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JOCM
20,1 The dynamics of narrative and
antenarrative and their relation
to story
74
Maurice Yolles
Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
Received December 2005
Revised March 2006
Accepted March 2006
Abstract
Purpose – The nature of narrative is important, and with the development of awareness of
knowledge processes, it becoming more important. In particular its notions can be enhanced by
examining it in terms of antenarrative. Ultimately the paper aims to explore the relationship between
narrative and antenarrative.
Design/methodology/approach – The objectives of the paper are achieved by seating the notions
of narrative and antenarrative into the models of knowledge cybernetics (in particular social viable
systems – SVS and social cybernetics) to enable an exploration of the consequences of their
interaction. If narrative and antenarrative are seen as together forming an autonomous system, then
their relationship may be explored in terms of SVS. This is effectively a social geometry that enables
complex conceptual relationships to be explored graphically.
Findings – While normally one might think that narrative and antenarrative are incommensurable,
the theory explains how through enantiomer dynamics, patterns of narrative can be related to
un-patterned arbitrary antenarratives. Under the right circumstances narrative and antenarrative can
form a joint alliance that enables the two forms to merge into a story. This means that a story is told in
a way that enables narrative structures to be intermingled with antenarrative thereby forming a
thematic story event that has potential to engage more dynamically with the listener.
Research limitations/implications – The paper is fundamentally theoretical, and a useful
development would be to apply this to real case scenarios, thereby exploring quantitively the
interconnection between narrative and antenarrative, and some of its implications.
Practical implications – It must be realised that there is a tacit knowledge dimension that connects
the narrative/antenarrative situation with a story acquirer. The ability of the acquirer to recognise
whether a situation has narrative or antenarrative is a function of that acquirer’s own pattern of
knowledge, and this embodies subjectivity. This is bound up within the notion of third cybernetics.
The interconnectedness of narrative and antenarrative is relevant to actual processes of social
communication, and demonstrates a parallel coexistence of modernist and postmodernist paradigms.
Originality/value – The paper applies a new theory, that of knowledge cybernetics, to a difficult
conceptual area of study. While this results in the need to understand the conceptual basis of
knowledge cybernetics, it does provide a frame of reference that enables relatively simple approaches
in knowledge and knowledge processes to be graphically represented, thereby providing the potential
for new insights. The value of the paper is that these graphical techniques are illustrated, and they
would likely be useful to those who work in the knowledge or knowledge management field.
Keywords Narratives, Knowledge management, Knowledge processes, Cybernetics,
Communication processes, Storytelling
Paper type Conceptual paper
Journal of Organizational Change
Management
Vol. 20 No. 1, 2007
pp. 74-94 1. Introduction
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0953-4814
Story is defined as an account or recital of an event or a series of events or incidents
DOI 10.1108/09534810710715298 that is either true or fictitious. For Boje (2000) it can be seen as plot comprising causally
related episodes that culminate in a solution to a problem. It was written or imagined The dynamics of
perspectivistically, from the viewpoint of a theoretical or participant observer, and it narrative and
incorporates a coherence that is constructed from a chair of particulars. It is
responsible for the creation of knowledge generation forming a powerful antenarrative
self-reinforcing feedback loop that motivates and directs (Baskin, 2004).
In contrast to story, an anti-story (Boje, 2000) is another story that arises in
opposition to the earlier one. Thus, a story that has a significant impact in a group or 75
organization will give rise to related stories as well as anti-stories. Anti-stories aim at
undermining the original story that can arise to negate of counter stories of official
goodness, or to undermine the original story. The relationship between story and
anti-story constitute an internal dynamic the output of which, nevertheless, emerges
systemically as story.
When stories move to enter the culture of a social collective like an organisation,
they can become dismantled into what Boje (2005b) calls a living-story. Here stories are
fragmented and its shreds are collected together with those from other stories, perhaps
disparately, arbitrarily and spontaneously over time by uncoordinated individuals in
the collective. These shards can become dynamically transformed indirectly through
metaphor[1], or directly as local patterns of knowledge or myth (whether or not false
knowledge), both of which can underpin new perceptions in the social collective. As
Baskin (2004) tells us, mythic knowledge tends to be the deepest most powerful form of
knowledge. It is the paradigms that are bedded on such re-assembled shards that
define the social trajectories, can reinforce perception and misperception, and forge
understandings and misunderstandings. Indeed, explicated messages have a social
impact since they are collected and transformed through the worldviews of the
acquirers that Churchman (1979) calls Weltanschaung. These personal worldviews are
themselves built on the tacit knowledge that come from individual experience, and
sometimes through the knowledge and myth that accumulates through the
interpretation or misinterpretation of other forms of explicit knowledge that have
not been integrated with experience.
Story is related to narrative. The term narrative derives from Latin, but came to the
English language through the French[2]. Its original conception was as or part of a
spoken story, however, as is the want in science the term narrative has more recently
been generalised to take on a meaning that distinguishes it from story. This
generalisation has provided us with a capacity to project the concept of narrative about
a particular subject onto even inanimate objects. As such today narrative provides the
vehicle for story, so that narratology provide for the study by which thinking processes
can be structured to permit stories to emerge. Narratives may occur through textually,
in which a narrative agent tells a story (Bal, 1997, p. 18). Narratives have clear formal
definitions and create causal connections between events that the deliver as story.
Hence, they may be seen as coherent, bounded and self-contained, creating a unity of
space-time-action. Obversely they may be distributed (Walker, 2004) across
space-time-action into fragmentation, suggesting an intimate connection between
distributed narrative and living-story.
The idea of distributed narrative is different from notion of the term antenarretive.
Ante is a prefix that derives from the Latin word exante meaning “beforehand” and
when related to value refers to expectation[3]. While narrative provides a vehicle for
story, for Boje it also comes after and ads “plot” and “coherence” to the story line.
JOCM Hence, used as an adverb, antenarrative is prior to narrative. The other implication of
20,1 antenarrative by Boje relates to expectation or betting in terms of card game or poker
bet, something to do with gambling and speculation. Hence, for Boje (2001)
antenarrative is a speculation that is fragmented, nonlinear, incoherent, collective,
non-deterministic, and pre-narrative. Further, according to Boje (2005a)
“antenarratives are (or can be) collective co-construction of multiple participants,
76 each with a fragment, none with the overarching conception of the story that is
becoming, ravelling and unravelling, picking up contextual elements in some quarters,
dropping some in performances in other areas. It is the picking up and dropping of
context, that makes the in situ performances of antenarrative trajectories
transformative, as well as giving them their endemic role in complexity”.
Antenarrative is what Boje calls improper storytelling, a wager from which a proper
narrative can be constituted. Narrative can be seen as a modern concept that is
constituted deterministically rather like story, while at the same time standing above
or beyond beyond, as metastory. The introduction of the notion of antenarrative by
Boje is a way of dealing with the perceived crisis of narrative method, since it is
constituted as a nonlinear, almost living-storytelling that is fragmented, polyphonic
(many voiced) and collectively produced. The focus of antenarrative methods is on the
analysis of stories that are too unconstructed and fragmented to be analysed in
traditional approaches.
Boje (2005a) is also interested in the “improper” aspects to story, as Gabriel (2000,
pp. 20-5) posits them. Gabriel maintains the notion that proper stories are coherent,
which for Boje creates a narrative-prison – a way to avoid studying stories narrative
theory says are improper. It is the improper stories that are caught up in complexity
dynamics of organizations. Boje continues by referring to Bakhtin’s heteroglossia, in
which there are two opposing storying forces. One is centrifugal operating with an
outward directed force of story delivery (e.g. antenarration or improper storying) and
the other is centripetal with an inward directed force of story delivery (proper
storying). These can be related, according to Boje (2005a) to Maruyama’s (1968) work
in second cybernetics concerned with “observing systems” and their subjectivity, and
in particular which discusses processes of deviation and amplification by mutual
causality.
There is another way of describing the connection between narrative and
antenarrative. Narrative may be seen as a deterministically constituted structured
expression of a thematic story about an event or set of connected events. If
antenarrative is pre-narrative, then it may develop into narrative through the use of
patterning processes given that a set of events can be conceptualised and related. In
this case the patterning process is concerned with the creation of relationships and
connections between conceived entities that constitute patterns. A development on this
idea comes from Dubois’s constructivist notion third cybernetics (Yolles and Dubois,
2001) that come from the notion that the observed system and the observing systems
together form another system from which a new relativistic interactive worldview
arises that is arises from self-observing viewers that have self-observed worldviews. It
is this idea of third cybernetics that will be used to formulate a deeper connection
between narrative and antenarrative in due course and that will become a central tenet
in this paper.
 A further distinction between narrative and antenarrative is that the former can be The dynamics of
thought of as a “predefined patterned structure” that relates to story and which we can narrative and
refer to as a pre-pattern, while the latter has some “arbitrary structure”. By arbitrary is
meant: uncertain; random; accidental; discretionary; outside of central relevance to the antenarrative
methodology, law or principle, therefore, accepting of individual choice and
subjectivity. We can say that antenarrative is, therefore, un-patterned, and obverse
to the pre-pattern. However, it may not only be pre-narrative for some (subjective) 77
listeners. There may be an unexpressed or hidden narrative source from which any
arbitrariness appears to arise as a “pattern of chaos” that is constituted as deep
structure at some focus of examination away from the local detail, but this structure
needs to be seen, recognised and understood – which is a function of an inquirers
knowledge and perspective. Boje (2005a) points to Czarniawska (2004) as positing a
“petrification process” to narrative, which means that it becomes more petrified over
time, thereby inducing more dispersive antenarration.
In this way antenarrative may be post-narrative too, with deep structure constituted
through narrative metastory defined at some inaccessible horizon of meanings not
possessed by the viewer of the story. For Boje (2005a) the deterministic element is the
linear cohesion necessity put on by narrative as well as by people’s need for narrative
coherence, to see a fragment embedded into a whole storyline.
The relationship between narrative and antenarrative can be tied to developments
in philosophy, in particular the rise or modernism and its eventual replacement by
post-modernism. Modernism is connected to the end of a cultural period in the West
that many refer to as “enlightenment”. It was this was a widespread intellectual,
cultural, scientific and technological movement that began in the early seventeenth
century in England, and ended at the close of the eighteenth century in France and
Germany (Munslow, 1997). It was characterized by its acceptance of new concepts like
positivism, experimentation in science, and reason and rationality. It was also the
period in which the notion of the progress and the capacity for human perfectibility
were defined. Notably, it coincided with mechanistic thinking that was the cornerstone
of the industrial revolution, so much criticised by systems thinkers over recent decades
(Koestler, 1967). Modernism followed enlightenment as a nineteenth and twentieth
century Western phenomenon that marked an entry into post-industrial society.
Following Lyotard (1984), modernists are interested in all-encompassing worldviews
modernists are interested in all-encompassing worldviews (liberal democracy,
capitalism, Marxism, feminism, humanism) and maintain an absolute faith in
science. The modernist sees that language interprets, reflects and represents some
objective external reality. They classify, and in so doing make attempts at creating
meta-narratives that in some cases may be associated with typological reductionism
(and its association with the dominant role of neopositivism as a professional ideology
of academic communities). Having said this, it should be realised that today there is an
institutionally dominant role for neopositivism as a professional ideology of academic
communities.
Foucault has rejected[4] such narratives because he found that modernism does not
provide the possibility of uncovering within history what is deemed to be essential.
This view is also embedded in that of Lyotard (1984) who rejects totalising grand
narratives and is skeptical of theories that speak in grand generalities with
universalised conclusions, and so we have the postmodernists, who reject the
JOCM ideologies of modernity as totalising meta-narratives that anticipate all questions and
20,1 provide pre-determined answers (Pepa, 2004). They further assume that the knowledge
required to formulate such meta-narratives is impossible to attain and thus do not seek
to establish any alternative epistemologies of their own. The postmodernists also
rather seek to delegitimate mastercodes, exclude grand narratives, and bring about a
new era of epistemological relativism. In rejecting the philosophy of modernity, the
78 postmodernists also reject the idea that objective truth can exist outside of human
understanding and interpretation. Many postmodern critics see the human
comprehension of reality only within linguistic structures. Postmodernists believe
that the lifeworld is entirely dependent upon language and that all experience and
comprehension of social reality is a product of linguistic and textual practices.
Postmodernists also seek paralogy (Rathbone, 2004), in which the paradigmatic
pluralist looks for patterns of relationships (through epistemological relativity) that
occur across the plurality of paradigms being associated together.
This brings us to the realisation that the distinction between narrative and
antenarrative is closely tied to the relationship between modernism and
postmodernism. We shall return to this shortly. In addition, for Boje (2000) the
narrative-antenarrative interaction is consistent with the basic opposition between
coherence and incoherence that results in living-story. This basic and direct interactive
relationship (as opposed to indirect interactions from other aspects of story) can
be modelled as an autonomous system, and will in due course provide the basis for the
development of a dynamic that can be constituted systemically.
There is a distinction between systematics and systemics. Boje (2000), when he
quotes Pondy and Mitroff (1979), Pondy (1978), refers to the incapacity of systems as
defined by Boulding of attending to “self-awareness” or “use of language”. It is because
of this lack of access to self-awarenss that for Boje the trajectory of a living-story arises
from an antenarrative social systematicity that is defined according to particular
collective dynamics. Interestingly, the notion of systematicity is consistent with positive
modernity, where events were seen as linearly causal have an expectation that could be
associated with the progression of systematic events. This adoption of systematicity is,
however, unnecessary. This is because a much broader-based approach to systems has
developed since the time of Pondy which we shall explain now.
Beer (1979) was interested in how social communities were able to survive, realising
that regulation was central to this. Prior to Habermas (1987) and Luhmann (1995), he
recognised the need for social communications. He was guided by Whitehead and
Russell’s (1910) formal logic of systems and Gödel’s (1931) incompleteness theorem
that illustrated the limitations of language within a given system. His interest in this
limitation led him to the development of a new cybernetic paradigm with clear
practical application for the management of coherent social communities, seen as
operational systems serviced through control and communications. The control
emanated from a metasystem that communicated internally through a metalanguage.
While the logical systems theory that Beer admired explored systems through the use
of metasystems, his interests were very much centred on applied science. The paradigm
that he developed created an ontological dichotomy defined in terms of the system and
metasystem. The term dichotomy was not one normally used by Beer, but in fact it is
rather harmless because it means a “division into two”[5] that can be argued here to
represent two ontological species of a given generic entity. The generic entity may be
seen as a self-organising body and its ontological species are the system and The dynamics of
metasystem that interact as an intimate ontological couple. That is, they each have narrative and
validity claims about reality that operate in a way that mutually relate: one validity
claim to reality is manifested in the other relative to its validity claim to reality. Hence, antenarrative
a thought in the metasystem may be manifested differently in different systems.
An elaboration of this approach resulted in the development of a new Viable
systems theory by Schwarz (1997), in which autonomous systems, which had a 79
metasystem and were viable in that they could be sustained in one way or another,
could be considered to self-aware, self-directing, self-organising, and self producing. A
consequence of this theory was the development by Yolles (2006) of SVS theory. In this
paper our intention is to develop the basis for this theory, and explain how it can be
used to explore the dynamics between narrative and antenarrative.

2. Social viable systems

Philosophic perspectives operate at the bottom of all paradigms, and are best explored
through an examination of ontology and epistemology. In the philosophy of science
there is a concern with questions of how scientific research should be conducted, given
an understanding of the nature of knowledge. As such those involved in philosophical
tasks and issues seek to explore the relation between ontology, epistemology and
methodology. Ontology is the study of being or existence that according to Weber
(2003) (who appears to be referring to Cocchiarella, 1991) may also be defined as a
matter of argumented systematisation about the nature of reality. There is another way
of seeing ontology (inferred from Poli, 2001), as a form of geometry, rather after the
notions developed by Reiman. Here we consider that one function of ontology is to
define a frame of reference that topologically distinguishes between arbitrarily defined
distinct modes of being through the creation of a referencing system. This can provide
for the creation of a geometry through which component properties and relationships
can be relatively simply expressed through the creation of a common referencing
system. As such geometry can arise through which component properties and
relationships can be expressed.
In contrast to ontology, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that is concerned
with the nature, structure, origin, limitations of knowledge. It deals with a number of
related problems, like sense perception, the relation between the knower and the object
known, the possible kinds of knowledge and the degrees of certainty for each kind of
knowledge, the nature of truth, and the nature of and justification for inferences. It also
refers to the assumptions about knowledge and how it can be obtained (Hirschheim,
1992). Knowledge is intimately connected with meaning, and so epistemology can also
cover considerations of the semantic fields that result from patterns of knowledge.
Methodology is concerned with ways by which reality and knowledge in given
situations can be studied, and it is interactive with ontology and epistemology. This is
because the assumptions that underpin ontology and epistemology determine
assumptions about methodology[6].
It is therefore, useful to explore both the ontology and epistemology of any inquiry
approach, and this is particularly the case where philosophically distinct paradigms ae
to be related. Our approach is to adopt viable systems as one cornerstone approach in
doing this. A viable system is a notion identified by Beer (1979) as one that can be seen
to be self-dependent, and thus take on an independent existence. For him a system can
JOCM be viewed as a set of hierarchies that together form a complex whole. The viability of
20,1 such a whole can be defined in terms of the viability of each hierarchical focus within it
that constitutes the system as a whole. These hierarchies may be most aptly seen as
subsidiary wholes that are embedded recursively or fractally (using the notion of
complexity theory – see Yolles, 1999) within the whole. The notion is consistent with
the idea of the Russian doll with its reducing inner duplicates, or the Chinese notion of
80 the magic box-within-box.
Viable systems theory as proposed originally by Schwarz (1997) is an ontological
approach that proposes that adaptive autonomous systems have associated with them
not only a phenomenal domain in which structures and behaviours occur, but also a
virtual and existential domain. An example of the formal cybernetic ontological
relationship between the three domains is provided in Figure 1 (Yolles, 2004). Its
metaphor differentiates between three domains of reality, that of phenomena (the
thing), noumena (the mind) and existence (being), and we shall come back to these

Thinking and being: whole, knowledge

self-reference

Existential Domain
self-creation
(Strategic management)
(autogenesis)

Logical networks: relations, information

self-regulation and
homeostasis/morphostasis

Noumenal Domain

(Operative self-production
management) (autopoiesis)

System structures: objects, energy

self-organisation
Morphogenesis/automorphosis

Phenomenal Domain
Figure 1.
Symbolic ontological
relationship between the
ontological relation
three domains of viable
system theory
Source: Yolles (1999)
notions shortly. The idea of operative management derives from Schwaninger (2001). It The dynamics of
is also a form of operative politics, and can be directly related to the autopoietic narrative and
processes. Autopoiesis enables images held in the virtual domain by an autonomous
actor to phenomenally self-produce, i.e. give their images a structured related antenarrative
behavioural status. Autogenesis is a second order form of autopoiesis, and gives the
latter guidance through the creation of principles. These ideas are explored more
deeply in Yolles (1999) and Yolles and Guo (2003). 81
Schwarz (2001) provides a modelling approach that can explain why chaotic events
should not just be seen as temporary accidental fluctuations that occur in our complex
social systems, but are rather caused by the inadequacy of our worldview and our
methods to manage complex situations. He argues that explicative frameworks like
religious or political ideologies are not pertinent tools to understand these
developments, and mono-disciplines like economic science, sociology, psychology,
anthropology, etc. are unable to apprehend hybrid systems. A linguistic framework
that comes from a suitable coherent model is needed that is able to describe and
interpret complex situations that are part of more or less autonomous complex
systems. He argues that various theoretical developments have occurred to address
such approaches, including general systems theory, nonlinear dynamics (chaos
theory), complex adaptive systems research, cellular autonomata, recursive and
hyperincursive systems, and artificial life. The frame of reference developed by
Schwarz is intended to interpret complex systems with more or less autonomy or
operational closure (like self-organisation), and possessed of other related facets as
self-regulation, self-production, and self-reference.
The approach adopted here is one that comes out of the “complexity systems” stable
for which cybernetic principles, as discussed for instance by Beer (1959, 1966), are
important. In complex systems there is a special feature that Beer uses centrally to his
work: recursion. Following Espejo (1997) autonomous organisations handle the
complexity they create by establishing a social space within which social
subsystems exist autonomously and thrive. He refers to this as recursion, where an
autonomous organisation may be expressed in terms of recursively embedded
autonomous organisations. However, this may equivalently[8] be expressed in terms of
fractal patterns: where a self-similar system looks approximately like itself at different
levels of inspection (Mandelbrot, 1982). The organisation then has the potential to fulfil
the purposes of the whole system through those of its fractal parts, and this contributes
to the development of cohesion. Espejo goes on to explain that organisational
complexity cannot be managed by assuming there is a unitary purpose. Language and
methodology are required that enable people to understand how cohesion can be
produced around the very different purposes existing among individuals and groups
within the organisation. These need to offer a means of creating structures within
which organisational actors can self-construct behavioural processes that allow them
to perform their own actions, while at the same time creating cohesion between
autonomous units in working towards an agreed purpose for the larger organisation.
Recursion is a fundamental feature of both of the two formal theories that we shall
introduce here. SVS theory is an approach that is able to graphically explain how
systems survive and change. It is based on the theory of self-determining autonomous
systems devised by Schwarz (1997). This form of viable systems theory explored the
mechanisms and opportunities by which autonomous systems were able to survive
JOCM and change. The metaphor of this approach not only distinguishes between being
20,1 (existence), mind (noumenon) and thing (phenomenon), but it also considered that the
thing has a particular nature that is fundamentally systemic. The system is an idea
that enables a collection of related things to be seen as an integrated assembly, as a
whole, that is more than the separate things that compose the phenomenal domain of
interest.
82 The autonomous system that we are talking about can be more simply shown as in
Figure 2, referred to as the SVS model. We can briefly explore the three domains that
can be related to ontological contexts. Normally, people talk only of existential and
phenomenal context. A historical view of the existent comes from Kant, for whom
knowledge was seen to arise through a dualism that derives from the interrelationship
between a knower and an object. While these are separated from each other, a partial
fusion or synthesis develops between them. When it arrived, the supporters of
phenomenology dropped the notion of knowledge fusion or synthesis. Rather, it was
seen that the parts of knowledge come together through intentionality[9] to create a
whole. The whole is constituted within the field of shared human existence or
Dasein[10]. It is also maintained in phenomenology that access to reality is mediated
through consciousness and its attendant capacity for understanding. For many,
understanding comes from knowledge, and knowledge is acquired from the experience
of phenomenal reality. There is an inferred relationship between the existent and the
phenomenal that has importance to modern systems. Consider that a global
phenomenon is defined by a set of local objects of attention in durable interaction,
and perceived through an existent conscious conceptualisation. If the assembly can be
assigned an existential identity that can also be associated with a global intentionality,
and that makes it distinct from the local objects that compose it, then the global
phenomenon has been identified as an emergent whole.
In addition to the existential and phenomenal contexts holon that we have referred
to, we can identify another, the noumenal. Its antecedent is the notion that truth about
reality can be deduced with absolute certainty from our innate ideas, a notion prevalent
in the seventeenth century through thinkers like Frances Bacon and Réne Descartes.
Kant in the eighteenth century considered that these innate ideas were constructed by
minds in what he called the noumenal realm. Within these contexts, the notion of the
noumenon can seen as a consummate universal visualization of reality. Such absolute
idealism provided entry into the constructivist frame of reference, and enables us here
to propose the notion of global (or as a logical subset of this, local) noumena.

Autogenesis Autopoiesis
(self-production of (self-production through a
principles that derive network of processes, such as
from knowledge) operative processes)

Existential /Cognitive Phenomenal domain

Noumenal domain
domain Images and Phenomenal structures
Paradigm(s) and models and operations
knowledge(s)
Figure 2.
An autonomous holon
expressed as the SVS Autogenesis: feedback Autopoiesis: feedback
model adjusting the guiding adjusting network of
principles for autopoiesis processes
Global noumena are constituted by virtual ideates. An ideate is constituted as a system The dynamics of
of thought expressible as logical or rational structures that may be formulated as, or narrative and
associated with, sets of often relatable but not necessarily coordinated images. Ideates
are formulated demiurgically by social collectives, which construct them with intention antenarrative
over time and through the influence of social factors (like culture, politics, ideology,
ethics, social structures and economics), in an attempt to “overcome chaos” and create
conceptual order. Since, each social collective produces its own global noumenon 83
which, like the collectives with their relatively distinct cultures and ways of thinking,
they are necessarily inconsummate relative to each other.
Each domain may host a singular system or plurality of related type system.
Behavioural systems are hosted in the phenomenal domain, virtual systems in the
noumenal domain, and metasystems in the existential domain. The three domains in
their pattern of interaction are together referred to as an autonomous holon that
metaphorically describe social agents (Yolles and Guo, 2003). The holon is recursive in
nature, and where the phenomenal domain applies to individual and social behaviour,
the three domains can be assigned properties. Autopoiesis fundamentally enables
images of a virtual domain to be manifested phenomenally through self-producing
networks of processes. Autogenesis enables principles to be generated that guide the
development of the system.
The formulation in Figure 3 constitutes the ontological basis for SVS theory, and it
can be used recursively. An illustration of this plurality can be created if we explore a
constructivist approach to scientific enquiry (though there is no space to show this
here), using Frieden’s (1998, 2004) idea of the creative observer, the inquirer whose
worldview influences the way that information is acquired. It can also be related to the
notion of structural coupling that occurs for structure-determined/determining
engagement in an interactive family of systems. According to Maturana and Varela
(1987, p. 75) the engagement creates a history of recurrent interactions that leads to the
structural congruence between the systems, and leads to a spatio-temporal coincidence
between the changes that occur (Maturana, 1975, p. 321).

3. Enantiomer dynamics in social viable systems

In developing the ontological principles to be used and its epistemological trappings,
SVS was applied to a number of areas, all of which contributed towards the
development of a frame of reference the epistemological dimensions (Table I) of which

Autogenesis and thematic Autopoiesis and manifestation

principles of governance of task-related behaviour
guiding self-production Type 21 through a network of self-
Type 11
produced processes

Existential domain Noumenal domain

Knowledge that System of thought to create
underpins story
through
Ideational/Sensate
enantiomers
Autogenesis and
regeneration of evaluative
perceived experience
story delivery through
Antenarrative/Narrative
(Patterner/Dramatist)
enatiomers
Type 22
Phenomenal domain
Storytelling through
Fundamentalist/Pragmatist
enantiomers
Figure 3.
Autopoiesis and impact Ontological distribution of
of phenomenal the enantiomic opposites
experience on system
in SVS
Type 12 of thinking
JOCM
Knowledge type Knowledge type enantiomer
20,1
Executors Fundamentalism Pragmatism
Supports the ability to carry out Behaviour conforms to some Behaviour reflects the demands
or perform activities fundamental prescription of circumstance. They create
independent of circumstance. It meaning through context, to the
84 is useful where conformity is detriment of rules and
essential regularities
Elaborators Patterner Dramatist
Supports both elaborators (who Persistent curiosity about the Interested in sequences of
understand how to deal with the object world and how it works, is interpersonal events, having
relationships between cultural constructed, and is named, dramatic or narrative structures
attributes) and planners (who varied or explored. It is that are likely to involve
through their understanding of connected to problems of distinction (e.g. the distinction of
cultural attributes and its symmetry, pattern, balance, and scenes or chapters), and
patterns of knowledge are able the dynamics of physical undertaking effective
to determine possible relationships between entities, communications
trajectories for action) and is likely to indicate relative
connection
Identifiers Ideationalist Sensatist
Table I. Supports the creation or Centres on conceptual imaging To do with the senses. Able to
Adaptation of the translation of ideas and constituting knowledge. Good at develop or engineer existing
theories of Sorokin (1942) concepts; its members are able to acquiring or creating ideas for material
and Shotwell et al. (1980), accommodate the knowledge knowledge. No know-how to implementation. Good concept
defining generic domains develop them for material translator. Cannot generate new
for SVS implementation ideas or concepts

constitute knowledge cybernetics. The first development towards this came by

exploring Sorokin’s (1942) theory of socio-cultural dynamics. This creates an
enantiomer dynamic in which two cultural forces are perceived to exist that intimately
interact and affect each other in a way similar to the interconnection between the
Chinese notions of yin and yang, and they lie in the existential domain and are referred
to as identifier forces. The details of this dichotomous relationship for the existential
domain can be found in Yolles and Frieden (2005), and in Yolles (2006). Another
explanation for a set of dichotomous “elaborator” forces that are concerned with virtual
structures like image and story was developed Shotwell et al. (1980). Their interest lay
in exploring how children imagine and play, and they created an enantiomic theory to
explain this. Their empirically validated classifications of dramatists and patterners
provide a useful elaborator dimension for SVS. Finally, the executor attribute was
distinguished into the attributes of fundamentalism and pragmatism. The celebration
of pragmatism arises from the ideas of James (1904, 1907). Like pragmatism,
fundamentalism defines an agent’s behavioural direction, and can be defined as
practises based on a rigid adherence to some traditional doctrine[7], or an adherence to
a prescriptive idea or set of principles, and being motivated by theory to which it
adheres strictly. For Graham (2004, 2005) the fundamentalist’s direction (which he
refers to as proper aim) is called intuitionism – a condition in which there is conformity
to a priori knowledge that enables truth to emerge when engaged with epistemic
principles. The relationship between the three sets of dichotomous forces is provided in
Figure 3. This relationship also distinguishes between the knowledge in the existential
domain (that enables story to be created), the virtual ideate structured visualization The dynamics of
that enables story to be created and delivered, and the whole phenomenal process of narrative and
storytelling. The ideateational/sensate enantiomer determines whether he knowledge
based fabric of a story is conceptually rich (ideational), or just well defined in it is antenarrative
sensate utility. This is consistent with, for instance, the distinction between a story that
is rich in human detail and events with a meandering but full content, and an action
adventure that has little substance. The structured visualization can be expressed as 85
either antenarrative or narrative, depending whether a modernistic or post-modernistic
perspective is being embraced. The connection between this and storytelling is very
close, and requires a set of self-produced processes that enables ante/narrative to be
expressed as storytelling. In the case that it is antenarrative that drives the storytelling
process, then the storytelling itself is constituted as a post-modern life story. However,
when the virtual process is narrative, then the set of autopoietic processes enables a
modernistic storytelling communication to arise. The relationship between the virtual
and phenomenal domains is constrained by autogenesis, in which the knowledge that
drives the story and its ante/narration conditions the way in which it is manifested as
storytelling. Problems can occur in this manifestation process between the different
domains in the autonomous storytelling system. Connection breaks can occur between
the various domains which can lead to pathologies in storytelling capacity that can
disengage it from the story and the ante/narrative.
Before we explore this further, it may be said that the theses that underpins our
model is to perceive the storytelling process as a system that is driven autonomous
though those involved. It involves the subjective story teller, but at this stage we are
not interested in complicating the model to this extent. The autonomous system arises
through knowledge, is formulated through the interconnection between antenarrative
and narrative, and results in delivered structures of (storytelling) social
communication. The specific connection between antenarrative and narrative occurs
through a set of processes called autopoiesis. In this the virtual system
takes antenarrative and self-produces narrative through a set of processes that
eliminates doubt, establishes firm structure, and formulates a deterministic trajectory.
While narrative may or may not result in a cohesive formulation, it is much more solid
than the prior antenarrative, and constitutes a vision that may or may not be more
connected with the imagination of the story teller than the information from which it
arises. It may, therefore, be as much associated with myth as with knowledge.
The figure shows the enantiomic interactions that are possible in any autonomous
human activity system. Fundamentally, this schema provides the generic frame of
reference from which the exploration of a whole variety of complex human and social
situations can occur, and which can enable the possibility of relational connections
between varieties of apparently disparate models. In the next section we shall briefly
outline some of the applications of this SVS metamodel. In particular, it should be
recalled that each of the domains maintain their cognitive properties at the social level
of interaction, for which Table I was constructed. While the basic epistemological
domain properties are always maintained, when the SVS model is recursively applied
the content nature of the must be re-interpreted to provide adjusted meanings. The
nature of this re-interpretation occurs because the domains are now seen as
sub-contexts of the (supra-domain) context in which it resides. The basic theory that
outlines this is provided in Yolles (2006).
JOCM Let us now move on to the exploration of story telling system pathology. The first of
20,1 the types of pathology (type 11 and 12) that we shall refer to occur when autopoiesis is
blocked, and this can result in disassociative behaviour that has little reference to
ante/narrative. When this occurs, storytelling behaviour may be influenced directly by
the living-story or story knowledge and unconstrained by ante/narrative. The second
type of pathology (including type 21 and 22) that can occur is when autogenesis is
86 blocked, so that normative story coherence cannot develop within the cultural fabric of
the social actor, in part because learning to improve the telling of the story is not
possible. This has major implication for the way in which patterns of storytelling
behaviour become manifested. When type 1 and 2 pathologies occur together,
storytelling behaviour is purely responsive and determined from structural capacities
rather than knowledge or ante/narrative. Table II suggests the composite possibilities
that can arise with the combination of different ontological pathology.
We have discussed the relationship between story and narrative, and living-story
and antenarrative. The relationship can be made much more graphic using SVS
recursion capabilities. Figure 4 shows the relationship between living-story and

Pathology
type Nature

1 (11 and Can result in disassociative storytelling behaviour that has little reference to ideate
12) ante/narrative images. When this occurs, behaviour may be influenced directly by
knowledge but this may not be useful to the story telling process. Type 11 relates to
phenomenal image projection, while type 12 to an ability to have a feedback affect
2 (21 and No changes in the normative coherence can develop within the cultural fabric of the social
22) actor. In type 21 existing knowledge cannot have an impact on the autopoietic loop, while
in type 22 learning to improve the storytelling is not possible. This has major implication
for the way in which patterns of behaviour become manifested
Associative type combinations
T11 T12 T21
T12 No phenomenal image
projection or feedback
resulting in direct link to
existential domain. Hence,
storytelling occurs without
reference to ante/narrative
T21 No knowledge No feedback resulting in
development/learning and regeneration of ideate image,
no phenomenal image and no learning process
projection for ante/narration. development in
Feedback from an audience ante/narration
cannot be responded to in
connection with the story
telling process
Table II. T22 No phenomenal image No regeneration of ideate No influence of knowledge
Types of ontological projection from image from ante/narration or knowledge development
pathology, and possible ante/narration, and no through experience, and no (i.e. no learning or reflection).
associative relationships possibility of coherence evaluative process deriving Image and phenomenal
between type through learning capacity from experience image projection cannot
combinations develop
 Nounemal Domain
The dynamics of
Autogenesis and
The ideate
Autopoiesis and production
narrative and
production of of processes to manifest antenarrative
meaningful coordinated images and/or
principles for the system of thought
ideate

Noumenal domain
87
Living story as perhaps Phenomenal domain
Existential domain uintegrated system of Residence of antenarrative
Elaboration thought and/or images & models that structure living
knowledge logically structured
story.
ideas.
Residence of patterning

Autopoiesis and regeneration of Figure 4.

Autogenesis and creation of new
coordinated images and/or Distinguishing
elaboration knowledge
system of thought living-story from
antenarrative

antenarrative, while in Figure 5 the connection between story and narrative is also
provided. Both story and living-story are predicated on the social knowledge that is
held by a story telling system.
The specific connection between antenarrative and narrative is expressed in
Figure 6. Here, antenarrative is a virtual component of the systems in which a
patterned un-integrated system of thought and/or images and logically structured
ideas exists, and it uses incomplete information within a fragmented knowledge
process created through living-story. Narrative, on the other hand, consists of dramatic
pre-structured visualisations of event sequences or systems that can perhaps create
unfulfilled expectations. These expectations can be constituted as story by projecting
the narrative phenomenally through storytelling. Since, ante/narrative are both virtual

Nounemal Domain
The ideate
Autogenesis and Autopoiesis and production
production of of processes to manifest
meaningful coordinated images and/or
principles for the system of thought
ideate

Noumenal domain
Story as perhaps
Existential domain integrated system of Phenomenal domain
Elaboration thought and/or images & Residence of narrative models
logically structured that structures story.
knowledge ideas.
Residence of
dramatising

Autopoiesis and regeneration of

Autogenesis and creation of new
coordinated images and/or Figure 5.
elaboration knowledge
system of thought Distinguishing story from
narrative
JOCM Nounemal Domain
20,1 Autogenesis and
The ideate
Autopoiesis and production
production of of processes to manifest
meaningful coordinated images and/or
principles for the pattern/system of thought
ideate
88 Noumenal domain
Patterned unintegrated system
Phenomenal domain
Dramatic pre-structured
visualisations of event sequences
Existential domain of thought and/or images &
that create perhaps unfulfilled
logically structured ideas
Storybook expectations constituted as story
using incomplete information
elaboration and which can be phenomenally
constituted as living story.
knowledge projected as storytelling, and
Residence of antenarrative
Figure 6. facilitate communications.
Adverbial relationship Residence of narrative
between narrative and
antenarrative, the former Autopoiesis and regeneration of
constituting storytelling Autogenesis and creation of new
coordinated images and/or
and the latter “improper elaboration knowledge
pattern/system of thought
storytelling”

structures, they constitute part of the virtual domain. As enantiomers they constitute a
dichotomous interactive forces associated with the dynamic of storytelling, then it is
feasible that they can be associated with patterning and dramatising in some way.
Actually, all the arguments to do this are already in place, and we shall just elaborate
briefly about the connection between ante/narrative and the SVS enantiomer forces.
The virtual or noumenal domain is constituted by a pair of enantiomers called
patterning and dramatising. These can be expressed principally as the distinction
between relationships (that occur as antenarrative) and narrative. Patterning is
primarily concerned with patterning processes and relationships that enable
phenomenal (storytelling) structures to develop and change dynamically, with an
orientation towards connections and interconnections. Dramatising, however, is
concerned with dramatic and/or narrative structures, with an orientation to distinction
within the components of the storytelling process.
Under certain circumstance it is possible for narrative and antenarrative to become
interactive when an appropriate storytelling system materializes, causing conflict.
This can be a problem, for instance, when a living story comes into conflict with and
anti-story. This situation is represented in Figure 7, and is expressed in terms of the
relationship between patterning and dramatic storytelling processes.
Under very special circumstances, this relationship can be balanced (Figure 8), thus
enabling a storytelling process to emerge that links both modernistic and
post-modernistic knowledge. This may be best exemplified when a storytelling
process gets partitioned into blocks of process, enabling it to jump from one form to
another. This is equivalent to modernism and postmodernism coming together in a
joint alliance, which one might think constitutes a contradiction in terms. Thus,
storytelling is either narrative or it is antenarrative in nature depending upon whether
one is dealing with story or living-story.
Earlier it was noted that antenarrative may be either pre-narrative or post-narrative,
with deep structure constituted through narrative metastory defined at some
inaccessible horizon of meanings. There is an explanation for this that connects with
 Structural coupling between living-story and
Structural coupling between narrative and
antenarrative
The dynamics of
Autogenesis principles
story.
Autogenesis:
Autopoiesis: network of political process to narrative and
produce autonomous patterns of storytelling
of governance from
modern storyline
individual principles
of governance from
behaviour; it may involve the elaboration of antenarrative
contested difference with other agents like
post-modern storyline anti-story
Interactive
suprasystem
Virtual system 89
Metasystem Unintegrated images or
system of thought
Post-modernist antenarrative Patterning
knowledge in living-
storytelling
story Noumenal domain Structural
coupling with
common
Existential domain Phenomenal domain interests that
override
conflict
behaviour
Metasystem Dramatising between
Virtual system patterning and
Modernist knowledge storytelling
Normally integrated dramtisning
of story
system of thought storytelling,
having past and Figure 7.
future history. Interaction between a
These interest
may facilitate patterning storytelling
Autogenesis Autopoiesis and regeneration of or constrain the process and a dramatic
networks of rational/ conflict
Evolving principles of
appreciative system processes
one
governance

Structural coupling between balanced living Structural coupling between a common

story and common balance between story and balanced ante/narrative and antenarrative
living-story.
Autogenesis: balanced Autogenesis: Autopoiesis: network of political process to
principles of individual principles produce autonomous patterns of storytelling
governance from of governance from behaviour; it may involve the elaboration of
storyline storyline contested difference with other agents, due
to distinct images
Interactive
suprasystem
Virtual system
Unintegrated images or
Metasystem system of thought
Post-modernist antenarrative Patterning
knowledge in living-
storytelling Structural
story
Noumenal domain coupling with
common
Existential domain Phenomenal domain interests that
override
conflict
Partitioned behaviour
Metasystem story tellingthat between
Partitioned balance Virtual system links patterning & patterning and
between modernism Partitions of integrated dramatising dramtisning
& post-moderninism & unintegrated system storytelling,
of thought having past and
future history.
These interest
may facilitate
Figure 8.
Autogenesis Autopoiesis and regeneration of or constrain the Formation of joint alliance
Evolving principles of conflict in storytelling process
networks of rational/
governance appreciative system processes

Figure 7. The very existence of this formulation of this figure is a result of a third
cybernetics process (introduced earlier) that fits with a constructivist perspective, and
is thereby is constituted by a variety of perspectives that each derive from worldview
knowledge. Following Yolles (2006), in third cybernetics one should to discuss three
JOCM dimensions of normative perspective that will be needed for a view in storying to be
20,1 agreed on and accepted. Within the constructivist appreciation of storing an analytic
process of examination and apprehension is required that we shall call method, and
that permits narrative and antenarrative to be seen as having come together in a joint
alliance. Two other worldviews are possible, one that is inherent within a story, and
one that extrinsic and the property of the viewers. These three dimensions can be
90 formalized as in Table III.
As an example of the relationship between narrative and antenarrative represented
here, the Bruce Willis film Sixth Sense might be classed as an “alliance” between
narrative and antenarrative for a new viewer. Firstly there is a distinction between the
“storyline” as perceived by the author and that as perceived by the viewer. From the
perspective of the viewer, the time sections appear to be arbitrary; it is only historically
and through reflection that the sequences make narrative sense. Reflection often
provides a means by which semantic profile can be assigned to a situations (a story or
living-story), even where this was not intended by an author. Many viewers of such
films take a heuristic view of what is being observed, but with more complex situations
it may be necessary to apply pre-defined methods or methodologies or open
developmental approaches (life action research) to explore a given situation and its
story/living-story. This coupling illustrates the third cybernetic nature of the
relationship between narrative and antenarrative.
Modern reality TV shows might also classify as antenarrative where a group of
people have been thrown together and the viewers are simply voyeurs. However, the

Worldview Nature

Extrinsic worldview of the This worldview and its associated knowledge

viewer derives from tacit experiences of the viewer. If the
viewer exists as a plural group of individuals, then
the group will be coherent when the plurality of
individual worldviews have been made explicit
(thematised) and normative (objectivated), and thus
formalised into a commonly agreed perspective that
indicates how the group of viewers should
apprehend what has been identified
Intrinsic worldview embedded of It cannot be said that a story has no inbuilt
the story worldview. More, there is the possibility of a
plurality of worldviews that provide an internal or
implicit storying perspective about what is
happening. The situation may be a coherent one with
narrative formulation in a defined group, and in
which a thematised and objectivated perspective has
arisen that is formalised to result in a normative
group process. Mostly there will be a strong
connection between the individual worldviews of
those involved in the situation and the objectivated
Table III. perspective that underpins it, but this is not essential
Formalized dimensions of Worldview that emanates from The methods by which storying is examined and
worldview connected methods for examination and analysed through the worldviews of its stakeholders,
with narrative and analysis of storying which have been thematised, objectivated and thus
antenarrative formalised into an objectivated perspective
type of reality shown which has a contrived treasure hunt involved might be a joint The dynamics of
alliance between narrative and antenarrative since the treasure hunt processes narrative and
overarches the arbitrary interactions. Applying the concept to an object, a shoe may
have narrative since it is pre-patterned. However, a shoe that has been used in the rain antenarrative
and is covered with white patches from that process may be thought of as an alliance
between narrative and antenarrative, if one supposes that the white patches are
arbitrary over the designed shoe. Again similar three way constructions can be 91
attributed to this that constitute third cybernetics.
There may of course be other situations that do not necessarily have an implicit
meaning, but through the use of methods of exploration and analysis that involves
forms of associative projection (Yolles, 2006), narrative or antenarrative
assignments can be made. Thus, scientific theories that arise from observations may
fall into this bracket, from which stories and ante/narratives develop.

4. Conclusion
The development of a theory of narrative that includes the idea of antenarrative has
been created through the use of SVS. While normally one might think that narrative
and antenarrative are incommensurable, the theory explains how through enantiomer
dynamics, patterns of narrative can be related to un-patterned arbitrary
antenarratives. Under the right circumstances narrative and antenarrative can form
a joint alliance that enables the two forms to merge into a story. This means that a
story is told in a way that that enables narrative structures to be intermingled with
antenarrative thereby forming a thematic story event that has potential to engage more
dynamically with the listener.
It must also be realised that there is a tacit knowledge dimension that connects the
narrative/antenarrative situation with a story acquirer. The ability of the acquirer to
recognise whether a situation has narrative or antenarrative is a function of that
acquirer’s own pattern of knowledge, and this embodies subjectivity. This is bound up
within the notion of third cybernetics.

Notes
1. It should be recognised here, following Brown (2003) that metaphor actually plays a very
important role the in creation of knowledge that underpins paradigm.
2. According to http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Narrative accessed September 2005.
3. As defined in http://economics.about.com/cs/economicsglossary/g/ex_ante.htm
4. See for instance http://home.mira.net/ , andy/works/ entitled “Post-Structuralism” and
www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/foucault.htm
5. Webster on-line dictionary
6. According to Joseph (1946) method is any set of rules for dealing with inquiry that instructs
how to set about the task of discovering knowledge. The consideration of such rules, as
distinct from the use of them, is methodology. Methodology however, appears to be used in
two ways: (i) in the abstract as the study of the rules within method that enable the discovery
of knowledge, and (ii) in generalised practical terms of logic applied to a given situation.
Myers (1999) is interested in ontology and epistemology in association with types of method.
By method he means a strategy of inquiry which moves from the underlying philosophical
assumptions to research design and data collection.
7. see http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/fundamentalism
JOCM 8. By this we are recognising that the concepts of recursion and fractal structures are closely
related.
20,1 9. Husserl is responsible for this. See for instance www.husserlpage.com/
10. This is Heidegger philosophy. See for instance www.webcom.com/paf/ereignis.html

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Further reading
Beer, S. (1972), Brain of the Firm, Wiley, Chichester.
Czarniawska, B. (1997), Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity, University
of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Czarniawska, B. (1998), “A narrative approach to organization studies”, Qualitative Research
methods Series, Vol. 43, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Corresponding author
Maurice Yolles can be contacted at: m.yolles@livjm.ac.uk

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