Text:Problems of Knowledge and Cognizing Organisms - Revision history

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 This essay stems from the contribute by the Authors at a Symposium organized by the SGSR and by the AAAS in Denver, Colorado, in February 1977. A Portuguese translation has been published in Aprendizagem/Desenvolvimento (1985, 2, -6-, 17123). {44}<br>
 == References ==
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 von Glasersfeld, Ernst, Radical constructivism and Piaget’s concept of knowledge. Proceedings of the 1975 Symposium of the Jean Piaget Society, Philadelphia. In F.B. Murray (Ed.) The impact of Piaget-theory. pp. 10 9–122. Baltimore: University Park Press. 1978.<br>

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 Lettvin, J.Y. Maturana, H.E. McCullough, W.S. and Pitts, W.H. What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain. Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers (1959), 47, (11), 1940-1959.<br>
-Martin, R.L. (Ed.) The paradox of the liar. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. Maturana, Humberto R. Biology of cognition, Report N° 9.0. Urbana, Illinois:<br>
+Martin, R.L. (Ed.) The paradox of the liar. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.<br>
-Biological Computer Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1970 (a). Maturana, Humberto R. Neurophysiology of cognition. In P.L. Garvin (Ed.)<br>
+Maturana, Humberto R. Biology of cognition, Report N° 9.0. Urbana, Illinois: Biological Computer Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1970 (a).<br>
-Cognition: A multiple view. New York: Spartan Books, 1970 (b). Maturana, Humberto R. Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In:<br>
+Maturana, Humberto R. Neurophysiology of cognition. In P.L. Garvin (Ed.) Cognition: A multiple view. New York: Spartan Books, 1970 (b).<br>
-Psychology and biology of language and thought. New York: Academic Press,<br>
+Maturana, Humberto R. Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In: Psychology and biology of language and thought. New York: Academic Press, 1978.<br>
-.<br>
+Maturana, H.R., Lettvin, J.Y. Mc Culloch, W.S. and Pitts, W.H. Anatomy and physiology of vision in the frog. J. of Gen. Physiology (1960), 43, 129-175. McCulloch, Warren S. Embodiments of mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1965.<br>
-Maturana, H.R., Lettvin, J.Y. Mc Culloch, W.S. and Pitts, W.H. Anatomy and<br>
+Piaget, Jean, La construction du reel chez l’enfant. Neuchate: Delachaux et Niestle, 1937.<br>
 Piaget, Jean, Biologie et connaissance, Paris: Gallimard, 1967.<br>
-Plato, Theatetus (Translation by B. lowell), Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1949. Radnitzky, G. Contemporary schools of metascience. New York: Getaway Books, 1973. Varela, Francisco, A calculus for self-reference. International Journal for General<br>
+Plato, Theatetus (Translation by B. lowell), Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1949. Radnitzky, G. Contemporary schools of metascience. New York: Getaway Books, 1973.<br>
-and M. Piattelli (Eds.) L’Unite de l’Homme, Paris: Sequil, 1974).<br>
+Varela, Francisco, A calculus for self-reference. International Journal for General Systems (1975) 2 (5).<br>
-von Foerster, Heinz, Objects: Tokens of (eigen) behaviors, Meeting for the<br>
+Varela, F. and Goguen, J. The arithmetic of closure. Proceedings of the Third European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research (Vienna, 1976) in press.<br>
-Celebration of Jean Piaget’s 80th Birthday, Geneva, 1976 (in press).<br>
+Varela, Francisco, Patterns of autonomy, New York: North Holland (in preparation).<br>
-von Glasersfeld, Ernst, Piaget and the radical constructivist epistemology, In: C.D.<br>
+Vico, Giambattista, De antiquissima sapientia. Naples: Stamperia de Classici, 1858 (First published, 1710).<br>
-Smock and E. von Glasersfeld (Eds.) Epistemology and education. Report N° 14,<br>
+von Foerster, Heinz, Notes pour une epistemologie des objets vivants. In: E. Morin and M. Piattelli (Eds.) L’Unite de l’Homme, Paris: Sequil, 1974).<br>
-Athens, Georgia: Follow Through Publications, 1974.<br>
+von Foerster, Heinz, Objects: Tokens of (eigen) behaviors, Meeting for the Celebration of Jean Piaget’s 80th Birthday, Geneva, 1976 (in press).<br>
-von Glasersfeld, Ernst, Radical constructivism and Piaget’s concept of knowledge.<br>
+von Glasersfeld, Ernst, Piaget and the radical constructivist epistemology, In: C.D.Smock and E. von Glasersfeld (Eds.) Epistemology and education. Report N° 14, Athens, Georgia: Follow Through Publications, 1974.<br>
-Proceedings of the 1975 Symposium of the Jean Piaget Society, Philadelphia. In F.B. Murray (Ed.) The impact of Piaget-theory. pp. 10 9–122. Baltimore: University Park Press. 1978.<br>
+von Glasersfeld, Ernst, Radical constructivism and Piaget’s concept of knowledge. Proceedings of the 1975 Symposium of the Jean Piaget Society, Philadelphia. In F.B. Murray (Ed.) The impact of Piaget-theory. pp. 10 9–122. Baltimore: University Park Press. 1978.<br>

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 = Problems of Knowledge and Cognizing Organisms =
-<blockquote>“ ... just as there was close at hand,<br>
+<blockquote>
 and touching my frame, the land of Three Dimensions,<br>
 thought I, blind senseless wretch,<br>
 had no power to touch it,<br>
 no eye in my interior to discern it...”<br>
-Edwin Abbott (1884)</blockquote><br>
+Edwin Abbott (1884)
 In the history of Western philosophy, questions as to how we come to have “knowledge” and how certain or “true” it might be, have been asked with extraordinary persistence. Thinkers have tirelessly pummeled and worried these questions throughout the centuries, loosening a thread here and there, but, on the whole, leaving them as solidly obscure as they were at the beginning.<br>

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 = Problems of Knowledge and Cognizing Organisms =
-<blockquote>“ ... just as there was close at hand,
+<blockquote>“ ... just as there was close at hand,<br>
-and touching my frame, the land of Three Dimensions,
+and touching my frame, the land of Three Dimensions,<br>
-thought I, blind senseless wretch,
+thought I, blind senseless wretch,<br>
-had no power to touch it,
+had no power to touch it,<br>
-no eye in my interior to discern it...”
+no eye in my interior to discern it...”<br>
 Edwin Abbott (1884)</blockquote><br>
@@ Line 104: / Line 104: @@
 Ceccato, Silvio, Un tecnico fra i filosofi, Vol. I e II. Padua: Marsilio, 1964/1966.<br>
 Feyerabend, Paul K. Against method: Outline of an anarchist theory of knowledge. In M. Radner and S. Winolur (Eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. IV (pp. 17–130). Minneapolis; University of Minnesota, 1970.<br>

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-Methodologia 1: 29–46, 1987 (together with Francisco Varela).
+Methodologia 1: 29–46, 1987 (together with Francisco Varela). This paper was downloaded from the Ernst von Glasersfeld Homepage, maintained by Alexander Riegler.<br>
 = Problems of Knowledge and Cognizing Organisms =
@@ Line 158: / Line 163: @@
 Proceedings of the 1975 Symposium of the Jean Piaget Society, Philadelphia. In F.B. Murray (Ed.) The impact of Piaget-theory. pp. 10 9–122. Baltimore: University Park Press. 1978.<br>

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 <blockquote>“ ... just as there was close at hand,
-and touching my frame, the land of Three Dimensions, thought I, blind senseless wretch,
+and touching my frame, the land of Three Dimensions,
 had no power to touch it,
 no eye in my interior to discern it...”
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 If we changed the names, adapted the idioms to contemporary usage, and toned down the general level of courtesy, much of Plato’s Theaetetus could pass as a tape recording of a present-day seminar. Then as now the discussion as to what “knowledge” is turns at once to problems of perception and quickly establishes that things very often are not what they appear to be. Nothing is easier to show {31} than that our senses are unreliable and that what we perceive is subjective. Though the literature on illusions, field dependence, and perceptual integration was somewhat limited in his day, Socrates had no more difficulty in demonstrating the subjective relativity of sensory perception than any specialist in that field has today. In fact, Socrates goes on and on with this demolition of perception as the foundation of knowledge – almost as though he felt that if he left a stone unturned, someone would come sooner or later and resurrect a theory of verification based on the senses. What Socrates says about perception, however, establishes also another more elementary point:<br>
-When I perceive I must become percipient of something – there can be no such things as perceiving and perceiving nothing: the object, whether it becomes sweet, bitter, or of any other quality, must have relation to a percipient: nothing can become sweet which is sweet to no one. (Plato, 1949, p. 22) (1).<br>
+<blockquote>When I perceive I must become percipient of something – there can be no such things as perceiving and perceiving nothing: the object, whether it becomes sweet, bitter, or of any other quality, must have relation to a percipient: nothing can become sweet which is sweet to no one. (Plato, 1949, p. 22) (1).</blockquote>
 “Certainly not!” answers the youth Theaetetus, and the discussion moves on. – Who would disagree? Neither then nor now would anyone in his senses consider something sweet that is sweet to no one. The more elementary point, however, is made in the preceding sentence: “When I perceive I must become percipient of something ... the object. .. must have relation to a percipient.” This, too, seems, obvious, a downright commonplace. The way we conceive of “senses” and “perception” simply requires a certain arrangement of items and, by and large, we are no more inclined to question that arrangement today than were Socrates and his listeners. It comprises a perceiver and something which he can perceive. That is to say, through his senses, which carry out a “mediating” function, the perceiver acquires a “percept” that is in some way caused by an “external” object. Once we accept that basic arrangement [and, since Socrates, there have been few who did not accept it (2)], we have landed ourselves a {32} problem that is indeed insoluble: since we have no access to the “external” object except through the process of perception, we shall never be ‘able to tell whether ours percepts are or are not an accurate or true replica of that object. Thus we have to live with doubts about the veracity of our senses, forever cut off from the “things as such,” dealing with “appearances,” and ultimately dependent on pious hopes such as that God could not have been so malicious as to equip us with unreliable senses. Clearly, this is not a happy situation. If anything can be called absolute, it is the impossibility of evaluating the goodness of match between that percept and the phantomatic external object that is supposed to have caused it. There simply is no way to compare the two, since the one by definition turns into the other whenever we get hold of it (3). Small wonder, then, that some rather strange ways of escape have been suggested, all of which, at some point, invoke faith, magic, or the helping hand of God.<br>