Goldstein B. (2021) Materialism and Selection Bias: Political Psychology from a Radical Constructivist Perspective. Constructivist Foundations 16(3): 327–338. https://cepa.info/7172
Context: Political psychology rests on the assumption of the existence of a world outside and independent of consciousness. This ontological materialism is hardly spoken of within the field, as it is an unchallenged assumption among most psychologists and social scientists, including political scientists. However, the materialist paradigm frames research designs, the interpretation of data and theory building. Also, there is a bias towards psychological universals - the claim that all individual and group psychologies are equal (as compared to cultural psychology, which is critical about universalist claims), which can be understood as a consequence of the discipline’s hidden ontological core assumption. Problem: The purpose of this article is to show how the choice of a certain approach to answer a research question rests on the deeply ingrained beliefs of researchers. These beliefs are usually not part of research presentations even though they have tremendous influence on the results of the whole research process. Recipients use these necessarily biased research results as building blocks for the construction of their own realities. Method: The article is an ex-post interpretative summary of my considerations during the designing period of an earlier study in which I researched, from the perspective of political psychology, on what grounds South Indian politicians have positive, negative and ambiguous attitudes towards the “West.” Using this research project as an example, this article is a critical discussion and analysis of the ideological backdrop of political psychology, in particular the belief in a materialist ontology. Results: I argue that, instead of coming closer to any kind of an “objective” understanding of political attitudes, in political psychology we cannot help but invent new stories about the (political) world as long as our beliefs consciously or unconsciously influence our decision making in theorizing and research practice. Implications: The discussion shows exemplarily how in political psychology a researcher’s basic assumption that a physical world outside of consciousness exists determines methodology and justifies a particular set of interpretations. The unproblematized physicalist paradigm makes a researcher in political psychology necessarily a biased researcher. Constructivist content: The article is a description of how a researcher’s subjective perception and construction of the (social) world has consequences for the complete research process. Political psychology is based on the highly problematic assumption of an ontic world that exists independently of a subjective observer. It can serve as a telling example of how the preoccupation with a physicalist world explanation can lead to methodological and interpretative biases.
Hejl P. M. (2011) The Individual in Radical Constructivism. Some Critical Remarks from an Evolutionary Perspective. Constructivist Foundations 6(2): 227–234. https://constructivist.info/6/2/227
Context: Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism (RC) develops two positions that are, for the founder of RC, necessarily linked: (1) all accessible realities are perceived realities, (2) perceived realities are “constructed” by “individuals.” Purpose: Von Glasersfeld refers quite often to the theory of evolution. Despite this frequent referring, he uses an evolutionary approach primarily when discussing the viability of constructs. Furthermore, although this use of evolutionary thinking is already restricted, it plays an even smaller part in the reception of RC. The first goal of this paper is to show that as a result of this restriction, individuals as “constructors” do not have enough properties to explain the production of behaviors that we observe. The second goal is to open a perspective on the much richer picture of human cognitive activities that results from the abolishment of this restriction. Approach: Starting with the difference between the interest of philosophers in the problem of “reality” and the problems that organisms have to solve in coping with their needs in varying environments, it is argued that, from an evolutionary perspective, only the perceived or “constructed” realities matter because they are the ones that allow organisms to survive, find partners, cooperate, etc. Hence, both the position of RC and the perception of the environment from an evolutionary perspective are compatible, as claimed by von Glasersfeld. Looking then at the individual, it is argued that RC mainly looks at the construction of realities as ontogenetic processes. Findings: As a result, the constructing individuals do not have enough properties to explain observable behavior or to predict the results of their cognitive constructions. Taking von Glasersfeld’s references to evolutionary theory seriously, it is argued that all organisms, and of course humans, have an evolutionary history that influences their construction of realities. Due to this broadly common background, all humans share an important number of inherited dispositions that influence the constructive processes of individuals. As a result, communication is possible, though not perfect, and there are transcultural (near-)universals and individual dispositions for solving reoccurring problems of social life, as shown by references to current research. Implications: The construct of the constructing individual in RC needs conceptual and interdisciplinary enrichment.
Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: I argue in favor of not eliminating humans from social theory. My argumentation is based on the “mechanistic” perspective that emerged in the interdisciplinary context of systems theory but that is lacking in Luhmann’s work. Based on defining communication in the constructivist-mechanist tradition, I claim that research on human (near-)universals contributes to solving the constructivist problem of how understanding among individuals is possible. I also argue against the author’s critique of an “utilitarian” approach and for maintaining the individual and social level in systems theory. Finally, I address the observer-problem in Luhmann’s theory.
Llinás R. R. (2009) Umwelt: A psychomotor functional event. In: Berthoz A. & Christen Y. (eds.) Neurobiology of “umwelt”: How living beings perceive the world. Springer-Verlag, Berlin: 29–37.
My basic posture concerning Umwelt (world view) is based on the assumption that our perception and understanding of “universals” derives from the functional properties of our brains. Such universals are ultimately constructed by the functional state we know as consciousness. From such a brain-centric perspective, Umwelt is what our brain makes from the sensory inputs arising from their responses to the external world and the ancestral brain network derived from our evolutionary history. Ultimately, then, our Umwelt derives from the sensory specification of internal brain function, mostly determined genetically and epigenetically during development and honed by the leaning process.
Lopes J. (2021) On the psychologism of neurophenomenology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Online first. https://cepa.info/7302
Psychologism is defined as “the doctrine that the laws of mathematics and logic can be reduced to or depend on the laws governing thinking” (Moran & Cohen, 2012 266). And for Husserl, the laws of logic include the laws of meaning: “logic evidently is the science of meanings as such [Wissenschaft von Bedeutungen als solchen]” (Husserl (1975) 98/2001 225). I argue that, since it is sufficient for a theory to be psychologistic if the empiricistic theory of abstraction is employed, it follows that neural networks are psychologistic insofar as they use this theory of abstraction, which I demonstrate is the case (Husserl (1975) 191/2001 120). It’s sufficient for psychologism because, according to Husserl, the theory in question reduces one’s phenomenological ability to intend types (or universals) to one’s past history of intending tokens (or particulars), usually amalgamated in some fashion (classically via associations; recently via autoencoders) (ibid; Kelleher, 2019). Similarly dynamical systems theory entails psychologism. For dynamical systems theory ties content to the temporal evolution of a system, which, according to Husserl, violates the fact that intentionality toward validities and objectivities does not pertain to “particular temporal experience[s]” (Husserl (1975) 194/2001 121). It follows that neither the species (neural networks), nor the genus (dynamical systems), can avoid psychologism and intend objects “in specie” (ibid). After critiquing these two approaches, I proceed to give an account based on the essentialist school of cognitive psychology of how we may intend objects “in specie” while avoiding the empiricistic theory of abstraction (Keil, 1989, Carey, 2009, Marcus & Davis, 2019). Such an account preserves the type-token distinction without psychologistic reduction to the temporal evolution of a dynamical system (Hinzen, 2006). This opens the way toward a truly unifying account of Husserlian phenomenology in league with cognitive science that avoids Yoshimi’s (2016) and neurophenomenology’s psychologistic foundation (herein demonstrated) and builds upon Sokolowski’s (2003) syntactic account of Husserlian phenomenology.
Matsuno K. (2000) The internalist stance: A linguistic practice enclosing dynamics. In: Chandler J. & Van de Vijver G. (eds.) Closure: Emergent organizations and their dynamics. New York Academy of Sciences, New York: 332–349.
Natural dynamics, as manifested in evolutionary processes, refer to material bodies in movement in the present progressive mode. Any interacting material body in the present progressive mode must be sentient to others because there can be no global agency coordinating it to others in a globally synchronous manner. The internalist perspective, or the worm’s eye view, referring primarily to the present progressive mode, renders local material bodies, large or small, subject to an inevitable inconsistency among local representations of neighborhood events registered in the local present perfect tense. Any sentient material body experiencing this inconsistency subsequently transforms itself into an inconsistency-free representation. The descriptive scheme unique to the internalist stance is internal and dynamic in the sense that it constantly strives to update constituent local representations, attempting to eliminate any inconsistencies residing within antecedent local representations. Compared to external descriptions of invariable universals grounded upon the Cartesian epistemic split, which are complementary to dynamics, internal description serves as a linguistic means of embodying natural dynamics even without recourse to the notion called forces. This makes our language powerful enough to enclose natural dynamics of material bodies in the empirical domain.
Münch R. (1992) Autopoiesis per Definitionen. ProtoSociology 3: 42–51.
This paper argues that Niklas Luhmann’s theory of modem society’s differentiation into autopoietically operating subsystems is widely accepted on false grounds. Modem society’s empirical differentiation into relatively autonomous subsystems is falsely taken as the empirical point of reference for Luhmann’s theory. Luhmann, his advocates and his critics; however; conflate analytical differentiation with empirical differentiation which occurs on a basis completely opposite to autopoiesis. Empirical differentiation consists of the permanent production and reproduction of codes and programs for economic, political, legal or other types of action by societal struggles which include elements of cultural legitimation, legal regulation, political enforcement and economic calculation. Such codes and programs are not evolutionary universals but historically particular institutions. Secondary conservative and critical interests support Luhmann’s theory because they take it as a reflection of what they want either to preserve or to change, as the case many be.
Ockham W. O. & Orton R. E. (1995) Ockham’s Razor And Plato’s Beard:(Or,“The possible relevance of the philosophy of mathematics, and the problem of universals in particular, to the philosophy of mathematics education, and the problem of constructivism in particular”). Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 26(3): 204–229.
William of Ockham responds from the dead to an article appearing in the January 1992 issue of the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, in which Paul Cobb, Erna Yackel, and Terry Wood propose a “constructivist alternative to the representational view of mind. ” Ockham, now a convert to Platonism, argues three points. First, that by opposing construction to representation, Cobb et al. misinterpret the postepistemological perspective of Richard Rorty’s 1979 influential book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Second, that by opposing mathematics in the students’ mind to mathematics in the environment, and, in particular, by attempting to argue that the representational theory of mind opens the “learning paradox, ” Cobb et al. misinterpret Carl Bereiter (1985), confuse ontological and epistemological issues, stumble into the perennial philosophical problem of universals, and indicate that they might be interested in discussing the philosophy of mathematics. Third, that in arguing for a relatively pure, “radical” constructivism, Cobb et al. mistake the pragmatic force of the constructivist argument, confuse matters of value with matters of taste, and attempt to fashion too dogmatic a connection between theory and practice in mathematics education.
Pegues H. (2007) Of paradigm wars: Constructivism, objectivism, and postmodern stratagem. The Educational Forum 71: 316–330. https://cepa.info/7036
Constructivism is presented as the inexorable denouement of the qualitative versus quantitative paradigm war. Postmodernism is equated with constructivism, then deconstructed and critiqued in light of rhetorical strategy. The problem of universals is discussed and the solution is elaborated into objectivist pedagogy. Elkind (2005) is cited as an exemplar of postmodern doublespeak and, accordingly, logically refuted. The article concludes that a constructivist monopoly in education ideology is calamitous. The sole curative would be a fundamental change in philosophy; that is, an acceptance of objectivist epistemology.
Pitts W. & McCulloch W. S. (1947) How we know universals: The perception of auditory and visual forms. The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 9(3): 127–147.
Two neural mechanisms are described which exhibit recognition of forms. Both are independent of small perturbations at synapses of excitation, threshold, and synchrony, and are referred to partiular appropriate regions of the nervous system, thus suggesting experimental verification. The first mechanism averages an apparition over a group, and in the treatment of this mechanism it is suggested that scansion plays a significant part. The second mechanism reduces an apparition to a standard selected from among its many legitimate presentations. The former mechanism is exemplified by the recognition of chords regardless of pitch and shapes regardless of size. The latter is exemplified here only in the reflexive mechanism translating apparitions to the fovea. Both are extensions to contemporaneous functions of the knowing of universals heretofore treated by the authors only with respect to sequence in time.