Constructivism is an approach to knowledge and learning that focuses on the active role of knowers. Sanchez and Loredo propose a classification of constructivist thinkers and address what they perceive to be internal problems of present-day constructivism. The remedy they propose is a return to the genetic constructivism of James Mark Baldwin, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. In this article we first raise the question of whether thinkers like Baldwin, Vygotsky, Maturana and Varela are adequately depicted as constructivists, and subsequently argue that constructivism is caught in an overly epistemic version of the subject/object dichotomy. We then introduce a genetic logic that is not based on the Hegelian dialectics of negation and mediation, but rather on the idea of the recursive consensual coordination of actions that give rise to stylized cultural practices. We argue that a genuinely genetic and generative psychology should be concerned with the multifarious and ever-changing nature of human “life” and not merely with the construction of knowledge about life. Relevance: The article deals with perceived “internal” problems of constructivist approaches and proposes a genetic and generative psychology that is centrally concerned with human life-as-lived and not merely with life-as-known. The article furthermore raises the question whether key thinkers like Vygotsky, Maturana and Varela and are adequately depicted as constructivists.

Key words: Constructivism, genetic logic, generativity, expressivism, enactivism.

The article considers peculiarities of modern subject-object relation son the basis of radical constructivism and their key question – the problem of verity. It reveals that the vector of a new definition of subjectivity through epistemology of radical constructivism is risky for false subject-object relations picture, due to the loss of differences between real and virtual reality, limitation of postmodern tendencies to stop the gap between the reality and the world of simulacris. Ourvisionofpeculiaritiesofsubjectivenatureofcognitionandaman’ssubjectivityfromthepointofviewof subjective and objective dialectics in the verity as well as their criteria, suggests the reasoning of introducing the term “criteria of mistaking” into epistemology. As we see the problem, radical constructivism uses just on criteria of versions of mistaking, though it rejects the problem of grounds of cognition. Moreover, it is clear that radical constructivism stands for general line of modern social epistemologies, it revealed the vector of postmodernist culture as a tendency for cognition to alter into pure game with its constant and changing simulacris – rules, ideas, signs, reflecting the reality in a distorted way, without any connection with it, and even hiding the reality, sometimes.…

Key words: subject, object, subjectivity of knowledge, truth, radical constructivism, the criterion of error, virtual reality, simulacris

The present article analyses the signficance and relevance of dialectic in Piaget’s and Vigotsky’s psychological studies. On one hand, it highlights the common dialectical methodology present in units of analysis in research. On the other hand, it focuses on the peculiar features dialectic acquires within both authors’ explanation of psychological development. Lastly, a characterization of dialectic features based on previous analysis is introduced. The present article argues against the unique dialectic and its a priori features in Developmental Psychology and Human Sciences areas. It also justifies its diversity in relation to the subject matters under investigation as well as the existence of certain limits in the use of that category in empirical research. The use of dialectics requires the adoption of diverse forms regarding different issues and theoretical focuses.

Key words: dialectic, unit of analysis, contradiction, dialectic inference, equilibration.

Prompted by our commentators, we take this response as an opportunity to clarify the premises, attitudes, and methods of our enactive approach to human languaging. We high-light the need to recognize that any investigation, particularly one into language, is always a concretely situated and self-grounding activity; our attitude as researchers is one of knowing as engagement with our subject matter. Our task, formulating the missing categories that can bridge embodied cognitive science with language research, requires avoiding premature abstractions and clarifying the multiple circularities at play. Our chosen method is dialectical, which has prompted several interesting observations that we respond to, particularly with respect to what this method means for enactive epistemology and ontology. We also clarify the important question of how best to conceive of the variety of social skills we progressively identify with our method and are at play in human languaging. Are these skills socially constituted or just socially learned? The difference, again, leads to a clarification that acts, skills, actors, and interactions are to be conceived as co-emerging categories. We illustrate some of these points with a discussion of an example of aspects of the model at play in a study of gift giving in China.

Key words: enactive epistemology, enactive ontology, dialectics, languaging, shared know-how.

Ernst Mach’s works had a great influence on understanding the nature of cognition and forming non-classical space and time ideas. The article makes a special stress on the epistemological breakthrough based on Mach’s ideas: cognition subject from transcendental to natural world; empirical knowledge as a sum of natural and mental processes; relative nature of space and time that resulted in both Einstein’s theory of relativity and the relational concept of space and time being developed in science nowadays. Mach paid his attention mainly to the search of obvious ontological principles that resulted from experiments and could be taken as a basis to construct theories describing them. On the contrary, the modern epistemology considers the cognition process as the unity of subjectivity and objectivity. Thus, the categories of subject and object create an entity which elements acquire a meaning only in the interdependence on each other and the whole system. The author proves that Mach’s suggestion to consider the basic purpose of science as adapting an idea to experience gives a negative result due to the unilateral direction of the cognition process and the emergence of “model-dependent realism”. As for the methodology of his works, they were written from the position of dialectics because of Mach’s argument with Newton and Kant’s metaphysical approaches to prior and absolute categories. The author makes a conclusion that it was Mach who proposed the idea of subject and object’s unity in the form of their “principal coordination”. This approach forms the foundation of understanding the cognition process in the modern epistemology.

I discuss the notion of bodies proposed by Villalobos and Razeto-Barry. I consider it a good move in a direction away from overly formal aspects of autopoietic theory, but in need of refinement. I suggest that because organismic boundaries are dialectical processes and not immanent walls, some autopoietic bodies can extend by incorporating parts of their environment as in the case of insects that use trapped air bubbles to breathe underwater.

Key words: autopoiesis, individuation, boundary, incorporation, dialectics.

The aim of this article is to present to the reader the theoretical construction of Jean-Louis Le Moigne. It starts with a discussion of the background that is relevant for this construction, which is: a few words about Le Moigne himself, some influences on his thinking and an overview of the theoretical framework together with some domains of application. The following exposition of Le Moigne’s Systemics (LMS) is articulated in three groups: the what, the why and the how of knowing. The what presents the two basic hypotheses of LMS’ epistemological version, called Projective Constructivist Epistemology. These are: the phenomenological and the teleological hypotheses. The three dominating properties of the first hypothesis, that is the irreversibility, the recursivity and the dialectics of knowing, are presented as well. The why question presents the criterion for validation, which is projective (or cognitive) feasibility, to be contrasted with the positivist’s aspiration for objective truth. This presents LMS’ solution to the dilemma between objectivity and relativism. Projective feasibility is possible due to the so-called social contract and the autonomy of science as a domain of thought, both are discussed. The third question, the how, presents a set of cognitive instruments for knowledge constitution. These may be articulated in three sub-categories: modelling rationality, systemic modelling and inforgetic theory. Under the label of modelling rationality the following topics are discussed: formalism, procedural rationality, conjunctive or self-referential system of logic and the discussion of the method for conduct of good reason. Secondly, systemic modelling discusses: complexity, modelling, the canonic model of a General System, LMS’ modelling instrument called Systemography, the canonic model of a General Process, the canonic model of Information Processing System, LMS’ instrument for articulation of complex systems called Teleological Complexification of Functional Levels, a general and a priori identification of pertinent levels of complexification of a complex system’s organisation as manifested in the canonic model called Decision-Information-Organisation System, and finally the paradigm of an active organisation: Eco-Auto-Re-Organisation with its canonic model of organisation, the latter is a conflictful conjunction of three recursive functions: to produce and self-produce, to relate and self-relate, to maintain and self-maintain. Thirdly, inforgetic theory refers to the conceptual relation between information and organisation. It includes: the canonic model of information: Signified-Sign-Signification, the first principle of inforgetics: the principle of self-organisation, and the second principle of inforgetics: the principle of intelligent action. Finally, the article gives a brief summing up of the significance of Le Moigne’s contribution.

This paper addresses the notion of dialectics in the linguistic bodies theory. First, it presents it as a three-aspect concept, namely, the ontological aspect, the methodological aspect, and the dialectical model. Subsequently, it discusses the ontological aspect and the dialectical model and, based on the enactivist linguistic notions of concreteness and abstraction, suggests that it can be conceived as a two-fold concept: methodological and epistemological. This suggestion intends to avoid the paradox we are led to by acknowledging three ontological enactivist claims and a few assumptions of the methodological approach.

Key words: dialectics, enactivism, language, epistemology, ontology.

Outline a dialectical constructivist epistemology and theory… and then apply it to understanding experiential change processes in psychotherapy / dialectics in its most essential form is rational analysis based on the splitting of a totality into its contradictory parts / the totality of interest here is the dynamic system of a client’s psychological processes / the contradictory parts are the different psychological processes that, when brought into contact, often interact to produce therapeutic transformations, self-development, or novelty through a dialectical synthesis of the components / dialectical constructivism therefore explains human functioning and development in terms of the relations between parts / the dialectic with which we are most concerned is that involved in the type of construction of meaning characteristic of life-engaged consciousness… called vital reason / it is with this dialectic that therapists need to work if they are to produce enduring change illuminate the dialectical construction of meaning through a synthesis of bodily felt internal complexity with language-based explanations, by using the theory [of constructive operators]

Open peer commentary on the article “Neurodialectics: A Proposal for Philosophy of Cognitive and Social Sciences” by Nicolas Zaslawski. Abstract: By taking the proposal of a neurodialectical move seriously, I anticipate three interconnected questions that might appear if the program offered here is expanded to a social scope, namely regarding the specific dialectics the social could imply, the important distinction and articulation of two different aspects of the social, and the originarity of neurodialectics.