Through the many different scientific disciplines we understand today many different things, but we have difficulties to understand understanding itself. This is because our Western logico-philosophical tradition demands a separation of the observer from the observed; otherwise paradoxes, contradictions, viciou circles, etc., are feared to appear. However, I shall demonstrate that this fear is unfounded. It is possible to develope a transdisciplinary position from where one can see the inclusion of the observer into his or her observations. It is there where science and ethics converge into one: they need one another to come into being.

Excerpt: In this paper prejudice is examined from the point of view of constructivist theory. In the following we should like to provide a perspective on the following issues: the genesis of prejudice, its role in the individual, the conditions under which prejudice changes, and tactics which may be useful in changing prejudiced ideas. Included in this discussion are a number of interconnected constructivist ideas on the nature of thinking: first, the recursive nature of thought (the consequences of thinking become part of future thinking); second, the biological and ontological limits to knowledge (which limits have their own ethical implications); and third, the need to reexamine assumptions embedded in language concerning the nature of thought and its interconnectness with nature.

Humberto Maturana is one of the few authors that nowadays engage the construction of a wide, complete, explicatory system, comparable of those of Plato or Leibniz. His “autopoietic” approach includes also the origin of the observer, meant as a methodological prius who provide itself a view of the world. Here I try to follow the way Maturana sees the birth of “res cogitans” (entity which gains awareness of what it’s doing). I try to demonstrate that the basic activity of distinguishing can certainly lead to the distinction with which the observer is separated from anything observed. But I conclude that – at least for this interpreter – the origin of active consciousness remains obscure, that is, what works is the agent of distinguishing.

Key words: language

Key words: cybernetics, history, Ceccato

The paper proposes a way of distinguishing rational, scientific language from the discourse of poets, mystics, and metaphysicians, based on the description of two kinds of metaphor suggested by Vico. It concludes with the suggestion that scientific fundamentalism is as misguided as the religious versions and that a proper balance of the scientific and the mystical is crucial for the future of our world.

Key words: philosophy, science

Key words: language, communication, Whorf

Key words: philosophy, history, Ceccato

Key words: language

Key words: history, Ceccato