/moved. One can briefly give an account of the logic of this progression while going so far as to distinguish three stages in the genesis from his thought. One will avoid however a purely chronological approach which would not correctly highlight a progression which is not linear, but which follows contrary to the complex routes, at the same time parallel and tangled up, imbricated one in another.

1 - Jean-Louis Moigne is initially marked by a professional long experience in the world of the company, in the field of Operations research and the business computing: it was thus completely natural that its first research relates to the Decision and Information systems in the socio-economic organizations. How can the computing systems (and information systems they are only one component) be conceived and used in order to improve the decision-making processes in the organizations? Which reports/ratios thus maintain the information systems and the systems decision? But these first reflections - that it will continue to develop thereafter - result in wondering about the concept of " système" itself: if there exists indeed at this time a " state of the art" enticing on the question - " approaches systémiques" various social or technical phenomena with the analysis of system which is spread in the medium of the engineers -, one cannot however not conclude with the existence from a true “theory from the systems”… A new research program starts thus.

2 - Jean-Louis Moigne will thus endeavor to present the system theory like a méta-theory: a theory of the modeling (by contrast with the analysis) which consists in theorizing its actions (to be reflected for better acting) like and by a system in general. The construction of this méta-theory in particular enables him to better give an account of the informational and decisional phenomena which always highly interest it - by exploiting with happiness the assumptions of " rationality procédurale" and of " system of treatment of information" , defended by Herbert Simon. At the end of this reflection, the systems do not seem as being a property specific to the studied object, but a representation convenient and pragmatically usable for the action - a méta-model, a numerical model which is more in the head of the modelisator than in reality than it models… New prospects of reflection and research open then.

3 - The construction of the science of the systems indeed encourages it to continue its research in several directions. Firstly, the system theory must seek its epistemological bases elsewhere than in orthodoxies positivists: as opposed to what affirmed with enthusiasm Ludwig von Bertalanffy in 1968 (“the systems are everywhere! ”), no one cannot show the positive or objective existence systems. However, this concept can be regarded as sufficiently relevant constituting a knowledge " actionnable" , to bind the knowledge and the faires. It is thus necessary to argue and develop alternative epistemologies - epistemologies constructivists. These epistemological investigations will in particular lead it to meet the thought of Jean Piaget (but also those, inter alia, of Paul Valéry, Giambattista Vico or Léonard de Vinci…) and to explore the rich person epistemological experience accumulated by structuralisms. Secondly, the system theory is likely to give an account of the steps ingeniériales in general - the use of cybernetics by the engineers in is a testimony. " news sciences" engineering thus find serious bases epistemological in the constructivism. This theoretical prospect combines with wonder with the original step of Herbert A. Simon, who regards the science of the systems as a science of the artificial one: economy, sciences of management, the theory of the organizations (and so much of others " news sciences" …) according to him few common points with sciences of nature divide (which question reality starting from the assumption of need for the phenomena observed), and gain on the other hand with being apprehended with the manner of the engineerings - these sciences the purpose of which are to build artefacts evolutionary and contingent with the finalities for which they were conceived by the human spirit, to implement human projects for the human action. Thirdly, the construction of the science of the systems aims at giving an account of complex phenomena - irreducible with a model analytical, causalist, determinist, simple - in perpetual evolution. Jean-Louis Moigne adapts here with enthusiasm the " paradigm of the thought complexe" what seeks to work out Edgar Morin since 1972, by privileging the assumption of car-éco-D-organization of the complex phenomena: the system theory is indeed a method of modeling which makes it possible to give an account of the basically teleological character, irreversible and recursive of the car-organized phenomena, to which the modelisator allots a certain degree of autonomy. One leads thus to what Jean-Louis Moigne calls his " Triangle of or" , the triptych fundamental reference frame from which it draws an unceasingly renewed inspiration: Edgar Morin, Jean Piaget and Herbert Simon.

Admittedly, this atypical intellectual course will many times have led it to be confronted with sharp controversies or material difficulties… They will never have been right, however, of its enthusiasm and its passion to exchange and convince: curious and cultivated spirit, it always knew to oppose to criticism an argumentation without concession nor condescension. All in all, Jean-Louis Moigne incarnates the image of a scientist citizen: free but responsible, hétérodoxe but constructive, its thought is deeply humanistic and it is probably for that it defends it with strength. The extra work of work which it provides since it is officially in " retraite" (and which one can see the principal results by consulting the site of the network MCX-APC of which it animates the team of coordination (it chairs since his foundation European Association for the Modeling of Complexity) in is still a testimony.

Inspirers

According to its clean dires it was primarily inspired by Edgar Morin, Jean Piaget, Herbert Simon, Gaston Bachelard and Yves Barel. One must also quote the " three V" : Giambattista Vico, Paul Valéry and Léonard de Vinci to which it often refers.

Responsibilities

• Professor emeritus at the University of Aix-Marseilles.
• President of the European Program Modeling of Complexity - MCX.
• Vice-president of Association for the Complex Thought - APC (President: Edgar Morin).
• Deputy manager of the Collection INGENIUM, Editions Harmattan.

Sources

• GRASCE, Between systemic and complexity, making way… Mixtures in the honor of Professor Jean-Louis Moigne , 1999, PUF. Texts joined together by the Group of Research on the Adaptation, the Systemic one and Economic Complexity (GRASCE).
• Web site of the Network " Intelligence of Complexité" (MCX-APC)

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