Key words: interview

This interview was held in April 1997 in Heinz von Foerster’s home in Pescadero. In this interview, questions by Albert and Karl H. Müller are marked in italics. The German version has been published as Foerster H.v. (1997). Der Anfang von Himmel und Erde hat keinen Namen. Eine Selbsterschaffung in sieben Tagen (A. Müller and K. H. Müller, Eds.). Vienna: DöckerVerlag. The English translation has been prepared by Michael Kasenbacher and Elinor Rooks. It will be

This book pursues two different agendas. On the one hand this volume presents two important contributions by Heinz von Foerster, which are both related strongly to Vienna. The first contribution is a reprint of Foerster’s early book on memory (Das Gedächtnis), published in 1948. The second contribution is a reflection by Heinz von Foerster on the Vienna Circle as a parable for a specific style of thought. The second agenda for this book lies in a historic and systematic account of a Viennese intellectual tradition or, to use Ludwik Fleck’s term, a Viennese thought collective with a specific style of thought. This thought collective comprises, inter alia, Ernst Mach and Otto Neurath as their most prominent exponents. In this book the argument has been made that Heinz von Foerster became socialized into this specific style of thought, which manifests itself clearly in his first big publication, namely in his book on memory. Moreover, it can be shown that the roots of important components of radical constructivism already existed within this specific Viennese thought collective.