Excerpt: Sincerity and ethics are two elusive and multifaceted constructs. As people and contexts change, ethical questions look similar, whereas answers do not. From my point of view, talking about ethics means asking oneself why lying or conflicting, for example, could be the preferable choices for someone. It means bringing both one’s own and other people’s assumptions into question, and to recognise that doubt is perhaps the path toward otherness. The goal of the present chapter is to explore the role of epistemological doubt in dealing with different people and political dissent.

The article aims to provide the main conceptual coordinates in order to fully understand the state of the art of the most recent research in the field of neurobiology of interpersonal experience. The main purpose of this work is to analyze, at an anthropological, phenomenological and epistemological level, how the fundamental characteristics of the recognition of otherness and intercorporeity among human beings contribute to changing the image of nature in the light of a possible new relationship between living bodies, neurophysiological systems and empathy. From this point of view, the hypothesis to investigate is that neurophenomenology, understood as a new evolutionary, multidimensional and autopoietic approach, is capable of probing the preconditions of the possible delineation of a phenomenology of intersubjectivity shaped by the neuroscientific turning point, represented by the discovery of mirror neurons. At this level, the neuroscientific data are interpreted according to a specific interdisciplinary perspective, thus trying to offer a possible unitary and integrated theoretical framework.

Key words: otherness, enaction, intercorporeity, neurosciences, epistemology of complexity, living body, empathy.

This paper makes a comparison between enactivism and Levinas’ philosophy. Enactivism is a recent development in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that generally defines cognition in terms of a subject’s natural interactions with the physical environment. In recent years, enactivists have been focusing on social and ethical relations by introducing the concept of participatory sensemaking, according to which ethical know-how spontaneously emerges out of natural relations of participation and communication, that is, through the exchange of knowledge. This paper will argue first that, although participatory sensemaking is a valuable concept in that it offers a practical and realistic way of understanding ethics, it nevertheless downplays the significance of otherness for understanding ethics. I will argue that Levinas’ work demonstrates in turn that otherness is significant for ethics in that we cannot completely anticipate others through participation or know-how. We cannot live the other’s experiences or suffering, which makes ethical relation so difficult and serious (e.g. care for a terminally ill person always falls short to a certain extent). I will argue next that enactivism and Levinas’ philosophy nevertheless do not exclude each other insofar they share a similar concept of subjectivity as a quality of naturally interacting with the external world to gain knowledge (Levinas speaks of dwelling). Finally, I will argue that enactivism’s notion of participatory sensemaking also offers something which Levinas’ insufficiently defines, namely a concept of social justice, based on equality and participation, that emerges out of natural relations.

Key words: enactivism, levinas, otherness, social justice, naturalism

Beginning with the question of why the social constructivist approach to psychotherapy excludes uniqueness, whereas the dialogical approach, which is also a social construct, includes it, I reject the eitherlor of a substantive, essential self on the one hand and mere role playing on the other. I also demonstrate that Gergen’s “dialogue”, which is really the dialectic interplay of minds, cannot lead to harmony unless it is embodied in a real, caring community that confirms concrete otherness. As a third alternative to the social constructivist’s eitherlor, I put forward the “dialogue of touchstones” with its integral relation between dialogue and uniqueness and the tension between personal calling and social role that follows from it.

In this chapter, we will present various research projects dealing with children’s perceptions of other cultures, the word “culture” referring primarily in this instance to other national or ethnic entities. The issue of perceptions of other cultures is important in that it is linked with children’s constructions of their identity and may eventually determine their attitudes and behaviour to many others. Children construct social images of the groups they belong to and of other groups at an early stage of their socialisation. These early representations are acquired without them being aware of the processes at work. This is why representations often resist modification. This issue is difficult to deal with in schools and the tendency is for teachers to keep away from it. Outlining the nature, characteristics and role of social perceptions and representations of otherness in cross-cultural communication is a first step towards a fuller understanding of this area. We agree, however, with Goldstone who warns that researchers who identify difference merely reify it. We suggest strategies in line with the constructivist philosophy of the Primary Curriculum to promote pluralism. Relevance: This chapter is about identity construction in different cultures. It provides evidence of the variations in such constructions depending on the cultural context.

Key words: Children, identity, social representations, stereotypes, prejudices

This article proposes a possible synthesis between the concept of structural coupling with the milieu, derived from the thought of Maturana and Varela, and the concept of semeiosis derived from Peirce. The purpose is to develop a vocabulary and conceptual framework in which to envisage the relationships among autopoietic systems i.e. organisms, against which communication can take place. By showing how the sign emerges from structural coupling, this article hopes to encourage (or reinforce) a gestalt shift in scholars of communication, away from a conduit metaphor of sending and receiving communications, and towards a grounding of communication in the relationships among organisms and their environment(s), which include other organisms. When these organisms engage habitually in what Maturana calls the “coor-dination of coordination of behavior,” and especially when this involves languaging of the human type, then the environment to which they are coupled also involves a system of signs, which, as Peirce demonstrates, is continually changed by the very interpretive actions which constitute it. Human languaging is “the play of signs” because play is a process of “co-imagining” in which organisms generate a repertoire of potential behaviors by placing themselves outside the immediate (‘serious’) context of adaptation/ structural coupling. But within the cooperative domain of human work i.e. the human collaborative structural coupling with its shared environ-ment or milieu, this “play of signs” can pass or fail the test of effectiveness. Humans engaged in cooperative work co-coordinate their structural couplings by way of conversationing, a co-coordination which depends upon their shared encounter with a Secondness or “otherness” with which they grapple together – an “otherness” which can never be known directly, but only approached by the work of fallibilist human cooperation.

In the spirit of second-order cybernetics, human communication is reconceptualized by including in the process not only its theorists but also their observed Others without whom social reality is inconceivable. This essay examines several versions of otherness, how the voices of Others survive social scientific inquiries, the dialogical spaces made available for people to build their home, and the kinds of citizenship encouraged. The essay draws attention to the epistemological limits of different inquiring practices and seeks to expand the range of possibilities for humans to see each Other.

Key words: cybernetics, human communication, languaging, embodied practices, re-entry, accounts, social theory, social inquiry, otherness, observer, i, it, you, thou, trivial/ nontrivial machines, dialogue, agency, emancipation, epistemology, methodology, politics o

In contrast with the “positivist” or “naturalistic” paradigm that has shaped science for centuries and still dominates the field of communication, [this chapter] develops an alternative paradigm for communication theory and research. The limitations of the prevalent paradigm – which is based on two main premises, i.e. “observers shall accept only one reality,” and “observers shall not enter their domain of observation” – are exposed through an examination of Russell’s theory of logical types, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and Popper’s falsification criterion as responses to paradigmatic challenges. Krippendorff articulates an alternative around five ultimately ethical imperatives that stress the constructed nature of knowledge, replace representational truth with viability, encourage self-reference, and take otherness to be a central concern for communication studies. These imperatives serve as a guide for the remainder of the book. As the paradigm proposed in the chapter calls for researchers and theorists to include themselves in what they observe and theorize, it follows that ontological concerns should give way to epistemological ones. [Abstract by Fernando Bermejo]

The book features 18 of Klaus Krippendorff’s key papers on constructivist, second-order cybernetics, and dialogical approaches to social phenomena, organized in four sections, named in the title of the book. Part 1 offers a sketch of social constructivism, epistemological and conceptual issues of communication. Part 2 concerns the otherness that theorizing creates, the use of pronouns in social relations, power and emancipation. Part 3 critiques semiotics from a constructivist perspective, develops conceptions to come to grips with cultural artifacts and proposes a theory of discourse. Part 4 reviews information theory, and applies it to research processes, the internet and cyberspace more generally and to social memory.

Excerpt: We address here the contributions of Humberto Maturana for an understanding of education as a harmonious process, where otherness and language in daily coexistence configure our world, as well as ourselves. [Curator’s translation]