Research

This book is the first that develops a working account of what complexity is and does in the context of public health. To achieve this, we examine the essential tenets of complexity in turn and theorise what it means for genuine complexity to be present. A sharp and precise division between the complex and the merely complicated is drawn, with immense theoretical and practical benefit. Working through examples from public health, we challenge the vagueness that so often besets complexity theories, and move toward positioning complexity as a vital resource in influencing effective policy and practice. A proper understanding of real complexity has never been more urgent for our responses to the public health challenges facing us. Public health problems are not simple, nor even complicated, but involve multiple elements, constantly interacting, changing each other, acting as wholes, producing a novel and somewhat messy reality. An explanation is due of why we should not fight against this complex reality but can instead adapt appropriately to it in the health policies we adopt.

Subversive MetaphysicsHow can a metaphysics be subversive? There is a view that metaphysics has no empirical content so cannot intrude into the spheres of politics and social science. Nevertheless, to argue for the irreducibility of complex wholes is subversive in an intellectual environment that emphasises the primacy of individual units. Individualism is a philosophy that seeks the fracturing of wholes and isolation of components, positioning them as competing against each other instead of acting jointly for a collective benefit. What this analysis shows is that while metaphysics cannot be empirically tested, it can have empirical consequences. Indeed, we all have some underlying metaphysical beliefs and these determine how we approach the world. Here we apply a metaphysics of holism to a host of difficulties that are fed by reductionist thinking, in areas such as the environment, gender, patriarchy and neoliberal economics. We find that much accepted thinking can be subverted by metaphysical challenges and we call for a new radical politics founded on concepts of complexity and emergence. In doing so, we unsettle the very idea that metaphysics cannot be subversive.