Exploring Boundaries

Lawrence, W. G. (1999) in W. G. Lawrence ed. Exploring Individual and Organisational Boundaries: A Tavistock Open Systems Approach

... reality is not something exclusively 'out there', that there is not a domain of order outside of the individual which merely has to be discovered, but that the individual is a bearer of that reality. Reality is both inside and outside of him. Furthermore, it is his construction of the phenomena of reality that is to be investigated. ... Ultimate reality, .... , does not fall into the domain of knowledge. Ultimate reality can only be in a state of 'becoming'; it cannot be known. And it is this idea of 'becoming' that is to be held on to when thinking about modes of inquiring into social processes in groups and institutions. The 'becoming' enables us not to fall into the traps of either solipsism or positivism but to engage with the creative tensions among what people believe to be realities and fantasies. (p. 5, stress by the poster)