This work addresses the topic of philosophical complexity which shares certain assumptions
with scientific complexity cybernetics and General Systems Theory but which is also
developing as a subject field in its own right. Specifically the post-structural reading of
philosophical complexity that was pioneered by Paul Cilliers is further developed in this
study. To this end the ideas of a number of contemporary French post-structural theorists and
their predecessors - including Derrida Nancy Bataille Levinas Foucault Saussure Nietzsche
Heidegger and Hegel - are introduced. The implications that their various insights hold for
our understanding of complex human systems are teased out at the hand of the themes of economy
(social) ontology subjectivity epistemology and ethics. The analyses are also illuminated at
the hand of the problematic of the foreigner and the related challenges of showing hospitality
to foreigners. The study presents a sophisticated account of both philosophical complexity and
philosophies of difference. By relating these subject fields the study also extends our
understanding of philosophical complexity and offers an original characterisation of the
aforementioned philosophers as complex thinkers.
