Kelly’s personal construct theory, put forward in 1955, is considered the first constructivist theory of personality and the first expression of those contemporary psychotherapeutic perspectives grounded on a constructivist view of knowledge. Notwithstanding the similarities between psychological constructivism and the phenomenological-hermeneutic tradition, Kelly always rejected the parallel of his theory to phenomenology, regarding the latter as unacceptable since idealistic, solipsistic, and particularistic. In this first article of a work subdivided into three parts, the Authors explain such criticism by Kelly with his knowledge of phenomenology deriving from secondary sources, and stress the wide possibilities of a phenomenological interpretation and elaboration of his theory. Relevance: The publication highlights the analogy between psychological constructivism and phenomenology.

From the perspective of second order cybernetics this paper examines in which respects psychology can claim to be a science. It focuses on the limits of mechanistic description in the behavioral sciences. Through the Danish psychologist Iven Reventlow’s works, the article analyzes the use of the Galilean concepts of law in psychology. Reventlow attempts to create basic methods and concepts for a Galilean (law determined) psychology in the tradition of Kurt Lewin through work with animal models in the tradition of ethology. His standard experimental model is the male Stickleback guarding its nest – a small fish in its partly self-created world. Reventlow’s aim is to describe the “behavioral personality” of the organism keeping description and causal analysis and explanation on the behavioural level. To this end he works with a statistical model which do not hide the individuals characteristics by rolling them into an average. In this process, however, he finds that he cannot make a final separation of the organism and the environment. It is not possible to carry through either the mechanistic or the dualistic point of view. This finding is discussed in the light of von Foerster’s and Maturana’s second order cybernetic positions on the observer, observation, autopoiesis and the multiverse. The limitations of these theories carries the analysis further. A realistic, non-reductionistic and constructivistic viewpoint is developed from some of N. Luhmann’s formulations.

Excerpt: The psychology of personality is now dominated by the psychometric tradition of individual dif-ferences: how people differ along a number of specified dimensions. This, of course, is an objec-tivist approach that takes an external perspective on the person. Personal construct psychology (PCP) is a phenomenological approach to the person that focuses instead on making sense of people by attempting to understand the world from their individual perspectives.

Key words: personality, personal construct, constructivism, pragmatism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, choice, agency

A book that proposes to outline a systematic approach to psychotherapy cannot omit describing the psychological theory such an approach belongs to. George A. Kelly had the same opinion, in that he put an analysis of the differences between the philosophical assumptions of “accumulative fragmentalism” and “constructive alternativism” before the exposition of his theory of personality and his psychotherapeutic proposal. Choosing the title for the book “Constructivist Psychotherapy: A Narrative Hermeneutic Approach” represents the attempt to mark a significant differentiation from the more orthodox expositions of Kelly’s personal construct psychotherapy on which we heavily base our approach, and at the same time to specify as much as possible our metatheoretical and theoretical references. Relevance: The book has an extensive exposition of the different constructivist views on knowledge with their links with genetic epistemology, autopoietic theory, phenomenology, hermeneutics, social constructionism, radical constructivism.

In this article the constructivistic framework of reasoning is illustrated with reference to the premises of the structure determinism of Maturana, Kelly’s personality constructs theory, and the radical constructivism as developed by Von Glasersfeld. Proceeding to the constructivistic frame of thought that reality is created by each individual with reference to particular internal processes (specifically cognitive processes), constructionism indicates, according to the social construct theory, that the interaction between individuals is responsible for the process of reality creation. The core of the frameworks of reasoning involves that reality is not created by the individual or individuals, and that, therefore not only one objective reality exists, but in fact a range of subjective realities – realities that are continually adapted by means of a process of evolution. As the individual is exposed to new experiences, he attaches new unique meanings to it, and this continually creates another reality. This view implies specific implications for the profession of Social Work. For example, final and objective diagnoses about persons, families, groups or communities cannot be made, as such diagnoses are based on a subjective reality created by a social worker in a certain situation. Indeed, there is no objective reality against which those concerned could be measured in order to come to a conclusion. Further, constructivism and constructionism imply that the social worker departs from a position of “not-knowing.” He is therefore not the only skilled person, but seeks, together with the client, new realities that could contain the solution of the problems of the client.

Key words: construction of reality, constructionism, constructivism, social work.

Mathematics education suffers from a condition that resembles schizophrenia. One of its personalities is exhibited in the day-to-day realities of classroom learning; another is evident in journal articles, in-service presentations, and other such forums where educators present alternative realities of learning. For the purposes of this article, these personalities will be labeled, respectively, as the practice and theory of mathematics education. This article focuses on the latest form of the theoretical personality of mathe-matics education, constructivism, by asking what is constructivist learning theory and what does it imply for the practice of learning mathematics? How students learn mathematics has long been an area of speculation and controversy. Over the last century, a number of themes have emerged that are discussed in an attempt to place constructivism in perspective. To understand the implications of the various themes for teaching and learning mathematics, pedagogical examples of integers studied at the ninth-grade level are given.

The distinguishing feature of enactivist cognitive science is arguably its commitment to non-reductionism and its philosophical allegiance to first-person approaches, like phenomenology. The guiding theme of this article is that a theoretically mature enactivism is bound to be humanistic in its articulation, and only by becoming more humanistic can enactivism more fully embody the non-reductionist spirit that lay at its foundation. Our explanatory task is thus to bring forth such an articulation by advancing an enactivist theory of human personality. To this end, we synthesize core concepts from cognitive science, personality theory, and phenomenological philosophy in order to develop an Enactivist Big-5 Theory (EB5T) of personality. According to EB5T, personality traits are dispositional tendencies for how we come to optimally grip our distinctly human worlds. Individual differences in personality are therefore reflective of stylistic differences in optimal gripping tendencies between human beings. EB5T affords a non-reductionist understanding of the immanent teleology of the autopoietically embodied human mind as a kind of full-scale optimal gripping process that is achieved along five major dimensions of personality. To the degree that these dimensions are universal, therefore, we argue that our theory offers a viable path forward in advancing enactivist cognitive science beyond the life of a cell and into the mind of a person, a longstanding hope and ambition held by proponents of the enactive approach.

Key words: enactivism, five-factor model, big five, relevance realization, optimal grip, personality function.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of soft science measurement of motivation under strict hard science criteria from observations of individual animals and to suggest the conditions under which an observation can be classified as a measurement. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology starts from reconciling second-order cybernetics/ radical constructivism (SOC/RC) understanding of the central role of the observer with physical measurements, which accepts the existence of a mind-independent reality. As a result of the reconciliation, parallels were identified between the SOC/RC experiences of as_is and as_if, on the one hand, and the measurement concepts of accuracy and resolution, on the other hand. The scales of physical measurement are defined by criteria of varying strictness, and the scales that meet the strict criterion of concatenation are generally considered hard science and lead to well-defined accuracy and precision. The similarity between SOC/RC and physical measurement suggests that if accuracy and precision can be computed from observations, then the observations can be classified as measurements in a strict hard science fashion; otherwise, the observations are just observations. Findings: A nonlinear dynamic model of motivation is reintroduced as an example for reference in measurements of motivation. If there was an agreement on its use among observers (Ethologists), which in reality is not the case, then empirical data may be collected, and the averages and spreads of parameter estimations will define a reference for an animal species. Later, observers with their own data will calibrate with the reference model, so that new observers will have calculated values of accuracy and precision for their data. Research limitations/implications – Unlike hard science whose scales of measurement are practically unambiguous, measuring the purpose of behaviour of an animal has inherent ambiguity according to the reintroduced model. The ambiguity cannot be resolved from instantaneous readings. The necessary existence of ambiguity renders the criticism of hard science invalid, that of expecting to measure motivation with a static scale as if it were temperature. Practical implications: Human observers can be treated as measuring devices of motivation from observing behaviour. Each observer can have characteristic accuracy/precision, or validity/reliability, calculated from empirical data. Social implications – This is an inductive, rather than deductive, study of individual animal behaviour; the author believes it is extensible to individual human behaviour and personality studies. However, group behaviour studies are beyond its scope. Originality/value – The author believes that the suggestion of ambiguity of scales of animal motivation is original, and the suggested link between SOC/RC and a mainstream hard science is new.

Key words: cybernetics, second-order cybernetics, modelling, nonlinear systems, measurement

Constructive metatheory is playing an increasingly apparent role in the evolution of theories of human personality and psychotherapy. Three basic features of constructivism are outlined: (1) proactive cognition, (2) morphogenic nuclear structure, and (3) self-organizing development. Parallels to and relationships with evolutionary epistemology and autopoiesis are briefly noted. The emergence of constructive metatheory is traced from Vico, Kant, and Vaihinger to its diverse contemporary expressions.

Viewing the brain as an organ of approximate Bayesian inference can help us understand how it represents the self. We suggest that inferred representations of the self have a normative function: to predict and optimise the likely outcomes of social interactions. Technically, we cast this predict-and-optimise as maximising the chance of favourable outcomes through active inference. Here the utility of outcomes can be conceptualised as prior beliefs about final states. Actions based on interpersonal representations can therefore be understood as minimising surprise – under the prior belief that one will end up in states with high utility. Interpersonal representations thus serve to render interactions more predictable, while the affective valence of interpersonal inference renders self-perception evaluative. Distortions of self-representation contribute to major psychiatric disorders such as depression, personality disorder and paranoia. The approach we review may therefore operationalise the study of interpersonal representations in pathological states.

Key words: self-representation, other-representation, free energy minimisation, active inference, personality disorder, paranoia