Since the multi-scalarity of life encompasses bodies, language and human experience, Timo Järvilehto’s (1998) ‘one-system’ view can be applied to acts of meaning, knowing and ethics. Here, I use Paul Cobley’s Cultural Implications of Biosemiotics (2016) to explore a semiotic construal of such a position. Interpretation, he argues, shows symbolic, indexical and iconic ‘layers’ of living. While lauding Cobley’s breadth of vision, as a linguist, I baulk at linking ‘knowing’ too closely with the ‘symbolic’ qua what can be said, diagrammed or signed. This is because, given first-order experience (which can be deemed indexical/iconic), humans use observations (by others and self) to self-construct as embodied individuals. While symbolic semiosis matters, I trace it to, not languaging, but the rise of literacy, graphics and pictorial art. Unlike Chomsky and Deely, I find no epigenic break between the symbolic and the iconic/indexical. The difference leads one to ontology. I invite the reader to consider, if, as Cobley suggests, meaning depends on modelling systems (with ententional powers) and/or if, as Gibson prefers, we depend on encounters with whatever is out-there. Whereas Cobley identifies the semiotic with the known, for others, living beings actively apprehend what is observable (for them). Wherever the reader stands, I claim that all one-system views fall in line with Cobley’s ‘anti-humanist’ challenge. Ethics, he argues, can only arise from participating in the living. Knowing, and coming to know, use repression and selection that can only be captured by non-disciplinary views of meaning. As part of how life and language unfold, humans owe a duty of care to all of the living world: hence, action is needed now.
Gasparyan D. (2020) Semiosis as Eigenform and Observation as Recursive Interpretation. Constructivist Foundations 15(3): 271–279. https://cepa.info/6608
Context: Recent decades have seen the development of new branches of semiotics, including biosemiotics, cognitive semiotics, and cybersemiotics. An important feature of these concepts is the question of the relationship between the linguistic and extralinguistic world: in particular, the constructivist question of the role of observation and the observer in semiosis. Problem: Our understanding of the observer’s role in the framework of second-order cybernetics is incomplete without understanding where in the observation the significant activity, semiosis, takes place. By describing this process, we will see that semiosis has the structure of an eigenform. I will concentrate on linguistic semiosis, and will illuminate the role of the sign and interpretation, emphasizing the scheme and logic of this process. Method: I use theoretical and conceptual methods of argumentation, such as logical (deductive) and philosophical (phenomenological) proofs and thought experiments. Results: My argumentation underlines the importance of including interpretation (via the observer) in the process of signification. It reveals the reciprocal connections among all three elements (sign, object and interpretant) and their cyclic nature. I show that semiosis works according to the principle of an eigenform because of the cyclic and recursive nature of semiotic interpretation. Implications: My conclusions have productive implications for epistemic theories, linguistic theories, philosophy of language, theories of semiology, and semantics. They support the idea that we are unable to understand the world beyond language. Linguistic semiosis is an eigenform that creates the world in itself and through itself. The sign and the object are mutually and referentially related to each other. Constructivist content: Using the concept of eigenform helps to clarify how linguistic semiosis allows people to exist in language, bring forth objects and meaning potentials and construct reality. In this process, human beings self-fabricate as observers and, using aspects of “language,” become interpreters.
Glasersfeld E. von (1962) Towards the mechanical construction of correlational nets. CETIS Report No 42. European Atomic Energy Community - EURATOM, Brussels.
Glasersfeld E. von, Perschke S. & Samet E. (1962) Human translation and translation by machine. In: International conference on machine translation of languages and applied language analysis, 1961, Volume II. H. M. Stationery Office, London: 507–530. https://cepa.info/1292
A view of the sources of mathematical knowledge is sketched which emphasizes the close connections between mathematical and empirical knowledge. A platonistic interpretation of mathematical discourse is adopted throughout. Two skeptical views are discussed and rejected. One of these, due to Maturana, is supposed to be based on biological considerations. The other, due to Dummett, is derived from a Wittgensteinian position in the philosophy of language. The paper ends with an elaboration of Gödel’s analogy between the mathematician and the physicist.
Mitterer J. (2011) Das Jenseits der Philosophie. Wider das dualistische Erkenntnisprinzip [The beyond of philosophy. Against the dualistic principle of knowledge]. With a new preface for this edition. Velbrück Wissenschaft, Weilerswist .
“Philosophy does not begin with problems. It begins with unproblematized presuppositions. These presuppositions are dichotomic distinctions: in epistemology and philosophy of language, for example, the dichotomies are between language and world, description and object, being and consciousness, subject and object.” – This book tries to explicate these presuppostions and their consequences within the framework of a nondualistic argumentation that neither presupposes nor creates a beyond as a means of regulating discourse.
Moser S. (2008) \Walking and Falling.\ Language as Media Embodiment. Constructivist Foundations 3(3): 260–268. https://cepa.info/107
Purpose: This paper aims to mediate Josef Mitterer’s non-dualistic philosophy with the claim that speaking is a process of embodied experience. Approach: Key assumptions of enactive cognitive science, such as the crossmodal integration of speech and gesture and the perceptual grounding of linguistic concepts are illustrated through selected performance pieces of multimedia artist Laurie Anderson. Findings: The analysis of Anderson’s artistic work questions a number of dualisms that guide truth-oriented models of language. Her performance pieces demonstrate that language is both sensually enacted and conceptually reflected through the integration of iconic signing (e.g. sound play, dance) with symbolic communication. Moreover, Anderson’s artistic practice demonstrates that media such as voice, gesture and recording technologies realize different forms of embodied language. Benefits: Media aesthetics in the vein of embodied cognition can overcome a number of the dualisms that inform analytical philosophy of language, linguistics, and communication studies, such as perceptual/conceptual meaning, iconicity/symbolicity, emotion/cognition, body/technology and voice/script.
Purpose: Josef Mitterer’s essays are considered to be important philosophical advancements of radical constructivism. The main purposes of this paper are, on the one hand, to structure the RC landscape and, on the other hand, to investigate the relations of Mitterer’s work to radical constructivism in particular and to philosophy in general. Findings: In this short essay focusing on Mitterer’s Das Jenseits der Philosophie, I would like to stress two major points. First, Mitterer’s book should be considered as one of several contemporary variants of a radical critique of the semantic turn in the philosophy of science that has taken place since the mid-thirties with the works of Rudolf Carnap, Carl G. Hempel, Hilary Putnam, Alfred Tarski and others. Second, it is by no means clear how to determine the relevance of the new semantic critique for the present and future cognitive status of radical constructivism. The degree of relevance depends crucially on the use of the term “radical constructivism.” If radical constructivism, as I will argue, is seen as an umbrella term for a group of empirical research programs, then, by sheer necessity, the relevance can be marginal only. If, however, radical constructivism is viewed as a special form of philosophy of language and/or as a new epistemology, then the importance of Josef Mitterer’s approach must be judged within the context of available functional alternatives. Implications: An immediate consequence of this article lies in a renewed emphasis on advancing an empirical research agenda for radical constructivism and in an effective downsizing of radical constructivism as a philosophical perspective.
Schmidt S. J. (2000) Ernst von Glasersfeld’s philosophy of language: Roots, concepts, perspectives. In: Steffe L. P. & Thompson P. W. (eds.) Radical constructivism in action: Building on the pioneering work of Ernst von Glasersfeld. Falmer Press, London: 23–33. https://cepa.info/2252
From the conclusion: a comprehensive philosophy of language and communication would be well advised to observe and to analyze its subjects under a fourfold perspective, viz. a biological, a psychological, a sociological, and a culture-theoretical one, integrating genetic and structural points of view, respectively. The man who has paved the way to this important insight is Ernst Glasersfeld. He has been the trailblazer out of the behaviorist desert into cognitive constructivist pastures with inspiring new perspectives, and an abundance of new interesting problems. I think Ernst Glasersfeld has proved that radical constructivism is much more than one approach among others: it is a philosophy which opens up the way to a better, more human way of living.
Weber S. (2008) The Object of Description is the Description of the Object So Far: Non-dualism and Beyond. Constructivist Foundations 3(3): 140–147. https://cepa.info/91
Context: The short history of the reception of the philosophy of non-dualism in science is a history of misunderstandings and cursory reception – the latter especially concerns Mitterer’s main work Das Jenseits der Philosophie (The Beyond of Philosophy, which still has not been translated into English). Non-dualism so far is mostly seen either as a kind of constructivism replacing the rhetoric of “construction” with a rhetoric of “description” or as an overall philosophical critique of the use of dualisms, dichotomies or polarities in epistemological contexts. The core arguments of non-dualism are often completely ignored. This paper wishes to discuss them precisely and draw some conclusions. Approach: Close critical reading of Mitterer’s texts, trying to avoid as many translation gaps as possible. Findings: Non-dualism reveals the infinite regress of classical philosophy of language: the categorical differentiation between language and the world leads to a systematic contradiction. While non-dualism also helps to deconstruct the pretension to speak “about reality” or to claim that “in fact” something is the case in everyday life, non-dualism refrains from giving satisfying answers to the great questions of mankind in the “metaphysical” context: questions of starting points/origins, meanings, causes, and the (implicitness of the) time arrow. Benefits: The intention of this paper is to stimulate a broader discussion – so far limited by language – extending it beyond German and Polish scientific circles.