CPTS -
Center for Philosophy, Technology and Social Systems

Navigation: Home Page - Story - Annual Working Conferences - Publications - Contact - About Page.

CPTS Story

In 1995 an international group of about fifteen scholars from different disciplines came together in Amsterdam. This first meeting became the start of a formal cooperation between several universities and institutions in different countries. In 1996 the Philosophy Faculty of the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), the School for Business Administration and Social Science of Luleå Technological University (Sweden), Information Systems Institute of Salford University (UK) formed the Centre for Technology and Systems (CTS) and representatives from these institutions form a Steering Group. This cooperation arranged Annual Working Conferences each year from then, held at the beautiful venue of Emmaus Priory, Maarssen, nr. Utrecht, Netherlands, to which scholars from these institutions, from other institutions, and those with personal interests, were welcome.

At these week-long events, researchers present papers on their current research, receive comprehensive critical mentoring, and respond with ideas on how their research will be continued. This formula has proved very successful in generating a flow of high quality papers in international scientific journals, informing PhD research, and sharpening up ideas on a wide range of issues. See publications.

The motivation for the Conferences was to give space to scholars working in the new paradigm of 'multimodal' or Dooyeweerdian philosophy and systems thinking, as it applied to many areas or life and related to other ways of thinking. There was, at the time, no platform for discussion of issues from this perspective and so scholars were denied the opportunity to develop and refine their thinking. The Annual Working Conferences attempted to fill this gap. For this reason, they have a unique structure.

Some years later the name was changed to Centre for Philosophy, Technology and Social systems (CPTS) - to recognise the importance of philosophy and of social issues to our discussions. Other partners joined the Steering Group, from the School of Philosophy at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North West University (South Africa) and the Institute for Cultural Ethics (the Netherlands). These participants agreed to cooperate with the following objectives:

Since its inception this Centre has initiated a number of other activities, including designing an International Masters Course in Philosophical Management, and the authoring of several books. Each five years a Report is written for the contributing organisations.

A landmark was the publication of a book, In Search of an Integrative Vision of Technology: Interdisciplinary Studies in Information Systems, containing papers related to the first ten years of activity.

Founder Sytse Strijbos Steps Down

Sytse was a founder of the CPTS along with Donald de Raadt when it began under the name Swehol (indicating a collaboration between Sweden and Holland) in the mid 1990s, then renamed CTS (Centre for Technology and Systems) when I joined it a year later, then renamed CPTS (Centre for Philosophy, Technology and Social Systems) a few years later. Sytse has been the 'father' of CPTS for most of this time. More precisely, Sytse has provided the core vision the CPTS and worked hard arranging the Annual Working Conferences.

At the core of the vision of CPTS, and the reason why CPTS exists and functions, is: facilitation and exploration of how an avowedly and well-thought-out Biblical ('Christian') perspective can interact with, and contribute to, mainstream thinking in social systems especially in relation to technology and information. Around this vision, discourse in CPTS has matured to be characterized by the following:

This, I suggest, makes CPTS unique. Though others have contributed to building this profile, Sytse is the one primarily responsible for it.

Thank you, Sytse, for this valuable gift to the world.


This page is "http://www.cptsonline.org/story.html".

Site maintained by Andrew Basden.

Page Created: 22 June 2010 - draft. Last updated: 6 May 2023 corrected error in name pointed out by Gregory Baus; thank you, Greg!