Abstract
In this paper I identify five logical fault lines in Ernst von Glasersfeld’s exposition and defense of radical constructivism (RC). Ordered, roughly, from the epistemological-metaphysical to the social-political-educational, the five are as follows: (1) that the constructive nature of the knowing process necessarily restricts in some important way that which can be known; in particular, (2) that we cannot know (on any non-mysterious interpretation of the word "know") the metaphysical realist’s mind - or language - independent objects of knowledge; (3) that RC is an ontologically neutral doctrine, resting somewhere beyond the dispute between metaphysical realism and idealism; (4) that RC is compatible with a focus on the social or linguistic nature of experience; and, finally, (5) that RC is an inherently progressive or tolerant theory.
Worldmaking and mind's perfect autonomy are a delusion, one resulting when the truth of hypotheses is misdescribed in the terms appropriate to mind's responsibility for its constructions.
--- David Weissman 1989, p. 72
Return to the content of this issue
Return to the Cybernetics and Human Knowing Homepage