QUESTION 1
Dear Dr Glasersfeld,
Just wondering, how does your
concept of a metaphor differ from Charles
Sanders Peirce's concept of a triadic sign? Please find, for information
and reference only, an attachment that attempts to introduce Peircean
concepts into the field of Information Fusion. In it is a description
of the Peircean Triadic Sign (Figures 1 and 2).
Thank you very much.
Most Respectfully yours,
E.T. Nozawa
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Dear Mr. Nozawa,
Your figures of Peirce's triadic
arrangement did not come through on the e-mail
message. I have now looked it up in one of my books, and here is
my answer:
I do not think Peirce would have
agreed with my type of constructivism because,
as far as I understand him, he had a realist attachment that he
did not want to give
up. But much of what he wrote is quite compatible with constructivism.
With regard to his theory of signs I would say the following: He
considers signs triadic because a sign is related to an
"object' and the object
requires an 'interpretant'. A couple of paragraphs later, P.
gives a sentence about a
vessel out at sea as an example; at the end of his explanation
he says: "The sentence as a whole has, for the person
supposed, no other Object
than that with which it finds him already acquainted."
In my terms, this entails that a
piece of language, be it a sentence or a single
word, can have for the language-user no more and no less meaning
than the experiences or
experiential situations to which he or she is able to relate
to it.
Thus, on this point, I am in full
agreement with Peirce; but I am not at all sure
that he would have felt he same.
Best wishes,
Ernst von Glasersfeld
QUESTION 2
Professor Glaserfeld,
I have been interested in the
issue of cognitive styles for some time now,
in particular Roger Sperry's view that the left hemisphere
processes detail and the
right handles context and spatial concepts. In practice the
neurophysiological evidence for this is questionable but as
thinking styles I believe
that the simple left right division has a high degree of validity.
In terms of memory I find that my students who have a right brained
preference are very visual and more experiential in their approaches
to learning. By contrast those with a left brained orientation
tend to function in a more linguistic and abstract fashion.
When faced with a new situation,
left brainers tend to fare better than right
brainers because they are able to theorise and extrapolate.
(Though this advantage seems
diminish if the right brainers are provided with visual/experiential
contexts). I was curious as to whether you had considered
the issues of cognitive style and constructivism and would appreciate
hearing your views.
Best wishes,
Steve Benson
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Dear Mr. Benson,
The characterization of the
hemispheres' activity is part of a neurophysiological
model and, not being a neurophysiologist, there is not much
I can say about it. I am not aware of a location where my
thinking takes place
and cannot say whether it happens in a hemisphere. I may take the
expert's word for it, but whether that is a good or a bad model,
the experts themselves will
have to decide according to how well it serves in
the systematization of their experiences and experiments. No
matter how well it fits
there, however, as a constructivist I cannot accept it as a description
of an observer-independent reality.
This may not be the sort of
answer you expected, but have a merry Christmas
anyway!
Best wishes,
Ernst von Glasersfeld
QUESTION 3
Dear Dr Glasersfeld,
I notice a striking similarity
between Radical Constructivism and Taoism
(as I understand them). Are you familiar with Taoism? And if so,
would you agree?
Or how do you see them as different?
Thank you,
Robert Crosby
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Dear Mr. Crosby,
I am afraid I don't know much
about Taoism. From the little I do know about
Budhism, I would guess that what RC
shares with it is not unlike what it shares
with Taoism; namely that the world we construct on the basis of
our experience does not have
"ontological" reality. But Oriental philosophies
tend to say that experiential
reality therefore is an illusion. RC cannot say
this because, as it is not concerned
with metaphysics, it has no other rationally
knowable reality to fall back on.
I would be interested to hear
what YOU see as the similarities.
Best wishes,
Ernst von Glasersfeld
