Excerpt: Taking as a point of departure the constructivist concept of self-referentiality, I will attempt to consider the problem of self-reflexivity, which has become so important in modern literature. In other words, I shall attempt to discuss the phenomenon of metaliterature, a literature that, above all, is concerned with itself, that reflects the conditions which make possible its own composition, that treats in general of the possibility of fictional speech, or that questions the basis of the fictional contract between the work and the reader. This attempt concurs with a suggestion in an essay by Heinz von Foerster [10], where, from the fact that there can be no objective perception as such, in other words, no objects without observers, the conclusion is drawn that we need, above all, a theory of the observer or the “describer.” Von Foerster continues that since only living organisms are possible candidates for observers, the construction of such a theory must be the task of the biologist. Since, however, the latter also is a living creature, he must not only take account of himself in his theory, but must also include the theory- building process itself in the theory. This is, in fact, the situation of many writers in the twentieth century who no longer desire to lustily tell stories but have found, just as scientists and philosophers in other fields have found, that their medium language, together with all the traditional processes of writing, has, after a period of optimism, become problematic. Thus they have found themselves forced to reflect on the process of writing itself.

Key words: radical constructivism, philosophy

Within the limits of one chapter, an unconventional way of thinking can certainly not be thoroughly justified, but it can, perhaps, be presented in its most characteristic features anchored here and there in single points. There is, of course, the danger of being misunderstood. In the case of constructivism, there is the additional risk that it will be discarded at first sight because, like skepticism – with which it has a certain amount in common – it might seem too cool and critical, or simply incompatible with ordinary common sense. The proponents of an idea, as a rule, explain its nonacceptance differently than do the critics and opponents. Being myself much involved, it seems to me that the resistance met in the 18th century by Giambattista Vico, the first true constructivist, and by Silvio Ceccato and Jean Piaget in the more recent past, is not so much due to inconsistencies or gaps in their argumentation, as to the justifiable suspicion that constructivism intends to undermine too large a part of the traditional view of the world. Indeed, one need not enter very far into constructivist thought to realize that it inevitably leads to the contention that man – and man alone – is responsible for his thinking, his knowledge and, therefore, also for what he does. Today, when behaviorists are still intent on pushing all responsibility into the environment, and sociobiologists are trying to place much of it into genes, a doctrine may well seem uncomfortable if it suggests that we have no one but ourselves to thank for the world in which we appear to be living. That is precisely what constructivism intends to say – but it says a good deal more. We build that world for the most part unawares, simply because we do not know how we do it. That ignorance is quite unnecessary. Radical constructivism maintains – not unlike Kant in his Critique – that the operations by means of which we assemble our experiential world can be explored, and that an awareness of this operating (which Ceccato in Italian so nicely called consapevolezza operativa) can help us do it differently and, perhaps, better.

Key words: philosophy, radical constructivism

Excerpt: It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals. The hospital creates a reality of its own in which the meanings of behavior can then easily be misunderstood. The consequences to patients hospitalized in such an environment – the powerlessness, depersonalization, segregation, mortification, and self-labeling – seem undoubtedly countertherapeutic. I do not, even now, understand this problem well enough to perceive solutions, but two matters seem to have some promise. The first concerns the proliferation of community mental health facilities, of crisis intervention centers, of the human potential movement, and of behavior therapies that, for all of their own problems, tend to avoid psychiatric labels, to focus on specific problems and behaviors, and to retain the individual in a relatively nonpejorative environment. Clearly, to the extent that we refrain from sending the distressed to insane places, our impressions of them are less likely to be distorted. (The risk of distorted perceptions, it seems to me, is always present, since we are much more sensitive to an individual’s behaviors and verbalizations than we are to the subtle contextual stimuli that often promote them. At issue here is a matter of magnitude. And, as I have shown, the magnitude of distortion is exceedingly high in the extreme context that is a psychiatric hospital.) The second matter that might prove promising speaks to the need to increase the sensitivity of mental health workers and researchers to the Catch 22 position of psychiatric patients. Simply reading materials in this area will be of help to some such workers and researchers. For others, directly experiencing the impact of psychiatric hospitalization will be of enormous use. Clearly, further research into the social psychology of such total institutions will both facilitate treatment and deepen understanding. I and the other pseudopatients in the psychiatric setting had distinctly negative reactions. We do not pretend to describe the subjective experiences of true patients. Theirs may be different from ours, particularly with the passage of time and the necessary process of adaptation to one’s environment. But we can and do speak to the relatively more objective indices of treatment within the hospital. It could be a mistake, and a very unfortunate one, to consider that what happened to us derived from malice or stupidity on the part of the staff. Quite the contrary, our overwhelming impression of them was of people who really cared, who were committed and who were uncommonly intelligent. Where they failed, as they sometimes did painfully, it would be more accurate to attribute those failures to the environment in which they, too, found themselves than to personal callousness. Their. perceptions -and behavior were controlled by the situation, rather than being motivated by a malicious dis position. In a more benign environment, one that was less attached to global diagnosis, their behaviors and judgments might have been more benign and effective.