Constructivist Foundations
Constructivist Foundations is a quarterly, English-language, interdisciplinary academic journal specializing in constructivist approaches to science. These include radical constructivism , enactive cognitive science , second order cybernetics , the theory of autopoietic systems and non-dualizing philosophy .
Objectives
The journal publishes articles with empirical, formal or conceptual content, overview articles, target articles that are publicly discussed in commentary, opinions written by authorities in their respective fields, and book reviews.
Constructivist approaches call the Cartesian separation between objective world and subjective experience into question and demand the involvement of the observer in scientific explanations. They reject representationalism and support the view that knowledge is a system-related process and not the image of the objective world. Reality is therefore constructed, i.e. that is, it is produced by the subject rather than passively received. This means that constructivist approaches have an agnostic relationship with reality. They focus on self-referential and organizationally closed systems that control not their output, but rather their input. With regard to scientific explanations , constructivist approaches prefer the process-oriented approach over the substance-based perspective, so that cognitive systems are characterized by the processes with which they constitute and maintain their own organization. Constructivist approaches demand a more open and less dogmatic attitude from science.
So far, in addition to regular editions, two special issues have been published: a commemorative publication for Ernst von Glasersfeld and an edition on Josef Mitterer's non-dualizing philosophy. The magazine currently has around 1,800 subscribers.
The journal offers open peer commentary.
Authors
Authors who write for Constructivist Foundations include Dirk Baecker , Niels Birbaumer , Volker Gadenne , Kenneth J. Gergen , Ranulph Glanville , Ernst von Glasersfeld , Reuben Hersh , Adolf Holl , Klaus Krippendorff , Josef Mitterer , Jean-Louis Le Moigne , Humberto R. Maturana , Sal Restivo , Siegfried J. Schmidt , Peter Strasser and Peter Weibel .