Open peer commentary on the article “Building Bridges to Algebra through a Constructionist Learning Environment” by Eirini Geraniou & Manolis Mavrikis. Upshot: In striving to support transition or bridging between arithmetic and algebra through software, Geraniou & Mavrikis come up against the need for learners not simply to “reflect” on what they have been doing, but to withdraw from action every so often, consider what actions have been effective, and construct their own narrative to hold together actions and goals and connections to past experience with other topics.

Excerpt: Dennis Lomas in his essay on “Paul Ernest’s Application of Social Constructivism to Mathematics and Mathematics Education” correctly indentifies Ernest as a major proponent of social constructivism in mathematics education. Lomas’s essay is quite circumscribed in its goals: he leaves aside whether Ernest has adequately, or otherwise, interpreted the arguments of I. Lakatos, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and L. S. Vygotsky that he appeals to develop his philosophy of mathematics; and Lomas declines to reflect on the more general relevance of social constructivism to “mathematics, mathematics education, or education in general.” Lomas wishes to focus upon Ernest’s account of mathematical objects, and to begin a critique of the “social, political, and ethical consequences that [Ernest] draws from his position” for the “great issues of freedom, justice, trust and fellowship.” I propose in this commentary to first take a broader view of Ernest’s work, locating his social constructivism on the larger canvas of constructivism in science and mathematics education, and then follow Lomas’s more narrowed concerns.

Excerpt: My purpose in this commentary is not only to show the nature of the difference between scientific and philosophical theories but also to reflect on the consequences of their use in the realm of human actions. In order to meet this goal, in the following, I will first say a few words about explanations and theories in general, and then I will describe what I think scientists and philosophers do, showing the different goals with which philosophers and scientists perform their respective theorizations. Finally, I will reflect on the various consequences, to justify our actions in the field of human relations, the different types of theories that we, scientists and philosophers, generate as a result of our different objectives.

Excerpt: I suggest that progress can be made on such a theory of goals and action by adapting the dynamic systems theory put forward by Alica Juarrero (1999). Juarrero has put for a theory which identifies our intentions and goals as attractors in the dynamic phase space of the brain. This provides a means of understanding the implicit and situated nature of actions and their goals. However, Juarrero’s view is overly neuro-centric for the enactive approach, adopting a connectionist but representational view of the meaning which transforms “mere” behaviour in to action. In this paper I put forward some suggestions which would both allow us to adapt Juarrero’s theory for a more deeply embodied and enactive cognitive science, and provide a means of more completely characterising an enactive psychology.

The enactive approach to cognitive science involves frequent references to “action” without making clear what is intended by the term. In particular, though autopoiesis is seen as a foundation for teleology in the enactive literature, no definition or account is offered of goals which can encompass not just descriptions of biological maintenance, but the range of social and cultural activities in which human beings continually engage. The present paper draws primarily on the work of Juarrero (Dynamics in action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999) and Donald (Origins of the modern mind. London: Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1991) in an attempt to offer the broad outlines of an account of goals and goal-directedness which is consistent with the enactive approach and which explicates several forms of goal-directedness exhibited by human beings. Four stages of cognitive evolution described by Donald are examined for characteristic mechanisms of adaptivity and goal-directedness. Implications for an enactive theory of meaning are discussed.

Key words: Goals, enaction, teleology, meaning, adaptivity, action, embodiment

Perceptual modalities have been traditionally considered the product of dedicated biological systems producing information for higher cognitive processing. Psychological and neuropsychological evidence is offered which undermines this point of view and an alternative account of modality from the enactive approach to understanding cognition is suggested. Under this view, a perceptual modality is a stable form of perception which is structured not just by the biological sensitivities of the agent, but by their goals and the set of skills or expertise which they are deploying at a given time. Such a view suggests that there is no such thing as an experience that is purely visual, auditory, or otherwise modal and that our attempts to understand consciousness and the mind must be conducted within a framework that provides an account of embodied, goal-directed adaptive coping with the world. Relevance: This paper provides an enactive analysis of perceptual modality, and argues for a more constructivist view of how consciousness is analysed, specifically according to the skilled activities in which an agent is engaged.

Scholars locate Kelly’s Personal Construct Psychology within the context of American pragmatism. Kelly noted his closeness to pragmatist John Dewey, but only cited William James briefly and in general terms. James’ explication of pragmatism demonstrates several areas of compatibility with PCP; examining James’ ideas might deepen understanding of PCP. This article describes relevant elements of James’ pragmatism, including the process of nature, the practical effects of ideas, truth as action and practice, passion and emotion, conventional common sense constructions, generalization of constructs, the role of human possibility, and the importance of goals and intentionality.

Open peer commentary on the article “Assessing Subjective Processes and Vulnerability in Mindfulness-based Interventions: A Mixed methods Exploratory Study” by Sebastián Medeiros, Carla Crempien, Alejandra Vásquez-Rosati, Javiera Duarte, Catherine Andreu, Álvaro I. Langer, Miguel Ibaceta, Jaime R. Silva & Diego Cosmelli Sánchez. Abstract: I focus on two aspects: (a) The complexity of understanding heart rate variability, which is not acknowledged in Porges’s polyvagal theory; and (b) The goals of self-regulation that vary according to cultural context.

Currently the global science system undergoes an epochal transformation which can be summarized as a transition from It-Science to Bit-Science. Bit-Science as a new phase in the evolution of science brings about fundamental changes in scientific production processes, significant re-configurations in the architecture of science, new organizations of research designs and complex interaction patterns with the societal and natural environments of science. The emergence of second-order science becomes an essential component for Bit-Science as an institutionalization of reflexivity. In view of these fundamental transformations of the science system a new type of cybernetics can be developed under the name of ‘new cybernetics’ which supersedes the area of traditional cybernetics, introduced by Norbert Wiener and second-order cybernetics, constructed as a new version of cybernetics since the late 1960s with its emphasis on observing systems, goals and observers. The second part of this article explores the new cognitive horizons of new cybernetics as well as its central goals, functions and tasks.

Key words: Second-Order Science, New Cybernetics, Epistemic Modes

From a rural, sociological point of view no social theories have so far been able to grasp the ontological complexity and special character of a farm enterprise as an entity in a really satisfying way. The contention of this paper is that a combination of Luhmann’s theory of social systems and the actor-network theory (ANT) of Latour, Callon, and Law offers a new and radical framework for understanding a farm as a self-organizing, heterogeneous system. Luhmann’s theory offers an approach to understand a farm as a self-organizing system (operating in meaning) that must produce and reproduce itself through demarcation from the surrounding world by selection of meaning. The meaning of the system is expressed through the goals, values, and logic of the farming processes. This theory is, however, less useful when studying the heterogeneous character of a farm as a mixture of biology, sociology, technology, and economy. ANT offers an approach to focus on the heterogeneous network of interactions of human and non-human actors, such as knowledge, technology, money, farmland, animals, plants, etcetera, and how these interactions depend on both the quality of the actors and the network context of interaction. But the theory is weak when it comes to explaining the self-organizing character of a farm enterprise. Using Peirce’s general semiotics as a platform, the two theories in combination open a new and radical framework for multidisciplinary studies of farm enterprises that may serve as a platform for communication between the different disciplines and approaches.

Key words: Farm enterprise, actor-network theory, autopoietic social, self-organizing systems, systems semiotics