The
Certainty of Uncertainty: Dialogues Introducing
Constructivism
by Bernhard Poerksen
Imprint Academic, USA, 2004
200 pp. Paper, $29.90
IBSN: 0-907845-819.
Reviewed by Aparna Sharma
Film academy, University of Glamorgan
aparna31s@netscape.net
The Certainty of Uncertainty: Dialogues
Introducing Constructivism comprises
eight interviews with scientists and philosophers
who have been key in thinking and articulating
the constructivist discourse. The interviews
are conducted by Hamburg Professor of
Journalism and Communication Science,
Bernhard Poerksen. Upon sharing the key
tenet, as it were, of the constructivist
school of thoughtthe implication
of the observer in the act of observation
such that the claim for an observer-independent
reality is thoroughly challengedthis
text approaches the contradictions and
paradoxes that are likely to arise from
that position.
The Certainty of Uncertainty is
fertile with philosophical discussion.
In its preface, Poerksen alerts us that
any attempt to define or approach the
constructivist discourse as bearing a
coherence or consonance of thought is
defeating of the basis of constructivist
understanding. As the text proceeds, we
are introduced to a near multiverse
of competing and contending interpretations
of the constructivist position from different
disciplines employing varied methodologies.
The text very clearly posits the constructivist
discourse as itself a construction, open
to contention. However, instead of the
cul-de-sac a constructivist position
might lead to in terms of the uncertainty
of understanding given the relativism
arising from the implication of the observer,
there is an attempt in the text to discuss
engagements, from both the cognitive and
neurobiological as also the social and
anthropological constructivist positions.
While the applications that are discussed
render uncertain the extents of the constructivist
position, we are introduced to a wide
range of philosophical concerns that inject
necessary confrontation with issues of
responsibility, ethics and morality, of
value across disciplines including the
arts too.
In a sense, most interviewees stress the
context of practice rather than holding
a rigidly ontological or fully socially
determined approach. If we are to abide
with the understanding that all observation
is observer-implicated then the twin questions
of practice and form arise as central.
In the text we encounter, varied possibilities
for practiceErnst von Glasersfelds
assessment of viability that
he shares in relation to his research
into the dissemination of education; Francisco
J Varelas co-construction
through which the separation between knower
and known, internal
and external world can be
overcome; and Siegfried J Schmidts
integrative constructivism
that unites cognitive autonomy and social
fashioning with relation to the subject,
are some of the provocative instances
from the text. Estimating and emphasizing
the positionality of the observer, these
provocations facilitate investment of
that understanding in practice involving
variegated subjects and conditions. The
value of constructivist understanding
and its relation to practice surfaces
as particularly significant within post-colonial,
third world discourses that grapple with
complexly constituted subjectivities on
the one hand and their articulation within
national and development
discourses, on the other. If third world
practitioners are to engage with the constructivist
discourse more closely instead of the
rather cursory and scattered encounters,
practice would benefit from a less romanticized
and more critical understanding that resists
a reductionism, allowing for a more democratic,
grassroots-based interface wherein subjectivities
are not overestimated or undermined. They
are confronted on dialogical terms - an
imperative that one finds clearly lacking
within much public discourse.
At its most advanced, the constructivist
discourse coincides with mysticism and
spiritualism. Its stress on the
construction of observation and the observer,
proximates spiritual indications about
processes and the experience of transcendence.
This strain surfaces through the text,
with Francisco Varelas discussion
around Buddhist practice being the most
explicit and articulate exposition. However,
not all interviewees agree and their contentions
problematise the mystical and spiritual
positions. In this, von Glasersfelds
assertion that the mystics separation
of the mystical and rational knowledge
renders the two as incompatible, is useful
in advancing the scope of intellectual
engagement with spiritual discourses,
both of which are distinguished, nearly
oppositionally with respect to their methods
of inquiry and assumptions. Von Glasersfeld
is not alone in identifying that spiritual
practice is founded upon certain assumptions
that evade rational argument or proof.
Formulating this concern will benefit
engaging more critically with spiritual
positionalities. Biologist Humberto R
Maturana furthers the dispute with spiritualism,
when he points at the impossibility in
insights of transcendental encounters,
for the reference to the encounter is
itself not independent from the observer.
This understanding presses on the inadequacy
of language and discourse in the engagement
with spiritualisman insight
that is needed both on behalf of intellectuals
as well as spiritual practitioners to
enunciate meaningful dialogue.
The Certainty of Uncertainty introduces
us to a breadth of debate and unpacks
for us the paradoxes that acknowledging
the observer might result. At the same
time, it traces assertions, conscious
of the observers implication that
has materialized into concrete practice,
which may not be fully resolutionary,
but facilitates complex conditions variegated
subjects might be confronted with. To
this extent, the text is both elucidative
and stimulating. In this, its interview
format is accessible being conversational
and lucidly argumentative.