KARL JASPERS FORUM
Bones in the
Constructivist Closet
by David
Kenneth Johnson
27 November, 2007
<1>
In
this essay I revisit an exchange of two years past, with hopes of clarifying my
position on Ernst von Glasersfeld’s globally agnostic response to the problem
of solipsism. As part of a recent
discussion of Gernot Saalmann’s “Arguments Opposing the Radicalism of Radical
Constructivism,” Ernst von Glasersfeld writes:
<2>
“RC”
[radical constructivism] has never made any bones about the problem of the
subject that generates percepts, concepts, and the structure of the
experiential world. It is that
mysterious spot where awareness arises and experience begins. From my point of view it lies at the
interface of the rational and the domain of the mystical to which reason has no
access.” (von Glasersfeld, “Some Rash Conclusions,” Constructivist Foundations, 3, 1).
<3>
I
think there are bones aplenty here. Why
does RC problematize or otherwise enshroud in mystery the subject of
constructive activity? Because, by RC’s
lights, the world I can know and talk about is but a construct of the subject. A simple yet fatal reflexive turn in
constructivism would see the subject, too, as a construct of the subject. But this entails the markedly anti-constructivist
assumption of a pre-existing subject able and disposed to construct the subject
who constructs the world of experience. And
who constructs the subject-constructor? One
alternative might be for a fully constructed subject to appear ex nihilo. But that seems even more incredible than an
infinite regress of subject-constructing subjects. It is a “mysterious spot” indeed.
<4>
The
reason for this enigmatic exercise is, of course, the assiduously radical
rejection of naturalistic or realist metaphysics, or MIR (metaphysical
independent reality).[1] I encourage epistemologists to suppose
instead, in concert with the greater part of science and commonsense, that the constructing
subject is not itself primarily a construction but a being that first exists
prior to its many constructions (a developing human, for example, who begins
not as a “construct” but a fertilized product of two other subjects) and
subsequently as the active generator of those constructions (including, of
course, percepts, concepts, and all the ideational furniture of that human’s “experiential
world”). If I am right, then, and
contrary to von Glasersfeld’s words, it is never the “subject that constructs…” but always the subject
who constructs his or her
experiential world. Most simply:
1. The subject
exists independently of (many of) the subject’s constructions.[2]
<5>
Subjects
are the conscious conceivers and perceivers of our world, most notably from our
standpoint, they are sentient, connative, human animals. While mysteries remain about the fine
structure of these subjects and their world, the basic notion of a subject is
hardly mysterious: We not only know what subjects are, thanks in large part to
the various human and natural sciences, but that the world currently contains
about 6.5 billion of them.
<6>
Some
will no doubt object that I unfairly smuggle metaphysics (or natural history,
or evolutionary biology, etc.) into what would otherwise be a pure
epistemological analysis; that I have radically misunderstood the radicalism of
RC. This tired complaint flows all too readily from the pens of some minor RC
apologists.[3] The many efforts to comment critically on,
complete or render consistent, unearth the tacit metaphysical foundations of,
or supplement the presuppositions of RC do not, in every instance, signal a misconstruction
of the theory.[4] The persistent injunction to judge RC only by
its own “internal” suppositions is doubly wrong: first, as I see it, RC is in
many respects self-reflexively inconsistent; that is, no “outside”
considerations are required to illuminate its structural defects. Most centrally, and as I will suggest once
again below, the principal contention that RC provides an epistemological
account of experience free of all metaphysical or ontological suppositions is
false (this was the central theme of my TA 75, KJF). Second, and as a
consequence of these internal difficulties, a faulty theory – especially one
plagued by a crippling and axial mystery – may require “outside” help. To believe otherwise – to reject on principle
any deviation from the foundational aspirations or features of a theory – is to
court pure, anti-intellectual dogma. In
this way, realism’s fallibilistic, abductive inferences to mind- or
subject-independent objects and relations are meant to inform or reform, not to
bludgeon, talk past, or pervert RC.
<7>
To
say that the subject exists independently of the subject’s constructions is to
locate the subject along with all other independently existing objects or
relations in so-called MIR. Now, what exactly
does it mean to talk of the “metaphysically independent existence of the
subject”? I admit that, without further
qualification, this brand of realist talk does seem a tad mysterious. In my view, metaphysical independence, if it
is to mean anything at all in this context, means existing independently from (much of[5])
mind and its products. So, the
mystery of the subject is actually the mystery of the mind-independent
existence of the subject. I will,
therefore, parse von Glasersfeld’s mystery in the following way:
2. The (mostly)
mind-independent existence of the subject is a mystery.
<8>
The
concept of “mind-independence” requires further clarification. Since it can mean either existing
independently of my mind or existing independently of all minds, we now have
two further candidates for our critical attention:
3. Whether a
subject can exist (mostly) independently of my mind is a mystery.
And
4. Whether a
subject can exist (mostly) independently of our minds is a mystery.
<9>
Now,
despite the familiarity of utterances akin to (4) and notwithstanding some
notable constructivist efforts to the contrary (for example, Maturana’s and von
Glasersfeld’s prioritizing of “consensual domains” or “social interaction”) the
radical constructivist will not be inclined to accept the robustly realist
assumption of a plurality of subjects contained in (4). For to do so is to assume that there exists
several minds (or subjects), some of which might serve as the subjective basis
from which to judge the reality (or non-reality) of the others. And, barring the assumption of a collective
mind that creates and sustains parts distinguishable as individual subjects
(something at least one commentator, Terren Suydam (TA 86-7, C28), on this
forum does seem to fancy), the existence of a plurality of minds entails the
independent existence of an individual subject.
That is to say, of course, that (4) is self-reflexively inconsistent:
the clearest imaginable answer to the purported mystery is contained within the
sentence itself. That is, on simple
reflection, no one – neither constructivist nor realist -- ought to make such
claims.
<10>
Quite
apart from any logical concerns with (4), Von Glasersfeld’s preference for
ontological agnosticism, for an “epistemology without metaphysics,” no doubt
inclines his view to the more Spartan ontology of (3) with its
singular-sounding subject and object. So,
for any number of reasons, (3) emerges as the best option for the radical constructivist.
<11>
But
clearly (3) has its own set of problems.
First, asking whether a subject can exist independently of my mind,
when, for all I know, I am the only subject, sounds very much like asking whether
my mind can exist independently of my mind, an obvious enough contradiction in
thought. Now a lot rests on the phrase
in the previous sentence “for all I know,” and von Glasersfeld will not hesitate
to point out that I have failed (yet again!) to consider the possibility that
the question might be posed by one who remains agnostic about the number of real
or existent subjects: “Perhaps I am
alone; perhaps I am not. I care not to
say; for I have no metaphysical ambitions at all.”
<12>
This leads us to the second problem for (3); one that involves the
specter of solipsism – a persistent thorn in RC’s side. Von Glasersfeld’s position on solipsism is equivocal,
since he variously suggests that RC “refutes” or “has nothing to do with” this
homely outlook. Most frequently,
however, he moves to dismiss the recurrent charge of solipsism, not by
invoking, invading, or inferring to anything extra-von Glasersfeldian (the most
obvious route), but by remaining “neutral” with respect to the existence and
nature of anything beyond his experience.
This kind of global ontological agnostiticism (GOA), as I have dubbed it
elsewhere on this forum (TA 78, C25), differs greatly from its more modest and
perfectly agreeable cousin, selective ontological agnosticism (SOA), where a
subject might choose to remain neutral on the mind-independent existence of any
particular object or relation.
<13>
While SOA is nothing other than the
fallibilistic imperative ingredient in rather ordinary, commonsensical realism, it
no doubt strikes von Glasersfeld as naïve or irrational (because of its
supposedly mystical access to a world of things and relations beyond the Cartesian
subject-as-constructor). He favors
instead
<14>
Von
Glasersfeld is likely to counter that I have deliberately, or by virtue of the
exercise of some naïve realist blind spot, failed to notice some more fitting version
of neutrality or agnosticism; one that sports an exclusively “epistemological”
character and is capable of rebuffing solipsism, free of any metaphysical referents. In response to my suggestion that
“I submit that the rejection of all claims to KNOW
experiencer-independent objects or relations has nothing to do with solipsism,
because solipsism designates a belief about BEING whereas the agnostic’s
rejection concerns KNOWING (E. von Glasersfeld, TA 78, C30).”
<15>
There
are several problems with this response.
Solipsism, as a “designator of beliefs,” is the
epistemological-ontological thesis that limits both what there is (and,
therefore, what I can know) to the lone subject.[6] There can be no purely ontological form of
solipsism (or any other view, since it would be, after all, a view). As von Glasersfeld recognizes, global
ontological agnosticism (
<16>
Realism
is the only viable alternative to solipsism.
It is hardly surprising, then, to see von Glasersfeld invoking the specter of independent constraints
at nearly every turn, either in the guise of “independent, ontological
obstacles,” appeals to the “necessity” of social consensus, “fitness” (a
fallibilistic cognate of correspondence), or myriad other references to the way
the “real world steps on our toes.” In
fact, and in the fashion of Berkelean or Kantian or Cartesian idealism, RC temporarily
avoids quick refutation by exceeding its own restrictions on the (idealistic) scope
of sensible utterances. Luckily for RC,
solipsism is averted by the very mention of a possible,
mind-independent external constraint, in the fashion of “my experiential world
appears to contain 6.5 billion subjects, and perhaps, though I can’t say for
sure, those 6.5 billion-minus-one subjects exist independently of me.”
<17>
Unluckily for RC, such claims run
directly counter to – that is, logically contradict – von Glasersfeld’s
radicalism. (Note, too, that the
seemingly marginal “mystery” of the subject is actually the all-embracing
“mystery” of everything not dependent for its existence and nature on von
Glasersfeld and his constructions.) Why is von
Glasersfeld forever defending opposing positions? Because RC rests on a set of contradictory
assumptions (again, the central message of my TA 75). He wants both to resist, as a consistent
practitioner of GOA, all substantive references to a world beyond the lone
knower; and at the same time, since GOA is ineffective against the charge of
solipsism, to embrace commonsensical, nonsolipsistic reflections grounded in the
recognition of a plurality of subjects and (at least the possibility of) a
constraining, extra-conceptual world that contains and constrains those
subjects. The sort of metaphysical
innocence or purity von Glasersfeld periodically covets is for the solipsist
alone. The selectively agnostic and
consistent von Glasersfeld, in rejecting solipsism, is a metaphysical realist. Mystery solved.
[1] I’ve argued previously on this
forum (TA 75, R4), for reasons that will emerge presently, against the
continued use of MIR and in favor of SIR (subject independent reality) and HIR
(human independent reality).
[2] And not, as prevailing
caricatures of the realist project would have it, that the subject exists
independently of the subject or that the subject’s constructions exist
(entirely) independently of the subject.
[3] See, for example, Dewey
Dykstra’s contribution to this same article, “Into the Breech…”, Constructivist Foundations, 3, 1.
[4] While frequently compelling,
Saalmann’s “critical realist” take on RC’s radicalism suffers from an apparent
lack of familiarity with the debate.
[5] I employ the qualifications
“much of” and “mostly” to reflect the logical truth that no (mindful) subject
exists entirely independently of all mind.
However, in a nonsolipsistic universe (this one, for instance), each of
us exists entirely independently of every other subject’s mind.
[6] I have expressed in previous
commentaries, however, my concerns about the very sense of solipsism (TA 75,
R1).
[7] I have expressed concerns about
the very sense of this position, too, which strikes me as a nonviable species
of solipsistic phenomenalism (TA 78, C30).
