Morphogenesis and Social Networks: Relational Steering not Mechanical Feedback

What is the morphogenetic society? Why do we speak of the ‘morphogenesis’ of society? The concept of morphogenesis (MG) in the social sciences can be traced back to organic system theory. This theory became problematic once research showed that social networks cannot be treated as systems. Along the way, the relational nature of MG was revealed ever more clearly. The new perspective is that of moving beyond a mechanical definition of the concepts of variety, selection, positive/negative feedbacks and the stabilization processes that go to realize MG. It is necessary to redefine these concepts from the perspective of a relational paradigm of MG. This chapter tries to explain and understand the production of society as a process of MG that takes place in terms of relational steering, which is characterized by recourse to relational feedbacks that generate emergent social effects. Under many aspects, the incoming morphogenetic society is society that has a ‘relational genome’ run by a many-valued and relationally transjunctive logic.