In this book, the author Rupert Riedl investigates the structural and functional correlations of issues considered as "complex". He brilliantly analyzes the definition of complexity, the occurrence of complexity, the meaning of complexity, and last-but-not-least the way complexity is dealt with professionally.

In recent years, our view of the world has been split into ever smaller segments - in part due to the increasing importance of the natural sciences and their associated analytical power. This calls for once again focusing on complexity and the holistic aspects, on interdisciplinary and synoptic approaches.

This book is a translation of the original German version "Strukturen der Komplexität", which was published in 2000. The discussion of complexity from the perspective of a biologist has long been overdue when it was published and is still up-to-date. 

What will be discussed in this book - an introduction.- About the subject

About the methods.- World and cognition as a problem.- What we consider reasonable
How to gain cognition
What kind of cognition have we gained?.- The Systems of cognition.- Prerequisites for cognition
Accounting for succedaneous coincidences
Accounting for simultaneous coincidences
About structures and class hierarchies.- The Structures of recognition.- A Theory of the world
The order of things
The principles of morphology
The principles of systematics.- The systems of explanation and comprehension.- The preconditions and their assets
The change of cultural history
The conditions of explanation
The ways of comprehension.- The structuring of the things explained and comprehended.- The way of a dynamic order of the world
The order of the reasons
The principles of explanation
The principles of comprehension.- Overview and outlook.