Many have remarked that there are several Heinz von Foerster's. This impression, I think, is largely due to the fact that he is not only a good listener but also interested in very many things. Whatever we individually discuss with him is, at that moment, what interests him most. Thus, all who have had the good fortune of knowing him for a certain length of time, come to believe that they have grasped what makes him a unique human being. I say this to make quite clear that what I am going to talk about is my Heinz -— the one I have experienced subjectively and affectionately.

The Way of the Sceptics, The Changed Concept of Knowledge, Piaget's Contribution, The Concept of Viability, The Question of Certainty, Concluding Remarks.

Within the limits of one chapter, an unconventional way of thinking can certainly not be thoroughly justified, but it can, perhaps, be presented in its most characteristic features anchored here and there in single points. There is, of course, the danger of being misunderstood. In the case of constructivism, there is the additional risk that it will be discarded at first sight because, like skepticism -- with which it has a certain amount in common -- it might seem too cool and critical, or simply incompatible with ordinary common sense

In the context of theories of knowledge, the name "radical constructivism" refers to an orientation that breaks with the Western epistemological tradition. It is an unconventional way of looking and therefore requires conceptual change. In particular, radical constructivism requires the change of several deeply rooted notions, such as knowledge, truth, representation, and reality. Because the dismantling of traditional ideas is never popular, proponents of radical constructivism are sometimes considered to be dangerous heretics. Some of the critics persist in disregarding conceptual differences that have been explicitly stated and point to contradictions that arise from their attempt to assimilate the constructivist view to traditional epistemological assumptions. This is analogous to interpreting a quantum-theoretical physics text with the concepts of a 19th-century corpuscular theory. It may be useful, therefore, to reiterate some points of our "post-epistemological" approach1, so that our discussion might have a better chance to start without misinterpretations No Exit from Subjectivity, Some Salient Characteristics, Concerning Education, The Making of Abstractions, Meaning and Misconceptions

The Roots of Constructivism, Knowledge as an Adaptive Function, The Context of Scheme Theory,The Social Component, A Perspective on Communication, Consequences for Education

Interview about constructivism and communication studies, to Professor Ernst von Glasersfeld. Ernst von Glasersfeld (EvG): Well...you know, that's a question that one can answer by writing a book or in one phrase. The on-phrase answer would be that "radical" constructivism does away with the traditional conception of communication. For your purposes, however, it might be better if I answer the question on a more personal level. How did I get into constructivism? And that was, in the first place because I was brought up with more than one language, and if you live in more than one language you very soon realize that there isn't one reality, but there are several different realities. This created my interest in epistemology long before I knew what the word epistemology meant.

El pensamiento postmoderno introduce un nuevo modo de conocimiento crítico. Las versiones psicológica y social del mismo dan lugar a los constructivismos y los construccionismos. Se muestra su común denominador epistemológico, lo que permite tratarlas conjuntamente como psicología construccional. La versión más radical de la misma es expuesta y valorada, a través de dos de sus autores más representativos (von Glasersfeld y Gergen), desde el paradigma epistemológico de la complejidad que se está configurando por la ciencia más avanzada. Se concluye que el antropocentrismo que la anima simplifica la realidad y debilita seriamente su aportación crítica. Este artículo está publicado en Portalpsicologia por gentileza de Frederic Munné

Discussions Questions rather than Answers Vol. 1 no. 4 At the end of his paper, Dave Johnson says that philosophy is a kind of narrative. I agree - and, as I have said many times, my story makes no claim to be "true" or to describe a "real" world; it wants to illustrate a way of thinking I have found useful. I have told it often enough, sometimes better than at others.

I had intended to begin this talk, as one so often does to break the ice in plenary sessions, by being funny about some trivial matter. But Professor Trappl's sad announcement has put me in a state of shock.

"Languaging", as Maturana occasionally explains, serves, among other things, to orient. By this he means directing the attention and, consequently, the individual experience of others, which is a way to foster the development of "consensual domains" which, in turn, are the prerequisite for the development of language. - Although the sentence (you might say, the languaging) with which I have here begun is at best a pale imitation of Maturana's style, it does perhaps represent one important aspect of Maturana's system: The circularity which, in one way or another, crops up again and again

Versioneitaliana Biography Articles Bibliography Idiosyncrasies Links To

Biographical Sketch, Academic Positions, Honors

In den ersten Absätzen seines Beitrags zu dem Buch »Das große stille Bild« (1996, S.150-160) gibt Siegfried Schmidt eine kurze aber durchaus treffende Skizze der konstruktivistischen Position, von der aus er dann im Rest des Essays die Rolle von Bildern in der Werbung analysiert. Ich nehme seine Skizze und was er über das Sehen sagt zum Ausgangspunkt für Betrachtungen, die nicht spezifisch mit dem sozialen Phänomen der Werbung zu tun haben, sondern mit der von anderen Autoren oft betonten vermeintlichen Spaltung zwischen sozial ausgerichtetem und radikalem Konstruktivismus. Untersucht man nämlich, wie wir zu der Auffassung kommen, Bilder seien Abbilder von Dingen, die eine eigene, unabhängige Existenz haben, stößt man auf die Möglichkeit, auch das Verhältnis zwischen dem denkenden Subjekt und seiner Gesellschaft auf eine Weise zu sehen, die auch für Soziologen nicht belanglos ist. Schmidt gehört zu den wenigen, die zwischen den beiden Richtungen des Konstruktivismus keinen notwendigen Gegensatz sehen; doch er hat des öfteren darauf hingewiesen, daß der radikale Konstruktivismus dem sozialen Element mehr Aufmerksamkeit widmen sollte. Meine Ausführungen wollen als Versuch in dieser Richtung verstanden werden

A Theoretical Model of Cognitive Development,An Experiential World instead of Reality, The Concept of Adaptation, A Break with Philosophical Tradition, Separation from Metaphysics, The Power of Reflection, Social Interaction, A New Way of Seeing

When people ask about the meaning of life, they have to be given a metaphysical answer. Whether the answer will seem plausible or not, depends on their mindset. It cannot be checked in the domain of experience because the question explicitly leads beyond that domain. Questions about language and how words come to have meaning, are of a different sort and they deserve an answer that speakers of a language can check out by reviewing their own early experience of constructing meanings for the speech sounds they learned to hear and to produce

A brief review lays out some of the ideas Radical Constructivism has picked from the history of Western philosophy and leads to the suggestion that 'functional fit' may be a viable substitute for the ontological 'truth' philosophers have vainly tried to attain. This does not entail the denial of an ontic reality but maintains strict agnosticism towards it and focuses on the ways we construct the experiential reality in which we think, act, and live

In the last few years Jean Louis Le Moigne has devoted much of his formidable energy in an effort to counteract the reactionary forces of the intellectual establishment which are campaigning against any modernization in the philosophy of science.

The general topic I was given for this chapter is "Research in Mathematics Education from an Epistemological Perspective". That sounds no more dangerous than so many other academic topics. But don't let the prosaic surface deceive you. To introduce epistemological considerations into a discussion of education has always been dynamite

Presented at International Kongress "Does Representation need Reality?", Vienna, May 1997. -- Published in A.Riegler, M.Peschl, & A.von Stein (Eds.), Understending representation in the cognitive sciences. 283-287. New York/Dordrecht: Kluwer-Plenum Publishers, 1999. If you look up the word "representation" in a large dictionary, you will find that it has at least five or six meanings, some of which are not compatible with each other. In ordinary English, "representation" usually means a deliberate graphic arrangement of sensory material, such that it is likely to be interpreted in terms of a generally available concept

Learning will be defined as a conceptual activity and teaching distinguished from training. The role of language in these processes will be examined. The author maintains that there can be no understanding without reflection. Reflection is induced by verbalization and can therefore be encouraged by fostering conversation. Ceccato's notion of 'operational awareness' will be shown to be relevant to teaching and compatible with Piaget's theoretical model.

Carl Bereiter’s article “Toward a solution of the learning paradox” appeared in 1985, was widely read and cited, but did not end the discussion about the “learning paradox”. My contribution is an attempt to show that it is in fact a spurious problem and that the paradox springs from unwarranted traditional views of knowledge and conceptualization. A constructivist orientation adopting Peirce’s notion of abduction and a particular interpretation of Piaget’s scheme theory opens a different and perhaps more promising approach.

At the same time as I received the email request to contribute some reflection to this column, I received a copy of a message primarily addressed to someone else, asking for the whereabouts of a paper Margaret Mead had read at the first Annual Symposium of the American Society for Cybernetics. I remembered that this paper was in a book I had on my shelves and, given that I was supposed to write about how my view of cybernetics had changed through the years, it struck me that in Mead's paper, written more than thirty years ago, I might quickly find a starting point.

Presented at Mind and Time, Neuchâtel, 8-10 September 1996. Let me say at once, the tentative and rather speculative ideas I am presenting here are not intended to answer the question of what time is, in an ontological sense. I am interested in how the thinking mind might come to have a concept of time. This concept has been a problem from the beginning of Western philosophy. It was implicit in the irreconcilable conflict between Parmenides' notion of an eternal, changeless world of being and Heraclitus' unceasing flux.

This page contains links to the preprints of the articles that appeared in the journal issues. These preprints are for personal non-commercial use only. For the final paper versions, please contact. Constructivism is the idea that we construct our own world rather than being determined by an outside reality. Its most consequent form, Radical Constructivism (RC), claims that we cannot transcend our experiences. Therefore it doesn't make sense to say that our constructions gradually approach the structure of an external reality. Yet, RC has the potential to go much further. It is claimed that RC provides the foundation of a new world-view in which we can overcome hard scientific problems. Rather than asking What is knowledge? and What is Reality?, RC is interested in investigating the mechanisms of knowledge construction. Therefore, RC has the constructive opportunity to transform from a purely philosophical-argumentative framework into a scaffolding for science.

Expanded Translation of a talk given at the International Congress on Science, Mysticism, Poetry, and Consciousness, Instituto Piaget, Lisbon, April 1994. Eighty years ago, in his book "Mysticism and Logic" Bertrand Russell explained the basis from which he was developing his discussion of the problems inherent in this juxtaposition. Although the areas are not quite the same, the problems raised by the juxtaposition of scientific and poetic knowledge are very similar and can, I believe, be approached from the same starting point. Indeed, Russell made clear that the attempts to deal logically with elements of mysticism have always taken place in the domain of metaphysics and that the term "metaphysics" comprises not only the mystical heritage of religions but also everything that is mysterious in the sphere of art.

From the constructivist perspective, science cannot transcend the domain of experience. Scientific theories are seen as models that help to order and manage that domain. As the experiential field expands, models are replaced by others based on novel conceptual constructs. The paper suggests the substitution of ‘viability’ or ‘functional fit’ for the notions of Truth and objective representation of an experiencer-independent reality. This by-passes the sceptics’ incontrovertible arguments against certain real-world knowledge and proposes the Piagetian conception of cognition as the function that generates ways and means for dealing with the world of experience.