QUESTION 1
Dear Mr. Glasersfeld
I am studying construtivism and
system theories.
There seems to be different
positions - the thinkers with a french basis believe
that language is the corner stone - is our access to the world/reality,
and thinkers with a german basis use the term communication, language
being only the media of the communication. How profound and important
do you regard this difference of views?
Thank you,
Yours sincerely,
Per Stig Andersen
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Dear Mr. Andersen,
From my radical constructivist
point of view, language is as much (if not more)
a human construct than anything else. There is no way it could grasp
an ontological reality. Both the linguistic expressions and
their meanings are rooted
entirely in the experiential world.
When you say the German view
claims that "communication" provides access to
reality, you probably refer to the work of Niklas Luhman - and I
have never understood how he
justifies such a claim.
From the constructivist
perspective, there is no possible cognitive (rational)
access to an ontological reality. If that is what you want, you
have to turn to the mystics, who use empathy instead of
reflection and may be able to
enter a world in which there are no distinctions.
Best wishes,
Ernst von Glasersfeld
QUESTION 2
Dear Professor von Glasersfeld,
I am a psychologist in research and I would be interested in
neural network computing as a model of radical constructivistic
cognition. Could You tell me, if you know, who is interested in
NN in radical constructivistic perspective (contacts or
literature)?
Yours sincerely,
Michal Simecek (Czech Republic)
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