Humberto R. Maturana

Bernhard Poerksen

From Being to Doing. The Origins of the Biology of Cognition.

Heinz Von Foerster

How real is reality? Are our images of the world mere inventions, or does an external reality correspond to them? Is it possible to know truth? These are the questions that physicist and philosopher Heinz von Foerster and journalist Bernhard Poerksen debate about in their conversations. Together, they explore the borders of our capacity for knowledge. They discuss the seeming objectivity of our sensual perception, the consequences of "truth terrorism" and the connections between knowledge and ethics, sight and insight.

Conversations on Epistemology and Ethics

Understanding Systems

Neurobiologen og systemteoretikeren Humberto R. Maturana (f. 1928) anskueliggør sin filosofi og teorier gennem samtale og anekdoter, og samtidig dannes et billede af personen Maturana og hans livsanskuelse

The Origins of the Biology of Cognition

From Being to Doing

Constructivism has been traded as a new paradigm by its advocates, and criticised by its opponents as legitimating deceit and lies, as justifying a trendy post-modern "Anything goes". In this book, Bernhard Poerksen draws up a new rationale for constructivist thinking and charts out directions for the imaginative examination of personal certainties and the certainties of others, of ideologies great and small. The focus of the debate is on the author's thesis that our understanding of journalism and, in particular, the education and training of journalists, would profit substantially from constructivist insights. These insights instigate, the claim is, an original kind of scepticism; they provide the underpinnings of a modern type of didactics oriented by the autonomy of learners; and they supply the sustaining arguments for a radical ethic of responsibility in journalism.

A Constructivist Epistemology of Journalism and Journalism Education

The Creation of Reality

Hanne Detel

In an age of ubiquitous digital media and permanent mutual observation scandals are omnipresent. Everybody can release them, everybody can become their victim. Videos on mobile phones terminate careers, Twitter messages generate outrage, and SMS messages turn into evidence. Documents of embarrassment and public disgrace today display a novel kind of lightness and agility. They can be copied in no time, spread very quickly, resist all censorship - and in the extreme case stir up worldwide indignation. The consequence: the reputation of the powerful and the powerless, of enterprises and states, can be destroyed in record time. In order to illustrate these considerations the books describes recent case-(hi)stories, discussing public figures such as Tiger Woods and Anthony Weiner, the powerful and the helpless that suddenly find themselves in a worldwide pillory.

The End of Control in the Digital Age

The Unleashed Scandal

This book presents the views of the founders of constructivism and modern systems theory, who are still providing stimulating cues for international scientific debate. The conversations turn on the results of brain research, the breaks through of cybernetics, the linguistic determination of thought, and the intrinsic connection between epistemology and ethical practice.

Dialogues Introducing Constructivism

The Certainty of Uncertainty

Nothing that can be said is independent of us. Whatever can be said is coloured by our dreams and aspirations, by the way our brain works, by human nature and human culture. Whoever claims to know or to observe is - according to the central constructivist assumption - inescapably biased. This book presents the views of the founders of constructivism and modern systems theory, who are still providing stimulating cues for international scientific debate. The conversations of Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Humberto R. Maturana, Francisco J. Varela, Gerhard Roth, Siegfried J. Schmidt, Helm Stierlin, and Paul Watzlawick with Bernhard Poerksen, display a kind of thinking that steers clear of rigid fixation and reveals the ideal of objectivity to be a myth. The conversations turn on the results of brain research, the breaks through of cybernetics, the linguistic determination of thought, and the intrinsic connection between epistemology and ethical practice. Throughout, the central figure of the observer is examined with sophisticated wit and just enough irritating grit to create the pearl in the oyster. Constructivism thus emerges as a philosophy of possibilities that keeps generating new points of view, insists on fundamental scepticism with regard to certainties and dogmas, and provides the foundation for an ethics of perception: Each and every one of us is responsible for their view of things.

Bernhard Poerksen

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