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This chapter aims to clarify the socially constructed nature of reality and the symbolic sides of public policy, as well as the discursive politics to which it gives rise. It concentrates on the concept of social understanding. There are seven main sections: The Phenomenology of Social Action; The Social Construction of Reality; Politics in a World of Multiple Realities; The Political Spectacle as Hyperreality; The Social Meanings of Public Policies; Meaning Construction and the Policy Process: The Typologies of Public Policy; Policy Design: Constructing Target Populations.

One of the first systems that mark a transition between the old and new ways of thinking is the Kantian IS. It combines the “model part” of Analysis and the “data part” of Agreement into an interactive whole. Since Kant's ideas form the general background framework of this IS, the authors first discuss the prominent features of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. This chapter also introduces the concept of Multiple Realities or the necessity of viewing all important problems from multiple viewpoints. According to this IS, model and data form an inseparable whole. It argues that the data one collects from the world are a strong function of the images, models, and/or theories people have of it. Further, since the decision-maker plays such a strong and fundamental role for this IS, it is also often called Interpretive Systems.

This chapter introduces Unbounded Systems Thinking (UST) and contends that it is the basis for the “new thinking” called for in the Information Age. The discussions in this chapter begin by briefly reviewing the four ways of knowing presented in the previous chapters. Agreement, Analysis, Multiple Realities, and Conflict as Idea System's all have strict limits. In contrast, UST asserts that “everything interacts with everything.” Every one of the sciences and professions is considered fundamental and none is superior to or better than any other. In UST, the supposed distinct and separate existence of the various ISs that was implied in the preceding chapters is a fiction. Given its complexity, a better understanding of this IS is demonstrated by the authors through a brief and general overview of the systems approach before they provide a concrete problem-solving method known as the Multiple Perspective Concept or Method to illustrate its application.

This chapter demonstrates the ways in which policy is more fundamentally a sociopolitical construct than technical/instrumental tool, as it is approached in much of policy science. Employing a constructivist sociology of knowledge, the discussion illustrates the ways in which a policy is a product of multiple realities and, as such, is as much a matter for interpretive analysis as it is techno-empirical assessment. To clarify the theoretical position, the second half of the chapter demonstrates the point through the political struggle over sustainable development in environmental policy. Beyond technical knowledge, the case points to how policies are socially experienced — in particular, how they supply citizens with the social sense of collective participation in mutual ventures with fellow members of their own communities.

This chapter illustrates how Buddhism's holistic perspective on what constitutes a dream and what constitutes reality impacts the way characters in Bhutanese film are presented. Instead of a hero with individual human subjectivity being the controlling force of the narrative, the ‘hero's’ journey is decentred as multiple realities. The cultural encounter of one of this chapter's authors — as a screenwriter and director from the ‘West’ working on a collaborative film project with Bhutanese partners — illustrates the way those Buddhist principles shape the trajectory in which a film story can go. Religion here is not approached as a system of belief per se, but as a cultural system — the focus is not so much on religious beliefs, but on the social and cultural dimensions that religions carry.

This chapter draws the discussion to a close by summarizing and further exploring some philosophical implications of the book’s overall position. Among other things, it addresses the nature of ‘belief’, and argues that this term, even when it is used in a restrictive and technical way, most likely accommodates a range of subtly different kinds of conviction, different ways of taking something to be the case. This applies not only to psychiatric illness, but also more generally. Issues are therefore raised for the practice of philosophy itself. When one is said to believe a philosophical claim, it is not always clear what kind of conviction is involved or, for that matter, which kinds of conviction are appropriate to which kinds of philosophical position. More generally, the structure of intentionality encompasses a wide range of different intentional state types and does not respect clear-cut, categorical distinctions between them. These subtleties are masked by certain uses of language, in philosophy and elsewhere. Reliance on univocal notions of ‘belief’, ‘desire’, and the like is thus rendered problematic.

This chapter examines the body of Dayak myths regarding humans and pigs who travel between their respective villages, transform into the “other” in the process, and face attendant dangers as well as rewards. The fragile boundary between human and pig identities is reflected in the traditional belief that spirits may perceive humans as pigs and so hunt and kill them. Dayak address this threat by sacrificing domestic pigs in their stead, the logic of which is underpinned by the shared dualistic natures of humans and pigs: pigs can be both wild and domesticated, and humans can be both their domestic selves and — in the eyes of spirits — wild pigs. Pig–human substitutions and transformations are a form of mimesis. Omens from the spirit world that foretell good or ill events are mimetic, as is the ritual theater by which ill omens are neutralized. Human understanding and strategic manipulation of these mimetic relations is ontological in character, recognizing the existence of multiple realities. Mimesis helps the Dayak to see that the way they view themselves may not be the way others view them; and it depicts awareness of other views — other ontologies — as literally a matter of life or death.