Activity and epistemological significance of the principle of participation in foresight practice

Pirozhkova Sof'ya Vladislavovna ORCID: 0000-0003-4477-4422 PhD in Philosophy Senior Research Fellow; Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences 12 Goncharnaya str., building 1, Moscow, 109240, Russia pirozhkovasv@gmail.com

The subject and methods of research: the specifics of foresight and relevant approaches to its study. In the philosophical and scientific study of such a phenomenon as foresight (eng. Foresight), the central questions are about its nature, methods, forms of organization and agent structure. As previously shown ^[1], foresight is a heterogeneous phenomenon that allows for several definitions, each of which has both a descriptive and a normative character. This feature persists to this day, despite the fact that this activity has existed for several decades. Foresight functions both as a special methodological approach to social forecasting and planning and as a special form of organization of predictive research and planning and project activities, as well as in the form of social technology and a management tool, as well as a special social practice ^[2]. At the same time, it cannot be equated with one of the above-mentioned types of activity, that is, it can only be defined as a new form of social foresight or a certain social technology. In the case of foresight, we are dealing with a complex socio-epistemic phenomenon that does not allow us to clearly and unambiguously separate knowledge from communication and production and reproduction of social reality. Moreover, if we try to analytically isolate the various components of this complex whole, examining each individually as self-sufficient and evolving in accordance with its own independent mechanisms, the result will be irrelevant, since the epistemic qualities of foresight are determined by social and even socio-political conditions and norms of its implementation, and vice versa – foresight as a social practice is determined by the epistemological characteristics of cognition. social reality.

With this in mind, it is advisable to formulate the most general definition, guided by the task of collecting empirical diversity not by the criterion of self–designation - "called forsyth, it means forsyth", but by a meaningful criterion. Nevertheless, the analysis shows that one definition cannot be dispensed with, at least two will be required. This is due to the fact that we need to capture both the existing practice and the ideological and methodological narrative in which it is embedded. The first option reflects the claim to form foresight as a complex activity that integrates traditional activities that implement a cognitive and activity-active attitude to the future, and is based on a number of ideas about the future that do not constitute a complete system today, but in the future can form it. The second option takes into account that in a number of cases foresight does not represent such an activity, but acts only as a paradigmatic framework within which traditional practices of foreseeing and constructing the future are integrated, while maintaining their autonomy. In this sense, it is difficult to talk about Forsyte as an established methodological paradigm; rather, it is about the formation of such a paradigm, which in turn requires the elaboration of a holistic concept that includes the ontology and epistemology of the future. When we talk about foresight as an activity, rather than a methodological approach or a paradigmatic framework, we will also talk about foresight, emphasizing the procedural and activity-based nature of this phenomenon.

If we consider foresight as a complex activity, then we can talk about the totality of methods used in the course of its implementation. This is what R. Popper does, interpreting foresight as an integral phenomenon with a wide range of methods for working with the future, from extrapolating trends to including personal imagination within the framework of futurological essays ^[3]. At the same time, as the analysis of specific foresight shows, depending on the tasks in its structure, one or another activity component begins to dominate – predictive, planned, project, reflective, socio-technological, which means that certain methods and organizational formats come to the fore (for more information, see: ^[1]).

The latter conclusion is fundamentally important in terms of research approaches to the study and conceptualization of foresight and speaks in favor of the need, first of all, to look not so much at the methodological or activity-specific nature of this phenomenon, but rather at the conditions of its formation and those social and scientific inquiries to which it was designed to respond. Foresight was formed in the conditions of: 1) the apparent inefficiency of quantitative forecasting to solve the problems of social foresight; 2) the weak validity of new methods of so–called qualitative forecasting – expert methods for making assumptions about the future based on professional experience and personal foresight; 3) the collapse of the futurology project - the science of the future, similar to history and capable of providing informed conclusions about the state of society and various its subsystems in the future (for more information, see: ^[4]). All of these approaches individually turned out to be irrelevant, and the ways to integrate them were unclear. In addition, there was a gap between the production of knowledge about the future and the use of this knowledge in management practice – no other field of scientific knowledge was characterized by such a strong reflexivity of predictions as socio-economic disciplines ^[5]. All this required the development of not just new approaches, but a new strategy that would allow not only to anticipate in the field of social cognition, but also to act successfully, effectively managing social processes and the development of society as a whole.

This request defines the specifics of foresight as both cognitive activity and social construction, research and management practice. One of the most striking examples of foresight's ambivalence is the constitutive principle of participation, the results of which are analyzed in this paper. Further, it will be shown that the principle of participation acts as both an epistemological and organizational-activity norm, and methodological diversity is supported by epistemic diversity of knowledge sources, and agent diversity of participants involved in the development of forecasts, plans and projects.

Who implements foresight and how? ‒ a question that has no definite answer. At the same time, it is fundamentally important, because it is when trying to answer it that most representatives of epistemology and philosophy of science conclude that this is not about scientific research, but, for example, about social technology ^[6]. Foresight can be adopted by government agencies at the federal and local levels and in this case performed within the framework of special units. Examples include The Centre for Strategic Futures in Singarura ^[7] and the Committee for the Future at the Parliament of Finland ^[8]. Foresight can also be implemented by special scientific institutions or departments at existing scientific institutions. For example, in Japan, which is considered the ancestor of the foresight organization, the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy has been responsible for their implementation for more than thirty years ^[9], and in Russia there is a special structural unit of the Institute of Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, an International scientific-educational Foresight Center ^[10]. Foresight takes place in organizations where it can be carried out both by its employees with expert support from outside, and by certain departments (see, for example, ^[11]). In addition, foresight is practiced by various public organizations, in Russia, for example, it was widely used by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, even developing its own methods ^[12].

At the same time, the agent structure of foresight is very unusual – foresight can involve not only professionals in the field of economic, technological, and political forecasting, but also representatives of relevant fields of activity who are not forecasters or managers.

The absence of a fixed subject turns foresight into a set of prescriptions indicating what and how to do to obtain a particular result, and this allows it to be defined as a social technology (for the definition of social technology, see ^[13]). The product of foresight is knowledge (forecasts), prescriptions (plans, programs), social interactions and connections (acquaintances, collaborations, project groups), and social institutions. Scientific activity, whether research or engineering, is also technological, but the fulfillment of relevant regulations in the case of science requires the presence of certain subjects – specially trained and united within the framework of one social institution. Foresight relies on a fundamentally different approach to the production of knowledge and projects, and it creates the appearance of a universal toolkit that everyone can use to achieve the desired result. However, the experience of global foresight suggests that this activity is initially built as a professional one, or rather, it is designed by specialists as a professional innovation, and the involvement of non-professionals in it is an element of such innovation, and not an example of the use of social technology. To understand how and on what grounds this happens, it is necessary to analyze one of the constitutive ideas of Foresight.

Participation as an organizational principle of foresight activity. One of the essential features of foresight is the implementation of a "participatory approach" in relation to epistemic and activity resources ^{[14, p. 8]}. The term "participation" can be translated in different ways. It seems appropriate to use the word "participation", which is the most general in terms of scope. Other analogues, such as participation or partnership, narrow the meaning of participation, which, in relation to foresight, involves one form or another of involving a wide range of experts on the one hand, and stakeholders on the other, in various activities aimed at the future, such as forecasting, planning, reflection, and design. The word "cooperation" is also not quite appropriate, since it presupposes a parity, and most importantly, an established relationship, whereas participation is only the first step towards cooperation.

The essence of participativeness, or the principle of participation, lies in the imperative of attracting and engaging in specialized activities – that is, activities that differ in certain forms of procedure and require certain training from the subject, knowledge of general norms and specific techniques – those who have not received special training, do not have experience and skills, and are professionally engaged in other fields of activity. but one way or another it is connected with the investigated, predicted, discussed, constructed object.

The development of participation is motivated by two considerations. The first is related to social and managerial tasks, the idea of social transformation, the creation of new social contacts, networks of interaction, institutions. The second is the need to integrate a lot of knowledge, for the most part not objectified, not embodied in any texts or familiar practices, but rigidly related to the so–called personal knowledge - the knowledge that individuals have due to their experience, the specifics of their lives and activities, including cognitive ones. There is a large proportion of this kind of knowledge in the total body of knowledge possessed by those who are usually identified as experts. Experts know what has not yet been objectified, and even what they themselves may not be able to verbalize clearly, at least outside of the procedures of expert analysis of some problems. The more complex the problem, the more complex it is, the less it can be solved with the involvement of a single expert. This is how the practice of collective expertise is formed – first disciplinary, then poly- and interdisciplinary, and finally meta-scientific (transdisciplinary) ^[15].

However, there is nothing new in the disciplinary and interdisciplinary expert practices themselves, something that would require the introduction of a new term. The emergence of the concept of participation is associated with the idea of expanding the membership of those types of activities, the subjectivity of which is rigidly defined. If we are talking about scientific activity, then its individual subject is a scientist, and its collective subject is the scientific community. When predictive research is conducted, its subject is a team of specialists in the field of a specific subject type of forecasting. The principle of participation does not describe similar collective forms of scientific knowledge and scientifically based activities (for example, management), but forms that transform the idea of an agent of cognition and action. Examples of such a transformation include:

• participatory action research in the socio–humanitarian sciences, which presupposes, on the one hand, the involvement of the researcher in the generation of knowledge not as an object, but as a subject of the research process, and on the other hand, the involvement of the researcher in a pragmatic context that makes the knowledge gained practically valuable for the researcher ^[16];

• citizen science, based on the participation of amateur and non-professional scientists in research activities ^[17];

• assessment of scientific and technical projects and innovations (technological assessment), carried out by a wide range of people - scientists, managers, entrepreneurs, representatives of various social groups, religious institutions, etc.;

• development of management decisions with the participation of various stakeholders (participatory management) ^[18];

• coalition development of framework conditions or development projects involving a wide range of somehow involved and interested actors (participatory development) ^[19].

In addition, the principle of participation is also implicitly present in:

• the technoscience program for the development of science;

• concepts of the post-academic form of science;

• concepts of transdisciplinary dialogue as a model for developing a collective vision of problems of a meta-scientific nature.

In all these practices and the three mentioned concepts, there is a disconnection of closed scientific and professional societies acting as closed epistemic groups, and the formation of a common epistemic field. This process is most accurately captured in the idea of transdisciplinarity as developed by L.P. Kiyashchenko ^[20]. In the space of transdisciplinarity as a single epistemic space, science is not a single one, but only one of many cognitive instances. A number of problems and tasks can be solved only in this perspective, and we are talking about both pragmatic and ideological tasks, thereby denying the exclusivity of scientific or any other type of knowledge, both as producing unambiguous criteria for the acceptability of a particular solution, and as the main basis of the worldview of modern man..

In a broader activity horizon, transdisciplinarity turns into a deliberative strategy of political and managerial processes. Everyone has the right to vote not only because of the primordial equality of rights and freedoms, but also because of the value of their local cognitive and activity capabilities (individual, determined by the specifics of their socio-cultural situation, professional employment, or exceptional personal experience). Everyone sees and can do things that others do not notice and cannot implement. We emphasize that this is not about epistemological pluralism or relativism, nor about the dominant value of local knowledge, but in fact about the "assimilation" of these phenomena by the classical epistemological position, implying such structure-forming concepts as truth and objectivity. This "assimilation" movement is based on the awareness of the fact that the existence of communities – from small social groups to national and finally global – requires overcoming epistemological relativism and the associated and seemingly inevitable locality of any knowledge. This overcoming is not overcoming diversity. On the contrary, it involves working with diversity, but one that does not lead to epistemological relativism. It is possible to maintain diversity only in conditions of constant dialogue and transition from one consensus decision to another. The overall picture of the world turns out to be mosaic, but not in a negative sense. Just as a mosaic conveys the image of a represented object, reality must also appear in the variety of perspectival knowledge possessed by various actors. The fundamental difference from the inlaid image is the stationary nature of the latter and the dynamism of the representation system based on the integration of various epistemic perspectives. This dynamism is associated not only with the constant updating of each piece of the mosaic due to its own development, but also due to the interaction of all the pieces with each other.

The formation of a broad epistemic space results in a closer intertwining of cognitive and activity-transformative attitudes, which is also reflected in a number of scientific practices, for example, the mentioned participatory research, and concepts of scientific development. This is due to the fact that, for example, everyday knowledge is more rooted and embedded in a set of practical needs. The principle of participation can, so to speak, be expanded in a different direction and we can no longer talk about the participation of other subjects in scientific, in particular, forecasting or planning and project activities, but about the more active participation of science in the life of society.

Let's summarize the analysis of the content and functionality of the participation principle.: This principle responds, on the one hand, to epistemological, on the other – to social challenges caused by the development of society – an increase in the general level of education, humanity and social participation, which in turn is based on the increasing accessibility of epistemic and social resources to the general population. In the new realities, many classic strategies of social action, including management, engineering, and research patterns, are no longer working. Foresight, based on the principle of participation, acts as a comprehensive response to these transformations in one of the areas of social cognition and action – the field of foreseeing and constructing the future. Given this genesis of foresight, defining it solely as a social technology means simplifying reality, ignoring the systemic socio-epistemic nature of foresight as a product of the development of the knowledge society.

Implementation of the participation principle and the agent structure of foresight. As it was shown in ^[21], most scientific practices embodying the principle of participation (for example, scientific crowdsourcing) do not lead to the effects of partnership between generalized scientists and non-scientists as carriers of specific epistemic competencies. Therefore, it is impossible to talk about the formation of a collective entity that is not identical with the scientific community. But if we turn to generally valid knowledge of a philosophical and practical nature, then the assessment can no longer be so unambiguous, since the formation of such knowledge takes place in the mentioned broad epistemic space, and not through the translation of scientific knowledge, and involves science going beyond its own epistemic boundaries, an attempt to establish contact and points of contact with other types of knowledge. Universally valid knowledge is a necessary foundation for transdisciplinary dialogue. With all the differences in worldviews, it is necessary to have a common field of knowledge.

However, remembering that the worldview and categorical structure of culture influence the norms and ideals of scientific activity, we will find a transfer in the opposite direction. Therefore, in retrospect, a collective entity behind scientific knowledge, but not reducible to the scientific community, can be discovered. Nevertheless, this is clearly not exactly what we mean by an agent of scientific activity. Today, when techno-expertise and scientific policy with public participation act as an interactive channel for such a transfer, the situation is changing somewhat and partly the non-scientist also turns out to be a subject of scientific development. What is the fundamental difference? The fact is that within the framework of techno-expertise, individual or group collectivities are not lost, on the basis of which a broader team is formed.

Foresight as a complex activity that implements both cognitive and project interest in the future is in demand, of course, not only within the framework of the implementation of programs of participatory management and participatory development, as well as techno-expertise of a transdisciplinary type. Foresight can also be interdisciplinary, such that the involvement of non–professional knowledge is built in the traditional way - through sociological surveys ^[22]. Although attention to various social actors turns out to be greater in this case than in traditional socio-economic forecasting, there is no expansion of subjectivity in this case. The principle of participation is fully implemented in the deliberative and interactive forms of foresight (conferences, public hearings, game modeling, etc.).

In foresight studies involving other social actors and their opinions through surveys, questionnaires, etc., the relationship between the respondent's opinion and the final result of the foresight – a forecast or roadmap – is quite indirect. Getting acquainted with this result, the respondent records some coincidences with his own expectations and aspirations, but nothing more. It would seem that when it comes to forecasting, say, the development of the urban environment, there is nothing in such a situation that causes dissatisfaction in the respondent – he does not pretend to know the whole picture. However, today, in conditions of declared democracy and access to socially significant decision-making, openness of information and the presence in the public space of many experts who interpret what may be inaccessible to understanding, each actor involved in them has a "picture of the whole" in relation to social objects. Therefore, a city dweller (educated, socially active and inquisitive) is able to critically evaluate the forecast and express distrust of it. Even more obvious is the possibility of claims in the case of road maps that come not only from cash, but also from desirable things.

Citizens' disagreement with the forecasts or projects received can be ignored only at first glance. Because the realization of a fixed future depends on everyone, at least in the form of paying taxes and supporting the authorities in elections. Undemocratic procedures for forming strategies and development projects can be costly for managers. In addition, as F. shows. Hayek, even with the consent of citizens, a plan or project may be ineffective if the information available to residents is incorrectly taken into account ^[23]. This information may not be transmitted in statistical form due to the fact that the questionnaires are formed by those who do not have experience of living in certain areas and conditions and simply will not ask the respondents the necessary questions. With open–ended questions (such as "list the most important technological innovations that your area/city needs"), there is a problem of interpretation - both by the respondent of the question and by the analyst of the collected answers.

These restrictions are removed within the framework of deliberative forms of foresight implementation. The personal knowledge and points of view of urban residents are not something that does not turn into statistics, but appears authentic. During the discussion, the bearers of local experience become more aware of it and formulate knowledge in a form more suitable for collective use. Thus, foresight forms a multi–agent environment, which will have to work on a picture of the future - in principle possible and most acceptable for all agents. The polyagent structure at the starting point of foresight is also polysubjective. However, the development of a common vision, the integration of knowledge, the coordination of opinions and interests allows us to move from polysubjectivity to collective subjectivity. Its basis is, on the one hand, project identification ^[24], and, on the other, emerging value imperatives.

Conclusion: assessment of the degree and limits of the implementation of the principle of participation in the practice of foresight. So, responding to the problems of social foresight and management of social systems, social science and social practice at the end of the last century moved towards the complication of their tools. This fully corresponds to Ashby's law, according to which management can be effective only if the management system is sufficiently complex (has a sufficient level of diversity) in relation to the complexity of the management object. The principle of participation in this context acts as an activity norm aimed at involving the largest number of epistemic and activity resources in the management process. From this point of view, the methodological diversity of foresight is just one of the manifestations of commitment to this idea – at the level of specific tools. At the same time, such a toolkit includes not only scientific methods, but all possible ways for a person to construct images of the future, and following the expansion of foresight agency beyond science and the professional community, it expands it beyond the boundaries of sound knowledge.

The latter shows that, despite its heuristic nature, the principle of participation as a principle of organizing collective cognitive activity is fraught with the threat of relativization and chaoticization of this process. The same concerns that A.P. Nazaretyan wrote about in relation to Ashby's law can be formulated here: if diversity is an absolute value, then in the field of social it leads to the denial of any regulation of public life ^{[25, p. 225]}. Indeed, ethical and legal norms reduce the level of diversity, and therefore should be considered harmful. The answer to this dilemma can be the principle of hierarchical compensation, or Sedov's law (E.A. Sedov is a Soviet cyberneticist and philosopher), which assumes that diversity is hierarchically distributed in the system and, with high diversity at higher levels, low diversity at lower levels is required and vice versa ^{[26, pp. 119-139]}. It can be said that foresight meets this principle as well: the diversity of points of view on the social future arising from different social and epistemic perspectives should be reduced to a consensus position of collective forecast, plan and social project. Thus, the principle of participation operates at the level of individual and group subjects, whereas at the level of result development – epistemic and activity–based - we are dealing with a reduction in complexity and a less diverse, but operationally more effective result. Such a result, which includes knowledge, attitudes, attitudes, prescriptions, and social arrangements, makes it possible to organize the actions of social agents in such a way as to minimize undesirable states of the social system and maximize desirable ones, i.e. to implement the main management function.

In addition to what has been said, it is worth recognizing that in practice the principle of participation operates on a limited scale. Foresight surveys conducted in different countries (a selection of reports and an analysis of which can be found in Russian in the Foresight magazine) show that it still tends towards either academic or at least professionalized forms, while deliberative forms work as social technologies for adapting society to a rapidly changing environment. social reality. But at the level of the paradigmatic framework and the corresponding discourse, foresight is positioned precisely as one of the examples of the implementation of a participatory approach, which means there is every reason to believe that practice will gradually transform towards the normative ideal.