Readable atlas · Release 0.35
Naturalising sense-making
School of sense-making that uses natural science as a constraint on theory and praxis while asking how people know enough about a situation to act.
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Summary
Naturalising sense-making uses natural science as a constraint while asking how people make sufficient sense of a situation to act. It is the broad approach within which Cynefin, SenseMaker and anthro-complexity are placed by their developers.
Implications for practice
It makes an epistemic claim about disciplined use of science, not merely a collection of branded tools. The constraint language also calls for scrutiny: which sciences, which findings, and how translation to human practice is warranted.
Key distinctions
- constraint vs decorative metaphor
- sufficiency for action vs total explanation
- school of sense-making vs universal epistemology
- first-party definition vs independent assessment
Historical development
- knowledge management
- narrative-based sense-making
- complexity-informed practice
- anthro-complexity
Ideas it depends on
- sense-making
- natural science
- constraint
- pragmatic action
Further developments
- Cynefin
- SenseMaker
- anthro-complexity
- Estuarine Mapping
Connections to practice
- decision support
- organisational design
- research
- facilitation
Common confusions
- naturalising means reduction to biology or physics
- scientific constraint guarantees correctness
- the school is coterminous with complexity science
Further checks
- trace the five-schools account
- identify explicit scientific dependencies
- add rival sense-making traditions and criticism
Recorded connections
Check the wording, direction, scope, sources, and status of a connection before relying on it.
Dave Snowden developed Naturalising sense-making
Status: accepted · Relation: developed
The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.
Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources
- Dave Snowden — The Cynefin Company profile (checked)
- Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)
Naturalising sense-making includes Anthro-complexity
Status: accepted · Relation: includes
The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.
Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources
- Anthro-complexity — Cynefin.io (checked)
- Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)
Naturalising sense-making includes Cynefin framework
Status: accepted · Relation: includes
The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.
Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources
- Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)
- Cynefin — Cynefin.io (checked)
Naturalising sense-making includes SenseMaker
Status: accepted · Relation: includes
The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.
Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources
- Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)
Cynefin.io describes Naturalising sense-making
Status: accepted · Relation: described by
The statement is limited to the named sources and their evidential role. First-party definition, authorship, historical development, application and independent evaluation remain distinct claims.
Locator: Release 0.14 public primary, official, institutional and publisher sources
Cynefin.io documents material associated with Naturalising sense-making
Status: provisional · Relation: presents
This is a provisional semantic or practice crosswalk. It does not establish historical influence, equivalence, efficacy or universal applicability. Item-level source review and curator acceptance are still required.
Locator: Interpretive comparison of the two maintained public descriptions and their cited source records
Naturalising sense-making frames decision contexts through Complexity
Status: provisional · Relation: uses
This is a provisional semantic or practice crosswalk. It does not establish historical influence, equivalence, efficacy or universal applicability. Item-level source review and curator acceptance are still required.
Locator: Interpretive comparison of the two maintained public descriptions and their cited source records
Naturalising sense-making emphasises contextual limits through Bounded applicability
Status: provisional · Relation: complements
This is a provisional semantic or practice crosswalk. It does not establish historical influence, equivalence, efficacy or universal applicability. Item-level source review and curator acceptance are still required.
Locator: Interpretive comparison of the two maintained public descriptions and their cited source records
- Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)
- Dave Snowden — The Cynefin Company profile (checked)
- Cynefin — Cynefin.io (checked)
Sources and passage locators
- Naturalising sense-making — Cynefin.io (checked)
- Dave Snowden — The Cynefin Company profile (checked)
- Anthro-complexity — Cynefin.io (checked)
- Cynefin — Cynefin.io (checked)
- Cynefin.io — Naturalising Sense-Making wiki (checked)
- The Grammar of Systems - SCiO presentation (checked)
- The Grammar of Systems II: From Order to Chaos and Back Again, 2nd edition (checked)
Cite this entry
Taylor, B. P. (2026). Naturalising sense-making. The Necessary Tangle, release 0.35. https://transduction.systems/entries/approach_family_naturalising_sense_making/
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