Poimenisch-seelsorgerliche Arbeit bedarf der wissenschaftlichen Reflexion. Oftmals schränkt sich diese auf die kritische Rezeption psychologischer Theorien im Hinblick auf das ihnen zugrunde liegende Menschenbild und dessen Verantwortbarkeit seitens seelsorgerlicher Arbeit. Diese Studie schlägt einen anderen Weg ein: Psychologie und Poimenik werden metatheoretisch untersucht im Hinblick auf die Frage, wie beide Erkenntnis und Erfahrung zu organisieren versuchen. Ausgangspunkt bildet die Psychologie der persönlichen Konstrukte G. A. Kellys; empirisch-kasuistische Untersuchungen zeigen die Praxisrelevanz dieser Vorgehensweise auf; erkenntnistheoretische Reflexionen zur Meßbarkeit und Validität von Seelsorge und zur Anwendbarkeit des alternativen wie radikalen Konstruktivismus auf poimenische Fragestellungen beschließen die Studie.

This paper has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it suggests ways of making autopoietic theory more precise and more operational for concrete communication analysis. I discuss concepts such as distinction, system, bound- ary, environment, perturbation, and compen- sation. The explication of the concepts is ba- sed on catastrophe theory, and in order to make them operational I emphasise their affinity to traditional semiotics and communi- cation theory. On the other hand I propose changes to the semiotic tradition in order to incorporate insights from autopoietic theory, namely that the human condition is characte- rised by the phenomenon of self-reference and therefore also by the unavoidability of para- doxes. Firstly, this means that truth cannot be a basic semiotic concept; instead the notion of stability is suggested. Secondly, in order to act in a paradoxical context, we need to unfold the paradox in time, which again calls for a dynamic theory of meaning.

Self-referential systems theory does not provide for a concept of intelligence. There is even a certain resistance to intelligence that seems to block any explicit exchange of concepts with artificial systems theory. The paper describes the intelligence service in self-referential systems as the self-referential and, hence, paradoxical switching from the self-reference of these systems to other-reference. How this might work is shown by means of G. Spencer Brown’s calculus of indications and Heinz von Foerster’s notion of double closure.

Key words: george spencer-brown, heinz von foerster, intelligence, self-reference, systems

My colleagues and I have begun to build a model of the development of young infants’ physical reasoning. The model is based on the assumption that infants are born not with substantive beliefs about objects (e.g., intuitive notions of impenetrability, continuity, or force), as researchers such as Spelke and Leslie have proposed, but with highly constrained mechanisms that guide the development of infants’ reasoning about objects. The model is derived from findings concerning infants’ intuitions about different physical phenomena (e.g., support, collision, and unveiling phenomena). Comparison of these findings points to two developmental patterns that recur across ages and phenomena. We assume that these patterns reflect, at least indirectly, the nature and properties of infants’ learning mechanisms. In this review, I describe the patterns and summarize some of the evidence supporting them.

Excerpt: In comparing constructivist and sociocultural perspectives, it is worth considering at the outset whether any empirical or scientific claims are involved – claims that could be vulnerable to evidence – or whether the differences are entirely perspectival. The slogan “students construct their own knowledge” is not by itself a falsifiable claim. It is simply a concomitant of any cognitive stance – including the stance of folk psychology. As long as one views the mind as a container whose contents are beliefs, schemata, cognitive structures, or other cognitive objects, then any plausible explanation of how those objects get into the mind has to assume that they are created there. What alternative is there, short of thought transference? The only way to reject it is by rejecting the whole structure of cognitive psychological ideas built upon the mind-as-container metaphor.