Bernhard Poerksen

The Certainty of Uncertainty

 Th
of
For Heinz von Foerster Dialo

Tran
he Certainty
Uncertainty
ogues Introducing Constructivism

Bernhard Poerksen

nslated by Alison Rosemary Koeck

and Wolfram Karl Koeck

1A,

IMPRINT ACADEMIC
 Copyright © Bemltnrd Poerksen, 2004
Th e mor al rights of the a uth or has bee n asserted
No p art of any contributi on may be rep rodu ced in any form
wit h ou t permi ssio n, excep t for the quotati on of brief passages
in critici sm and di scussion.

Th e Germ an orig ina l was first published und er the title:

Bernh ard Põrk sen, Die Gewissl1e it der U11gewissheit.
Gespriicl1e zu111
Ko11struktivis11ws,
H eidei ber g: Ca rl-Auer-Sys teme 2001

English trans lation by A lison Rosema ry Koeck

a nd Wolfram Ka rl Koeck

Publi shed in the UK by lmpri nt Acad emic

PO Box 200, Exeter EXS SYX, U K

Published in the USA by lmpr int Academic

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 Contents
Acknowledgments ........ . . .... ........ . . .. v-i
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
1 At each and every mom ent I can decide who I am . . . . . 1
Heinz vo n Foers tcr on the observer, on d ia log ica l living,
a nd on a constru ctivist p hilosophy of dis tin ctions
2 We can never know what goes on in so mebody else's hea d . 25
Ernst vo n Glasersfe ld on truth a nd viability, language and
kn ow ledge, a nd thc premises of const,-uctivist ed uca tion
3 The knowledge of knowl edge entails responsibi lity . . . . 47
Humb er to R. Maturana on h·uth and oppre ssion, stru ctur e
determ inism and dicta torsh ip, and the au topo iesis of living
4 Truth is what wo rks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Francisco J. Vare la on cog nitivc science, Buddhi srn, the
inseparab ility of subjc ct and object, and the cxagge rations
of constru ct ivis m
5 We are constructs ourselves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Gcrha rd Roth on the crea tion of realit y in the brai n, on a
reali ty ind e pcndcn l from hum a n consc iousness, a nd on the
rela tionship bctwee n neurobi ology a nd phi losop hy
6 We can never start from scratch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Siegfried J. Schmidt on ind ividuais and society, on the
reality of the media, and on lhe construc tivist co nccp t-io n
of cmpiri cal knowledge
7 The freed om to venture into the unknown . . . . . . . . . 153
Helm Stierl in on guilt and responsib ility in sys temic and
cons tru ctivist thou ght, on the diale ctica l naturc of hum an
relations, and on the ethos of the therapis t
8 Reality: we can only know what it is 11ot . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Pa ul Watz lawick on the axio ms of com mun icat-ion,
on the hid den rea lism of psyc hiah·ic diagnoses, and on
the constructivist vis ion of huma n existence
Biographical note on the author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
 Acknowledgements
My th ank s are du e firs t to all those wh o were will ing to gra nt
me h ours of their tim e, often for severa! days, in the m os t
diverse p laces of the wor ld, for the con versation s that are
repro du ced in this book. They generou sly gave their time to a
perso n wh o was u sually unkn own to them and w ho coul d
pr ese nt no par ticul ar aca demic decorations to sanction his
und ert akin g; and they carefu lly auth orised the resulti ng int er-
view s. (Possible misint erp re ta tions, whi ch may h ave sneake d
in thro ugh section titl es and bri ef char acter isa tion s in the bio-
grap hica l sketches, are to be charged en tirely to my accoun t.)
I h ave to th ank Julia Raa be for th e co mpe tent comm en ts sh e
offered on the firs t tr ansc ripti on s of th e conversa tions: h er
fearless ap p licati on of re d in k improved th e manu scrip t con-
sid erabl y . I dedica te the book to the d ialogist, teach er, an d
friend , Heinz von Foers ter . With out hi s enco ura gerne nt and
sup port, th is boo k wo uld neve r have m aterialised.
 PREFA CE

The circularview
of the world
hen the latest research report of the Biological Co m-

W puter Laboratory was publ ished on 1 Nove mber

1970, nobody could possib ly h ave foresee n the
reperc ussions of the ideas it conta ined . Th e essay of about 70
pages, entitled Biolo~Jof Cognition,represente d a n ew depar-
ture in the his tory of philosophy anda centr al docu men t for
the sd,ool of though t that is known as const ru ctivism today.
Its aut hor, th e Chilean biologist Humber to R. Matura na, wh o
was work ing it1 the USA at the time, i.n vigorous language
pleads for the stu dy of the processes of cogn ition frorn a bio-
Jogical perspective. Ep istemology, the theory of kn ow ledge -
once a cen tra l domain of philosophy - is tur ned into a scien -
tific discipl ine. lt investigates thinking and perce i ving by
means of experiments and empirica l proced ures, and it com-
p letes this change of role both in self-presenta tion an d meth-
odology: th e reflect in g philosop h er as the experimen ter in the
laboratory. H um berto R. Maturana unequ ivocally po ints out
that ali those seeking to probe the tru th of w hat we pe rceive
with the eyes of a biologist, will inevitab ly have to accep t that
they are themse lves among the objects they wa nt to describ e.
They are living systems th at wan t to u nde rs tand living sys -
tems . Human sub jects study objec ts tha t are identical w ith
themselves . The situa tion turns circu lar as pe rceivers s tr uggle
to understand th e processes of perce ivin g . We are reminded of
the mythological figure of the Ouroboros: the snake ea ting its
own tail; a brain exp laining the bra in; human knowers str iving
to understand understanding . Human subjects turn in to th eir
own objects.
viii The Certaintt; of Uncerfainty

H umb er to R. Ma tur ana's essa y, after only a few p ages,

com es up with a concl us ion and a ce ntral statement that illu -
min ates the basic tene ts of constru ctivism, an d thu s th e top ic
of thi s boo k, whi ch is meant to be an intro du ction to this m od e
of tho ught in the for m of in terv iew s. Hi s sta tem ent , a t first
glan ce, ap p ears to be a tri viality; on closer inspec tion, how-
ever, it discloses a different view of th e wor ld. It simpl y says:
"A ny thin gsa id is sai d by an observer." (Maturana 1979, p. 8) It
is of cru cial imp or tan ce th at the existe nce of an extern ai rea lity
is not de nied here; that this is not a statement of soli psism
declaring eve ry thin g a chimer a and figment of th e indi vidual
mind. Nor can the auth or be susp ected of bein g a n aive rea list.
H e does not believe in th e observer-ind epend ent existence of
objec ts that are - in an ont ologically congr uent way - mir -
ror ed in th e human kn owe r' s m ind . Ma turan a' s views, and the
con stru ctivists' views in genera l, represe nt a m.id d le cour se
betwee n th e var ieties of rea lism and th e exagge rations of
solip sisrn. Ne ith er Maturan a n or th e other founding fig ures of
the constr uctivist school of thou ght , which <lea is w ith the ori -
gin and crea tion of concepti on s of rea lity, den y the existence of
an external wo rld ; they ali deny, however, tha t it is poss ible to
kn ow th at extern al world in a subject-ind epend ent way . Every
ac t of cogn ition, it is claim ed, n ecessar ily res ts on the con str uc-
tion s of observers - and not on the p oint-to-p oin t correspo n -
d en ce of p ercepti on and extern ai rea lity. "A nythin g sai.d is
said by an observer ."
Referr in g a ll kn owl e d ge b ac k to k nowi n g subj ec ts
manoe uvres these kn owin g subjects int o the centr e an d makes
th em th e focal topic. Th e on tolog ical pe rspec tive, which
en tices us to sea rch for inva ri able ontic facts, ch an ges int o a
fund am en tal epi stemological qu est. We may and mu st n ow
qu ery how and wh at observe rs obse rve - and perhap s we can
h op e to find the answe rs in exper iment s on colo ur perce pti on
an d ges talt compr eh ension. We may p ossibly expec t to di s-
cove r them in processes of stimulu s en codin g, and we m ay
then attempt to show that the hum an brain, whi ch has n o
dir ec t cont act wi th its enviro run ent , derives its intern ai per-
cep tu al riches that we experience as a colourful extern ai w orld ,
from qu anti ties of in distin gui sh able grey n oise sup pl.ied by
extern a] stimuli. ln other cont ex ts, ho wever, it is claim ed that
realitt; cann o t be expl ain ed by reco urse to th e biologica l con sti-
tu tion of hu roans; i ts deve lop men t and crea tion mu st be esse n-
 The circularview of the world ix

LiaJly linked to socia l processes . It is, we hear, socia lly

constructed and resul ts from the dependence of hurna n beings
on groups an d his tories, on places and trad itions . ln this way,
we cou ld roam through discip lines and facult ies - an d eve ry-
where enco unter the m illenn i um question of the observer . We
come u pon it in quan tum physics and in syste ms th eory, in the
work of social psychologis ts and sociologis ts of kn ow ledge,
and we d iscover it in phi1osophy and cogn itive science.

The di scovery of the o bs erver

1-íowever, the ominous figure of the obse rver, which seems to
have become a stock in trade of any epistemologica l deba te
today, has not always been that prominent. It had to be uncov -
ered and highligh ted again by a numbe r of cy berneticians,
biologists, psyc h ologis ts, and communicat ion scien tists - the
originators of consh ·uctivism. They have prov ided key con-
cepts for the interna tional commun.ity of scien tists, still re le-
vant today, and they have ma n aged to cr eate an int er-
disc iplinary forum for the criticai disc ussion of crucia l
episte mological ques tions that has increas ingly involved the
general pub lic. The ir theses, concepts, and the possibilities of
their app lication in managemen.t, ed u cation, and psyc hother-
apy, are meanwhile debated even in th e d·aily press. Th ey are
- following the or d er of the contrib ut ions to this vo lume -
the p hysicist and cybernet ician Heinz von Foerster, th e psy-
cholog ist Ernst von Glasersfe ld, th e biologis ts H umb ert o R.
Maturana and Francisco J. Vare la, the brain scienti st Ge rhard
Roth, the comrnunication scien.tist Siegfr ied J. Schmi dt, the
psyc hologists and fami ly therap ists Helm Stierlin an.d Pau l
Watzlaw ick. With thei r theories and models, stor ies an d
expe riments, they have suppl ied new and epoch-s p ecific
arguments to substantiate the ea.rly episte m olog ica l do u bts of
the sceptics. They are un ited in their criticism of dog ma tic
posi tions of all forms and shapes, and they are prec ur sors of an
intellectual culture, which has removed the r igid barr ier
between the natma l and the cu ltural sciences .
Still , desp it e everyth i ng the found in g fathers o f
construct ivism assemb led here may have in comm on , there
are natura lly differences that d ivide them . Some of th em
describe the ind ividua l or even the individ u al brai n as the rele-
van t producer of rea lity; othe rs base the ir conceptio ns on
clearly larger-scale units like families, groups, societ ies, or cu L-
X The CertainhJ of Uncertainty

tures. These different approaches cannot easily be reconciled

because they rest on barely compatible premises. The biolo-
gists, cognitive and brain scientists, on the one hand, concen-
trate their constructivist argument primarily on the
individual. Their focus of interest is on the singular and auton-
omous observer. For the communication scientists and the
family therapists of a systemic persuasion, on the other hand,
the emphasis is not primarily on the cognitive autonomy of
human individuals but on their patently obvious social orien-
tation. In theu· view, reality arises within the framework of a
society - and that means that all individuals must be seen as
entities that are formed by their societies and their cultures.
They observe with the eyes of their groups, they see the world
against the background of their origins, and they cannot,
therefore, be regarded as virtually blind black boxes or
monads because they are, under all circumstances, open and
extremely receptive to external impressions.
One common denominator of the constructivists voicing
their opinions here is, consequently, the concentration on the
observer. The observer is the point of fixation for all the diver-
gent interests; the observer, by general consent, plays the cen-
tral role in any cognitive process. Despite all the differences,
such a common research interest is in itself of great conse-
quence, of course, because it entails the need to re-assess the
investigative efforts of one's own in relation to those of others.
It is, in particular, the evaluation of the description of a
hypothesised external world that changes: if knowledge is
strictly tied to the individual knower, then descriptions are
necessarily always also self-descriptions. They reveal the cog-
nitive strengths and weaknesses, predilections and interests of
those who see and perceive something. The biologist and com-
munication scientist Francisco J. Varela, who has meanwhile
tmned into a critic of constructivism, writes in one of his early
papers about this possibly somewhat puzzling view of obser-
vation with great precision: "In finding the world as we do, we
forget all we did to find it as such, and when we are reminded
of it in retracing our steps back to indication, we find little
more than a mirror-to-mirror image of ourselves and the
world. In contrast with what is commonly assumed, a descrip-
tion, when carefully inspected, reveals the properties of the
observer." (Varela 1975, p. 22) Such a view of things leads to
the unpleasant realisation that our craving for certainty and
 The circular view of the world xi

Lruth is shattered. The claim to objectivity has to be given up

because one of the qualities of an objective description is that
the properties of observers do not enter into it, do not influence
and determine it. Heinz von Foerster's cryptically aphoristic
definition of objectivity - another key statement of
constructivism, and a topic of the first chapter in this book -
can only be appreciated fully against this background:" Objec-
tivity", he says, "is the subject's delusion that observil1g can be
done without him."

Logical and rhetorical self-contradictions

We can, however, question the truth of this kind of h·uth and
similar h·uths. Is it correct that everything depends on observ-
ers and that they are always present in their observations?
What forces are at work in the real world of objects? When will
objects resist the theses and theories we want to impress on
them? How objective is the rejection of objective knowledge?
Or more drastically: Is it true in an absolute sense that absolute
truth is unknowable? Of course, questions of this kind cannot
be answered, and certainly not in any definitive way; they are,
as Heinz von Foerster would add, undecidable. We can only
answer them personally for ourselves and we must, as a result,
bear the burden of responsibility for such deeply personal acts
of decision. Constructivist authors, who claim absolute truth
for the assumption of the impossibility of attaining absolute
truth, turn into meta-dogmatists and become entangled in a
logical self-contradiction that may be expressed by the for-
mula, "H they are right, they are wrong (and vice versa)." The
use of an impersonal kind of language (exhibiting seemingly
observer-unspecific characteristics) may, for this very reason,
display a fundamental problem. A conventional researcher
whose linguistic style excludes stories, parables, creative met-
aphors, and the description of personal thinking experiences,
and who, in particular, clearly banishes all personal expres-
sions from texts, must appear to write in a mode strongly
suggesting 'claims to objectivity. Such language from
constructivists and other sceptics creates a paradox, which we
might term a rhetorical self-contradiction. In the case of a logical
self-contradiction, statements are logically incompatible. The
concept of a rhetorical self-contradiction means, however, that
the chosen manner of expression, the diction, does not match
the meaning to be conveyed. It indicates authority together
xii The Certainty of Uncertaint-l
J

with a claim to finality and ultim a te certaint y, wh ich can in no

way be ju stified if the self-ch osen premises ar e adh ered to. lt
insinu ates, throu gh sty listic choices, th e p ossi bility of ultim ate
ju stification and objective descr iptio n - and simult ane ou sly
qu estions it, on th e cont ent leve i, by using a diction and a jar-
gon of ir revoca bility that is in compa tible wi th the fund ame n-
tal beliefs pr esupp ose d, beliefs that ou ght to in spir e a
di ffere nt, m ore op en and , in p ar ticul ar, an obse rver-bound
ma nn er of prese nt ation and di scour se. We coul d also put it
thi s way: writin g about cons tru ctivism inev itably raises the
qu es tion of for m, w hich in itself invo lves tacklin g the pro blem
of form.
Alth ough the int ervi ew s prese n ted in this book m ay strik e
reade rs as not equa lly successful, I still believe tha t conv ersa-
tion an d di alog ue are parti cu larly well suit ed to prese nt th e
cons tru ctivist theory of the observe r. Dialog ue par tners may
cont ra di ct each oth er and eve n qu arr e1; sp ecific ins ight s,
which mi ght appear to comm and uni versa l validity, if for mu -
lated by a sin gle auth or, may be playfu lly approac h ed fro m
different an gles with ou t pu shing towar ds fin a l harmon y and a
synth esis obscurin g ali cont ra di ctions . Th e pr ocess of the
em ergence and the fa br ication of thought s beco mes the ac tual
point of fixation of wh at is to be achi eved . Th e resu lts surfac-
in g in a rea l conve rsa tion are jun ctures for constantl y extend -
in g an d altern ating one' s tho ughts. The exagge rations and
fi xa tion s, th e disp arit ies and provoca tion s, ap p ear to be
in stan ces of trans ition and elements of a pro gress ion that fails
to end in a new absolut e. They are mea ns and instrum ent s, no t
result and cer taint y. The pos tu re of an all-encomp ass in g an d
unbr oken prese ntation, whi ch is requi red by ultim a te truth s
and m on olithic ed ifices of thought , is thu s d isrupt ed . Th e forrn
is the m essage; a conve rsaêion , if at all successful, is alw ays an
exp ress ion of th e basic con stru ctivist thesis th at realityas such
does not exist but th at there is a mul ti verse of di verse int erpre-
tation s. As soon as one h as und ers too d th at rea lity is so me-
thin g i.neluctably in dividu ai and necessa rily manifold , on e
qui ckly realises tha t th e p ers ons asser ting thi s view are n ot at
all in favo ur of being congregate d in a party of be lievin g
con struc tivists. Th e very desi gn ation constructivism in the
book' s title implies, as severa ] int erviewees emph asised, a
con sonance of th ou ght that simpl y d oes not exis t. There is a
cert ain dan ger tha t the peculiar ch aracter istics of ind ividu al
 The circular view of the world xiii

research programmes and queries are lost under a label resem-

bling a trendy slogan.
This is perhaps the reason why H umber to R. Ma tura n a
never uses the term in our conversation, why Hein z von
Foerste r prefe rs to be called a curiosologist,and why Helm
Stierlin regards the era of cons tructivist textbooks with scepti -
cism. It is a sympto m, he says, of the coming to an end of a
phase of creative anarchy, of wild, un tethe red thoug h t pro-
duction. There is the threa t of an episte mological biedermeier.
Theconstructivist thinking game is being turned into a nor m, a
new creed - a new truth . To avoid the foss ilisa tion and dog -
matisation of thinking, all so-called constr uctivists must con-
stantly make clear that there can be no final proof and no
observer-i.ndependent justification for th eir theses. Biology
and brain research cannot, in. any way, claim to be the tra il-
blazers for the verification o f constructivis t assu mption s; they
can make them p lausib le, they can illustra te them, they can
supply relevant indicat ions, but they can not prove their tr uth
in an emphatic sense. Constructiv ism is itse lf only a construc -
tion (among many othe rs); it cannot be tested for its tru th but
only for its u tility, its viabili ty. The main th ing is, Ernst von
Glasersfeld maintains in conversation, to develo p effec tive
proced ures and assump tions, which will serve the p urposes of
particu lar observers. One must strugg le to move forwa rd, to
explo re whethe r one' s theses and theories prove producti ve or
whether the big unknown, ordinarily and qu ite ro ughly called
reality,resists our in terp reta tions . The re are no plans for a new
quest to con quer finality by way of seeki n g u ltimate salva tion
in a modem variety of scepticism . On the con tra ry: "A ny scep-
ticism that is consistent can only be fr ee-floating, we ll-
fou nded but w ithou t founda tions, or múounded bu t wit h
solid foundations, otherwise it wi ll lose its magic and dege ner-
a te in to dogmatism." (Fischer 1993, p. 96: tran slate d from the
German)
Bernhar d Poerksen
Hamb ur g, February 2001

Refer enc es
Fischer, H. R. (1993): lnforma tion, Kom m unika tion u n d
Sprache. Fragen eines Beobac h ters. ln H. R. Fischer (ed.),
Autopoiesis. EineTheorieim Brennpunktder Kritik. He ide lberg
Carl-Auer-Systeme, 67-97.
xiv The Certainty of Uncertainty

Maturana, H. R. (1979): Biology of Cognition. ln H. R.

Matur an a/F. J. Vare la, Autopoiesis a.nd Cognition. The
Realization of the Living. Boston: D. Reidel, 1-58.
Vare la, F. (1975): A cakulus for se lf-referen ce. lnternational
Journal of GeneralSystems 2, 5-24.
 CHAPTER 1

At eachand every moment,

I can decidewho I am
Heinz von Foerster on the obse rver, d ia log ic llf e,
and a cons truc tlvist phi losophy o f d istinct ions

e in z von Foe r s te r

H (1911-2002) is he ld to be
the "Socra tes of cyberne t-
ics" . Having studi ed phy sics in
Vienna, he wo rk ed in vario u s
r esea rch labora tori es in Germ any
and Austria, a nd after Wor ld W ar
li also br iefly as a journa list an d as
1 a co nsultant to a telephone com-
pany. At the sarne time, he wrote
J his first book, Memory:A quantum-
mecftanical investigat ion (p u b-
1
@
lishe d in Vien na, 1948). Hi s th.eory
of memory caug h t the a ttention of
the founding figur es of Amer ican
cybe rn etics. They invited him; h e immi grat ed to the USA in
'J949. There, he was receive d into a circle of scien tists th a t
began to meet in the ear ly fifties und er the auspices of the
Macy Fou ndation. He was made editor of the annu a l conf er-
ence pro cee dings. Th e math ematician Norbert Wien er, whose
book Cybernetics had ju st been pub lishe d, John von Neumann,
the inventor of th e computer, the anthro p ologis ts Gr egory
Bateson and Margar et Mead, the neuropsyc hiatr ist Warr en S.
McCulloch, toge ther with more than a doz en o ther intellec tual
cnthusiasts, formed the group esse nti ally con h·ibutin g to the
so-called Macy Conferences.
In 1957, Hein z von Foers ter was meanwhile appoi nted pro -
fessor, fo und ed the Biological Computer Laborat ory (BCL) at
the University of lllino is, which h e d irected un til his r etire-
2 The Certaintt;of Uncertainty

ment in 1976. At thi s institution, he brought together

avant-garde artists and original mind s from all over theworld.
ln the inspiring clima te of the BCL, philosophers and electrica l
engi:neers, biologists (e.g. Humberto R. Maturana a:nd Fran-
cisco J. Varela), anthropologists and mathematicians, artists
and logician s debated epistemological que stions from inter-
disciplinary perspectives deriving from both the sciences a:nd
the arts.
They dealt with the rules of computation in human s and
machines and analysed the logicaJ and methodological prob-
lems i:nvolved i:nthe understanding of understanding and the
observation of the observer. Jt is von Foerster's outsta:nding
achievernent to have brought into focus the inescapa ble preju -
dices and blind spots of the human observer approaching his
apparently independent object of inquiry. His ethical stance
demand s constant awareness of one's blind spo ts, to accept, in
a seriou s way, that one' s apparently final pronouncements are
one's own productions, and to cast doubt on certai:nties of all
kinds and forms, while at the sarne time continua lly searching
for other and new pos sibili ties of thought.

The myth of objectivity

Poerksen: Every theory, every attitude, or worldview, rests on
its own aphorisms and key statements that, if one probe s their
depths and think s them through, encompass what is essential.
Psy choanaly sts follow Freud's thesis that humans are "not
mast ers in their own hou se" becaus e the subcon scious reign s
supr eme there. The central formula of Marxism is: "Bei:ng
determine s consciousness." ("Das Sein be stimmt das
Bewusstsein.") The behaviourist Skinner upholds the deter-
minist thesis ''Human behaviour is the function of var iables in
the environment." One of the key aphorisms of constructivism
and your own world of ideas, it seems to me, may pos sibty be
located in the writings of your friend, the biologist Humberto
Maturana: "Anything said is said by an observer."
Von Foerster: The en tree you have chosen seems very interes t-
ing to me - forthere is always thequestion: With whatclaims
and assumptions shou ld we approach an area of thought?
Where, how and when should we begin with the telling of a
story? Moreover, what will happen afterwards? Will people
pound their fists on the table and declare everythingnonsense,
 At each and every moment, I can decidewho I am 3

or wiJl they smile at you full of excitemen t? Considering

Maturana's theorem in isolation and without all its impli cit
consequences will certa inly no t earn you special admira tion.
Nobody will exclaim: "Wow ! What a revelation!" You might
rother hear: "My God, if this is the fundamental tene t of his
philosophy, then I prefer to go to the cinema or have a drin.k."
This theorem, without its proper contex t, may appear ridicu-
lous, annoyi.ng, or dowruight stupid .
Poerksen: What are some of the epistemologica l consequences
- to formulate the question quite genera lly - if we tak e the
statement serious ly and try to build a system of thought upon
it?
Von Foerster: One of the conclusions is that what a hum an
being comprehends can no Jonger be externalised and be seen
simpl.y as given . The statement undermines our craving for
objectivity and truth for we must not forget that it is a distin-
guishing feature of objective and true descriptions that the
personal properties of the observer do not enter into them, do
not influence or determine them in any way. They must not, it
is claimed, be di.storted or disturbed by an observer' s predilec-
tions, personal idiosyncrasi.es, political or philosophical incli-
nations, or any other kind of club affiliat ion. I would say,
however, that this whole concept is sheer madness, absolutely
impossible. How can one demanda thing like that - and still
remain a professor?! The moment you try to eliminate the
propert ies of the obse rver, you crea te a vacuum: There isn't
anyone left to observe anything - and to tel1 us abo ut it.
Poerksen: The observer is the component that cannot be e limi-
nated from a process of knowing.
Von Foerster: Exactly. There must always be someone who
smells, tastes, hears, and sees. I have never really been able to
understand, what the proponents of objective descriptions
want to observe at ali if they ban the human observer's per-
sonal view of thin gs right from the start.
Poerksen: "Objectivi.ty is a subject 's delusion," the American
Socieh;for Cybernetics quotes you, "tha t observing can be done
without him."
4 The CertainhJ of Uncertainty

Von Foerster : H ow can we get ro und the qu estion: vVhat can

observers perceive who , accord ing to the comm on definition
of objectivity, are in fact blind , deaf and dum b, and who are
not allowed to use their owi1language ? What can they tel1 us?
Ho w are they to talk ? Only an observer can observe. Without
an observer, there is nothin g.
Poerksen: If we, as yo u sugges t, tie kn owin g insepara bly to
th e know er, w ha t sense and w hat function remains for the key
concepts of reahsm, e.g. reality,Jact, and object?
muletas
Von Foerster: If used at all, they w ill only serve as crut ches,
metaph ors, and sh ortcut s. They may be used to state thin gs
and establish relation s, without delving more profound ly into
the qu estions inv olved. They will facilita te quick reference to
specific point s of relevance - a place, an object, a prop erty -
w hich are supp osed to exist in the world , and to formul a te cor-
r espo ndin g statement s. The d anger lies in it being all too easy
to forget that we are using crut ches and metaph ors and to
believe th at the w orld is really and trutlifully represe nted by
our d escripti ons. And that is the rnoment in wh ich conflict s
and hostilities and wars arise abo ut the qu estion w ha t the facts
ar e and wh o is in p ossession of the truth.
Poerksen: To take the knower - theo bserver - seriously also
ent ails suppl ementin g or ev en rep lacing ont ological qu estion s
con cernin g th e What - th e objec t of kno w in g - by
epistem ological qu estions relating to the How - the pro cess of
know ing. What insight s or perh aps wh at experiences have
indu ced yo u perso n ally to focu s on the observer in yo ur
resea rch and in your reflections? Was there an intellectual key
experience?

Insights of a magician
Von Foerster: The exper ience occur red a very long time ago.
At twelve or thir teen years of age, rny cousin Martin and I -
w e grew up togeth er like two inseparable bro thers - began to
pra ctise magic. We inven ted our o wn acts, stunn ed th e
amaze d grown -up s with our enthu siasm, and realised after a
whil e that magic had nothin g to do with mechanical thin gs,
false bott oms, tricks, opti cal illusions etc., which everybody is
famili ar with; the decisive th ing w as to crea te an a tmosph ere
in whi ch some thin g unb elievab le, somethin g un expec ted
 At each and even; moment, 1 can decidewho I am 5

cou ld happen , some thingnobody had ever seen. It is thespec -

tator who inve nts a world in which girls are saw n apart and
elephants float through the air . What insti lled an awareness of
the observer into me was the qu estion : How can I create an
atmosphere for a group of people, in whic h miracles m ay be
seen? What sort of story must 1 tel1, Jwwmus tl tell it in order to
make peop le accept it and make them work the mira d es of th e
floating elep hant and the sawn girl in their own ind ivid ual
ways? As a child or a youngster yo u simp ly perform yo ur
magic acts, you listen in amazement to what the grown -ups
tell you about what they have seen, and per haps you won der
what goes on in their brains . And this is w ha t you ]ater -
when you are fifty, perhaps - descr ibe as the observerproblem.
Poerksen: Magician s are, if J am not mis taken, practisi n g
constr uctivists; they create visions and con stru ct realities,
which con tradict the laws of grav ity as well as the ru les of
probability and everyday life.
Von Foerster: This is the point . Magic, forme, was th e or iginal
experience of constructiv .ism: together wit h the oth er partici-
pan ts yo u inventa world in which elep hants disappear an d
girls are sawn apart - and suddenly re-appear tota lly
unhar med. What amused me and mycous in mostwas that the
spectators who had apparently all seen the sarne event - the
mag ic trick - often related qu ite different var ia tions in the
interva l or after the show, which had no thin g or very little to
do with what we or other mag icians had do ne. Mr Miller, Mr
Jones, and Ms Cathy obvious ly created their own perso n al
events. They saw girls sawn apart that were not, of cour se,
sawn apar t at all, neither had the elephan ts been made to van-
ish. These experiences drew my atte ntion to the psychology of
observ ing and the crea tion of a world : What hap pens, I asked
myself, in the process of observing? Is that obse rver sitting in
Hermann von Helm holtz's famous locus observandi an d
descr ibing the world in a state of comple te neu trality?
Poerksen: Wha t do you think? What is the observer doing?
What is going on ?
Von Foerster: The customary view is: the observer sees th e
world, percei ves it, an d says w ha t i t is like. Observers su ppos-
edly occu py tha t strange locusobservandiand watc h - un con-
strai ned by personal ity, ind ividual taste, an d idiosyncra tic
6 T/1e Certainty of Uncertainty

features - an independent reality. ln contr as t, 1maintain that

observers in action primarily look into themselves. What they
are describing is their view of how the world ap pears to them.
And good magicians are ab le to sense wha t kind s of wor ld
other persons would like to be real, ata cer tain moment, and
they can help them to crea te these worlds successfully .
Poerksen: The magician's act, technically spea kin g, involves
thr ee comp onents: th e magician, the event, and the spec tat ors.
If we asked a solips is t, a realist, anda cons tructivist to describe
what was happening, we wo uld get quit e different accounts.
The solipsists wou ld tel1us that nothing of what they descri be
is real, but that everythin g is a chim era of our minds merely
imagining the magician as well as a world that does not, in
fact, exist. The realists would insist th at observin g is nothin g
but the mapping of reality ont o the screen of our mind - and
that the observers, the spec tators, are deceived by the magi-
cian 's trickery: th ey fali victim to an ülu sion that does not ade-
quate ly represent the reality of whatis independe ntly existent.
Your kind of constr uctivism occupie s the middle gro und
between realism and solipsism: There is something there, you
would probably say, someth ing is rea lly going on, and that
seems beyond doub t; but it is justas certai n that alJ human
beings describe the reali ty of those events in their own ways
and construc t their very own worlds.
Von Foerster: I have an uncanny feeling that the language we
are using at this mom ent in our con versation is playing tricks
on us and producing ali sor ts of s tran ge bubbles. You k.now
what I wan t to talk about, and I know more or less, what I want
to say . Still, [ am not sure whether this kind of ep istemo logical
classifica tion and this m~nner of linguistic embeddin .g wo uld
enable other person s to grasp what yo u and [ are getting at.
Thi s mean s: we must, for a m oment, consider the Janguage we
use to express w hat we mean. The mere sent ence "Th ere is
some thin g there" seems to me to be poison ed by the presuppo-
sitions of realism. Iam worried that the position yo u assig n to
m e is holding some back door open through which that terrible
notion of ont ology may still gain entrance. Accept ing this po si-
tion, one may continu e to speak of the existence of an extern ai
reality. And referring to an externa! reality and existence is a
wonderful way of eliminating one's responsibility for what
one is sayin g. That is the deep horror of ontol ogy. You intro-
 At each and every moment, I can decidewho I an1 7

duce the apparently innocent expression " there is ..." wh:ich J

once joking ly and somewhat pompous ly term ed the existen.tial
opemtor and say with authoritarian violence: "lt is so ... there
is..." But why is what there? And who asserts that somet hing is
the case?
Poerkse n: The fact tha t you reject any prefabricated termin ol-
ogy and show a notic eable aversion towards any clean and, as
il were, unadulterated epistemological classification of yo ur
ideas, seems to me to be an important indication of a funda-
mental problem: How can we speak about the act of observing,
Lheobserve r, and the observed, in a way that does justice to the
dynamic processes involved?
Von Foerster: This is an incredib ly difficu lt problem because
we are work ing with a medium - language. Being tied to that
n1edium, we are seduced to spe ak in a way that sugges ts the
cxistence of a world independent from us . One of my grea t
desires is to learn to contra i my lan gua ge in suc h a way as to
keep my ethics implicit, whether I am deali ng wit h po litics,
science, or poetry, so that it is always evident that I myself am
the point of reference of the observations [ a m offering. I
would like to inventa language or form of communicat. ion -
and perhaps it will have to be poetry, music, or danc e - tl1at
would release some thing in another person, so that any refe r-
ence to anexternal world orrea lity, to any "there is ... " would
be superfl uou s; any such reference, so I imagine, wou ld no
longer be n eeded. To do this successfully, how ever, one must
be firm ly anchored in tha t wo rld. Moreover, one prob lem
always rema ins: What other form can we inven t that wou ld
also deal with the problem of form?
Poerkse n: ln my view, the actual question is: How can we
speak or write in such a way as to make the observer-depe nd-
ence of ali know ledge visible whenever we speak or w rite?
How can we show that our descriptions of the world are not
the descriptions of an externai reality but the descr iptions of an
observer who believesthey are descriptions of an external rea1-
i ty?
Von Foerster: To.e problem is a dia logue between you and me
that does not rely on any reference to some thin g externa !.
When I insist, for instance, that .it is you producing thi s view of
things, that it is not some thing out there, not the so-called
8 The CertainhJ of Uncertainh;

objective reality, tha t we can fall back on, then a strange fore-
gr oundin g of yo u, the person speakin g, is effected . General-
ise d expressio ns begiruun g w ith "There is ..." are repl aced by
expr essions beginnin g with "I think th at..." We use, to say it
so mew hat po mp ously again, the self-referential operator " I
think. .." and aban don the existen tial oper ator "there is." ln
this way, a compl etely d iffere nt re lation emerges that pa ves
the way for a free d ialogue .
Poerksen : If you do not wa nt to talk abo ut subject, object, and
the pr ocess of kn ow ing - the observer, the observe d, and the
pro cess of obser ving - on the basis of a form of language
es tab li sh e d in th e aca d emi c w orld invo lvin g cl ass ic
epistemologica l conce pt s, wh at w ays of talkin g can we tum
to?

Separation or connection
Von Foerste r:I cann ot offer a genera l solution but I wo uld like
to pr esent a short dr ama tic scene that I once wro te beca use it
might help to escape the grip of predetermined for ms. The
scene is pe rform ed for an aud ience in a bar oqu e thea tre. The
light s ar e dimm ed, the impr ess ive re d velvet curt ain rises, and
the stage comes int o full view . There is a b·ee, a man , and a
woman, ali fonnin g a trian gle. The man points at the tree and
says : "There is a tree." - The w om an says: "How do yo u
kn ow that there is a tree?" - The man: "Beca use l see it!" -
With a brief srnile, the wo man says: "A ha !" - The cur tain
comes down . - I contend, thi s dra ma has been discusse d, mis-
und erstood, and even attacked for thou sand s of years, a
dra ma that is well suited to illumin ate the deba tes of qu estions
of kn ow ledge and the TQle of an extern a 1world. Whom do we
wa nt to tru st, whom do we want to refer to? The man? The
woman? Since primeva l times, the und ecid able question has
been hauntin g us wh ether to side with the man or with the
wom an. The man affirm s the observer-inde p end ent existence
of the tree an d the env irorun ent , the wo man draws lu s a tten -
tion to the fact that h e only knows of the tree beca use he sees it,
and th at seeing is, th erefo re, prim ary . We m ust now ask our -
selves w hich of these atti tudes we are pr epare d to accept. The
man relies on his ex tern a! refere nce, the w om an points out to
him that the perception of the tree is tied to his observa tion.
How ever, this little piece does not only dea l, as might be sus-
 At each an.devery moment, I can decidewho 1 am 9

pected, wi th objectiv it y an d sub jectiv ity or di fferen t

cp istemological posi tions . Something else is muc h more
important: The man separa tes himself from the wor ld, the
woman connects herself with what she descr ibes.
Poerkse n: This is, then, another con trast that comes into play
here. It is not primarily co ncerned wit h the di stin cti on
between subjectiv ity and objectivity but wit h the question as
to whether l connect myself to the wor ld, or whether my
epistemologica l positio n forces me to see myse lf as distinct
from it, as a person observing it from an imag ina ry locus
obseruandi.
Von Foerster: This is a good wa y of putting H. The man in my
Jittle drama looks at the passing and unfo lding universe as if
through a keyho le, at the trees, the things, an d the other peo-
ple. He does nothave to feel responsib le, he represen ts a sor t of
keyho le or peephole philosophy, heis a voyeur. No thing con-
cerns him beca use nothing touches him. Ind ifference becomes
excusab le. The womm1 insists that it is on ly a human being can
see and observe . The attitude of the detached descr ibers is
opposed to the attit ude of the compass iona te par ticipant s w ho
consider themse lves as part of the wor ld. Each one acts on th e
basis of the prem ise: Whatever J do, will change the world ! I
am tl1e worl d, and the world is me!
Poerksen: What are the consequences of this exper ience or
know ledge of coru1ectedness?
Vo n Foerster: What we call the world is, all of a sudden, no
Jonger something hoslile but appears to be an organ, an insep-
arab le par t of onc's own body . The universe and the self have
become united . We have to shoulder respo nsibilit y for our
actions; we can no longer retire to the pos ition of the pass ive
recorder who describes a stat ic and supposed ly timeless exis-
tence . We have been made awa re that every action - eve n the
mere lifting of an arm - may create a new unive rse tha t did
not exist before. Knowi ng this - or bette r, sensing it and feel-
ing it - excludes any kind of static vis ion; on the con trary,
everyt hing is now in constant flux, every situ atio n is new,
not hing is eternal, nothing can ever be as it once used to be.
Poerks en: I am qu ite in favour of this descr ipti on of an
observer-dependent universe. Nevertheless , objections im.m e-
10 The Certainty of Uncertainty

di ately come to mind . We perceive the world as somethin g

th at h as deve loped and grown, and the experience of the sta-
bility of our hum an conditi oni s definitely quit e comfortin g. Its
reg ular ities seem reliable, they pr ov ide orienta tion, allow us
to mak e pJans and to face the futur e with certain expecta tions.
Wh at I want to say is: The attitud e yo u describ e con tradicts our
everyday experience and it is, in add ition, p sychologically
un attr active.
Von Foerster (laughin g): Abso]utely right. I com pletely agree
with yo u.
Poe rkse n: You agree with me? Do you not want to convince
me of the correctness of an observer- depend ent state of the
world ?
Von Foerster : For God's sake ! I would not dr eam of trying to
convince you beca use that would cause your view to van ish . It
wo uld then be lost. All I can attemp t is to act the magic ian so
that yo um ay bep utin ap osition toc on vinceyo ur self. Perh aps
I mi ght succeed in invitin g yo u to re-in terpre t, for a mom ent,
the securit y yo u fin d so attr active as som ethin g un dermini.ng
op em1ess. For even secmity and sta bility of circumstan ces
m ay get persons int o grea t tro ubl e a t cer tain stages in their
lives, when they, for instance, do not rea lise that the circum-
stances constraining them mig ht be compl ete]y different ones,
an d that it is in their p ow er to chan ge them .
Poerksen : As yo u are un willing to convin ce me, wha t is, then,
for yo u, the purpo se of a disp ute or a conversati on?
Von Foerster: I wo uld Jike to answe r wi th a 1ittle story about
the wor ld of Taoism, whi~ch has fascinated me since childh oo d .
My un cle, Erwin Lan g, was taken prisoner by th e Russ ian
forces soon after th e outbreak of World War I and depor ted to
Siberia . When the Russian Emp ire collapse d in 1917, he m an-
age d to escap e to China. He finaJiy reached the Germa n settle-
ment Tsing tau where he met the scholar Richard Wifüe]m, the
tra nslator of the r Ching, wh o in trod uced him to th e ideas of
Tao ism. Thr ou gh his he1p and recom menda tion, Erwin Lang
was accept ed by a Taoist m onas tery at which he arr ived after a
two d ays walk. Still uncertain w hether the War was over and
the fightin g had stoppe d, he asked one of the monk s for news-
papers . Of course, the monk said, we have newsp apers; we
 At each an.devery mornent,1 can decidewho I arn 11

h11vc, in fact, an enormous library. My uncle was impressed

11mlasked for a copy of the Austr ian Neue FreiePresse. Cer-
1,ilnly, the monk said, we have newspapers from aJJ ove r the
world. He took him to the archive in the monas tery and, after a
1d1ort search, produced the most recent issue of the Neue Freie
l'r,•sse available. 1t was the issue of 15 February 1895. Of
1'1lLr1se, Erwin Lang was somewhat consterna ted and poin.ted
11li t to the mon k tha t the paper was more than 20 years old . The
111onklooked at him and said : "So w hat? ! Wha t are 20 years ?"
/\ l tha t moment, my uncle began to unders tand Taoism: Time
did not play any ro le in this world; topica l news valu e was of
110 importance.

l'oerkse n: You are unw illing to convince me, and you refuse to
dlscredit other, or an tagon ist, positions, bu t you use history
nnd stories - your little parable seems a case in point - in
ordcr to make furthe r possibi lities of perce iv ing accessible.
Von Foerster: This interpr etation is mos t wekome. My goal is
lndeed to pr esent different perspectives that may, or may not,
bc taken up . To return to the beginn ing of ou r conversa tion :
Whether we accept the theor em of my friend, Humbe rto
Maturana (" Anyth ing said is said by an observer"), an d
whether we consider ourse lves com1ected wi th the wor ld or
scparate from it, - we are confronted by undecidable ques-
Lions. Decidab le questions are, in a certain sense, already
dccided through their given framewor k; their decidab ility is
c;ecured by specific rn les and formal isms - for examp le, syllo-
gisms, synt ax, or arithmet ic - that mus t be accept ed. The
question, for ins tance, whetheI the nu mber 7856 is divis ible by
two, is easy to answer because we know that num bers wit h an
even final numbe r are divisible by two . Paul Feyera bend's
notorious slogan, anyt:hing goes, does not apply here because
the ru les of arithmetic force us to proceed in a certain way .in
order to find an answer . Undecidable quest ions, on the con-
trary, are unsolvable in principle; they can never really be clar-
ified. Nobody knows, I would claim, whet her the man or the
woman in my little drama is right, and whet her it is more cor-
rect to consider oneself connec ted wi th the world or separa.te
from it. This situa tion of fundamental undecidab ility is an
invita tion to decide for onese lf. For this decision, however, one
must shou Jder the responsibility oneself.
12 The Certainty oj Uncertaint1)

Monologic and dialogic

Poerksen: Reviewing our conver sation about the observer, I
canno t help noticin g tha t you keep returning to the interaction
of human beings. To put it differently, as a kind of thesis: For
you, observers are not isolated figures; they a lwa ys exist in a
field of relations, in a community. Your own ideas, too, always
appear embedded in act ual relationships, in personaJ experi-
ences and personal thought s.

Von Foerster: The observer as a strange singu lar ity in the uni-
verse does not attrac t me, indeed; you are quite right th ere.
This kind of co ncept will probab ly be of inte r est to a
neurophysiologist or neuroanatomist, whereas I am fasci-
nated by images of duality, by binary metaphors like dance
and dialogue where only a duality creates a unity. Therefore,
the statemen t that opened our conversation - "Any thin g sa id
is sa id by an observer" - is floating freely, in a sense. lt exists
in a vacuum as Iong as it is not embed ded in a socia l struc tur e
because speaki.ng is meaningless, and d ialogue is impo ssible,
if no one is listening. So I hav e added a coro llary to that theo-
rem, which I named with all due modesty Heinz von Foerster's
CorollaryNr. 1: "Everything said is said to an observer." Lan-
guage is not monologic but always dialogic. Whenever I say or
describe some thin g, I am after all not doing it for myself but to
make someone else know and understand what Iam thinking
or int end ing to do.

Poerksen: What happ ens when otherobservers are inv olved?

Von Foerster: We ge t a triad consisting of the observers, the

lan guages, and the relations consti tutin g a social unit. The
addit ion produces th e~nucl eus and the core struct ur e of soci-
ety, which consis ts of two people using language. Dueto the
recursive nature of their interactions, stabiliti es ari se; they
genera te observers a nd their worlds, who recursively cr ea te
other stable worlds through int eracting in language. There-
fore, we can call a funny experience applebecause other people
also call it apple.Nobody knows, however, whether the green
colour of th e apple you perceive, is the sarne experience as the
one I am referring to with the word green. ln other words,
observers, languages, and societ ies are constituted through
recursive lin guis tic in teraction, aJthough it is impossible to say
which of these components came first and which were last -
 At each and even; moment, I can decidewho 1 am 13

11•n1crnberthe comparable case of hen, egg, and cock - we

•Pdali th.ree in order to have all th.ree.
111
l'ocrksen: I do not want to over-interpret this transformation
1,f n rnonologic idea, which is tied to a single observer, into a
di11logic concept involving two or more observers in interac-
1lon, but it seems to me to contain some hidden anth.ropology;
11ola hiera.rchic one, to be sure, which would compare hurnan
IH•ingswith machines, anima]s, or gods, but an anthropology
111'rclatio ns, of int erdepe ndence, ofYou and 1.When yo u relate
, 111
c human being to another, yo u are reflecting on the esse nce
ui humanity and its po ten tial: there is one human being and
1hcre is another - this seems to me to be your point of refer-
1•ncc.

Von Foerster : Very weU put, ind eed . A human being is a

human beiJ1g toge ther with another human being; that is what
,1 human being is. I exis t th.ro ugh another I, I see my self
lhrough the eyes of the Otber, and [ shall no t tolera te that thi s
rclationship is d estroyed by the id ea of the objectiv e know l-
l'clge of an independent reali ty, which tears us apart and
makes the Other an object which is distinct from me. This
world of ideas ha s noth.ing to do with proof, it is a world one
rnust exper ience, see, or simp ly be. When one sudd enly expe-
riences this sort of commu nalit y, one begins to dance together,
one senses the next common step and one's movements fuse
wit h tho se of the other into one and th e sarne person, into a
being that can see wi th four eyes. Reality become s
communa lity and co mmuni ty . When the partners are in har-
rnony, two n ess flows lik e oneness, and the di s tinction
between leading and being led has become meaningless. ln my
view, the best description of this sort of .communality is by
Mar tin Bub er . Heis a very important ph ilosopher for me.

Poerksen: Bu ber is no t j ust the protagonist of a dialogic ph ilos-

ophy but also a religious scholar and writer, anda my stic. For
him, the dialogue between an I and a You rnfrrors the eternaJ
dialogue with God.
Von Foerster: I feel deep respect for hjs religious be liefs and
feelings but I am unab le to share them, r ea lly, and perhaps
would not lik e to, anyway. Should his re ligious orien tation be
the sou rce of hi s incredible strength and depth, I can only
ad mir e h im the more.
14 The Certain tt; of Uncertainty

Poerksen: What were th e semina l experiences that orient ed

you towards a d ialog ic life?
Von Foerster: Am ong the most imp ortant is an encou nter with
the Vienn ese psychi atrist an d pastora l cur er of souls, Viktor
Frankl. He had surviv ed the concentr ation camp but had los t
his w ife an d his pa rent s, an d he prac tised agai n in the psychi -
atric instituti on in Vienn a from w here he h ad been de ported
years before. A m arried co up le had also mir aculously sur -
vived the Nazi terror, each partne r in a dif ferent cam p. H us-
band an d w ife had return ed to Vienn a, had fo und eac h other,
had natura lly been overjoyed to find the par tner alive, an d had
begun a new life toget her. About a m onth after their reuni on,
the wife died of a disease she had co ntracted in the cam p. Th e
hu sband was abso lut ely sh attered and des pera te; he stoppe d
eating and just sa t on a stoo l in his kitchen. Finally, frien ds
managed to persuade him togo a:nd see Vikt or Frank ! w hose
spec ial authori ty as a camp sur vivor was beyon d do ubt. Both
men talked for more than an hour - the n Fran.kl abru p tly
changed the topic an d sa id : "Suppose, God gave me the power
to create a wo man compl etely ident ical w ith your wife. She
wo uld crack the sarne jok es, use the sarne language and the
sarne gestur es, - in brief, yo u wo uld be unab le to sp ot an y dif-
ference. Do yo u wa nt me to ask for God' s help in ard er to cre-
ate such a wo man?" - The man shook his head, stoo d up ,
thanked Frank!, left his pract ice, and star ted up his life again .
When I hear d about this story, I went to see Fran kl imm ed i-
ately - we were workin g together profess ionally on a radio
progra rnme broa dcast every Friday, at the time-, and I asked
him : "Vik tor, how was that possible? Wh at did yo u do?" -
"Heinz, it is very simpl e," Fra nk! said, "we see ourse lves
thr ough the eyes of the oth er. When s he died, he was blind. But
whenh e real ised th at he was blin d, he was able to see again ."

ln the beginn ing wa s the distinction

Poerks en: Perhaps we could now, wi th a mo dest top ical jum p,
leave ali types of observers behin d, an d deal with the process
of observ ing itself. Every observa tion, George Sp encer-Brown
wri tes in his famous trea tise Lawsof Form,beg ins with an act of
di s tinc tion . Mor e pr ecise ly: ob serva tions oper ate with
two-va lued distin.ctions on e of which may be des igna ted.
Therefo re, if I want to desig na.te somethin g, I have to decide
 At each an.devery monzent,I can decide who T am 15

, 1hou tadistinc tion first. The eh oice of a distinct ion de termines

wha t I can see . Using the distinction between goodan d bad I can
wherever Jam looking - observe othe r thin gs than w hen I
11111using the distinctio ns between rich un d poor,beautiful an d
11).!ly,
new and old or i/1and healthy. And so on. Conseq uen tly,
11bserving means distinguishing and des ignating.
Von Foerster: Correct, yes . George Spence r-Brown form u-
ltllcs: "Draw a distinction and a universe comes into bein g."
l'he act of distiJ.1ction is taken to be the fundamen tal op eration
of cogni tion; it genera tes realities that are assumed to reside in
.rn external space separa ted from the pe r son of th e
distingu isher. A simple example: We draw a circle on a piece
of paper; we create, in this way, two worlds, one outside and
one inside, which may now be designated more precise ly. ln
other words, if we follow George Spencer-Brown's ar gumen t,
before something can be named or desig nated, before we can
describe the space within thecircle more exac tly, the wor ldhas
been divided into two parts: it now consis ts of wh at we have
named, on the one hand, and what is obscureci by th e name,
the rest of the world, on the other.
Poerksen: When you encountered these ideas - you wrote
one of the first widely noted reviews of Laws of Forrn- what
fascinated you, in particula r?
Vo n Foerster: What fascinated me, at the time, and still fasc i-
nates me now, is tha t the formal appa.ratus, the logical mac hin-
ery, wh ich Spence r-Brown developed, enables us to solve the
classica l problem of the paradox tha t has troubled log icians
ever since the daysofEpimen ides. Ep imen.ides,a Creta n, said:
"Iam a Cretan. All Cretans lie." He might as well have said: "T
am a Jiar!" What do you do with someone who says: "I arn a
liar"?! Do you believe him? If so, he cannot be .lying, he must
have told the truth . lf he told the tru th, howeve r, he lied,
beca.use he said: "Iam al iar." The amb iva lence of this state-
ment is that it is true when it is false, and that it is false w hen it
is true. The speaker steps inside what is spoken, an d ali of a
sudden, the function turns into an argume nt of itself. Such a
statement is like a virus and may destroy an entire logical sys-
tem, ora set of axioms, and canno t, of course, be accept able to
honest logicians following the Aristote lean creed: "A mean -
ingfu l statement must be eithe r true or false." Jn the twentie th
16 The CertafnhJof Uncertainh;

century, Bertrand Russell and Alber t North Whitehead

attempted to resolve the liar-paradox by simply prohibiting,
as it were, self-referential expressions of this kind. Their the-
ory of types and th eir escape into a meta-languag e, however,
did not seem satisfactory to me. I have always thou ght,
although I did not know an elegant solution, that language
itself ought to be th e rneta-language of the logician s. Language
must be able to spea k about itself; that is to say, the operator
(language) must become the operand (language). We need a
sort of salto morta/e.George Spencer -Brown has develop ed an
operator that is constructed in such a way as to permit app lica-
tion to itself. His operator can operate on itself and, in this way,
becomes part of itself and the world it creates.
Poerksen: How can these ideas be related to epistemology, in
particular, to the observer, the centr al figure of our conver sa-
tion?
Von Foerster: Whenever I want to say some thing aboutmyself
- and I ma intain that every thing I am saying is said about
myself - I mu st be aware that speaking involves a fundamen-
tal paradox that has to be dealt with. George Spencer-Brown' s
formalism bridg es the cus tomary di vision between seeing and
seen. The epistemology we might env isage agains t this back-
ground is dynarnic, not stati c. It has to do with becoming, not
being. Spencer-Brown refuses to start out f:rom the suppos i-
tion that a statem ent can only be true or false; the formalism
invented by him reveals the dynam ics of states. As in a
flip-flop mechanism, the truth of an express ion generates its
falsity, and its falsity generate s its truth, and so on . He shows
that the paradox genera tes a new dimension: time.
Poerksen: [ think it «>ould be worthwhile to describe th e phi-
losophy of distinctions that has developed since the publica-
tion of Lawsof Formin detail. Let me, therefore, ask you: What
will happ en, for exa.mple, when I introduce the distinction
between goodand evil into the world and make it th e founda-
tion of my observations?
Von Foerster: The distinction between good and evil and the
univ erse crea ted in this way may be used to form sentences
and to make stateme nts. Now, it is po ssible to say of a.n ele-
phant or of a company director that th ey are good or particu-
larly wicked. We can bu ild up a calculus of stat ement s,
 At each and even; moment, 1 can decidew/10 T am 17

1 ,1scades of express ions, which deal wit h human persons, ani-

111als,directors, or elephants. What tends to be overlooked
11sually is that these distinctions are not ou t th ere in the world,
fll'C not properties of things and objects but properties of our
dcscriptions of the world. The objects there wiH forever remain
11 mystery but their descriptions reveal the properties of
observe rs and speakers, whom we can get to know better in
this way. The elephantshaveno idea ofwhat we are doing, th e
t.'lephants are simply elephants; we make them good or wicked
l lephants.
1

Poerksen: Is it correct to say, as you claim, tha t the intrin sic

properties of objects and things in the world do not become
pffective in our descriptions?
Von Foerster: Jn my view, objects correspond to the sensori-
motor experience of a human being who suddenly realises that
it ca.nJ1otsim ply move everywher e, tha t there is something
blocking its movem ent, something stnnding in the wny, some
ob-ject. This limitation of behavíour genera tes objects. As soon
as I have acguired enough pract ice and have experien ced thcse
objects often enough, some stability in the experience oflinúta-
tion has developed and Iam in a position to give a name to the
item of my sensori motor skill and competence, call the ob-jecta
cup, or glasses, or Bernhard Poerks en. This is to say: What 1
designate as glasses or cup is, strictly speaking, a symbol for
my nervous system's cornpetence to generate stabilities, to
compu te invaria.nts.
Poerksen: What sort of truth statu s would you claim for tlús
thesis? Is it an ontologicall y correct theory of object formatio n;
are objects reallyconstituted in this way?
Von Foerster : Let me return the qu estion: What do you think.?
What would you prefer, what would you like better?
Poerksen: Are you suggesting it is a matter of tas te?

Von Foerster: If you want it this way , then it may also be a mat-
ter of taste. lf you, bowever, prefer to 1ive in a world w here the
properties of your descripti ons are the properties of the world
itself, then that is fine.
Poerksen: Peop le will condemn this as absurd.
18 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Von Foerste r: Na tur aUy, thi s is one of the usua l reaction s to

someone th.inking along different lines. The persons tha t come
u p with objection s of this kin d w ill have to live w.ith the conse-
q uences. They create this world for themselves . I am only
myse lf, Iam rolling along, I can only try to commun.icate wh at
I like, w hat I see, wh at I find fascinatin g, and wha t I w an t to
distin guish. Whether oth er pe op le cons ider me a scienti st, a
consh·uctiv ist, a m agician, a philosoph er, a curio sologis t, or
simply a bra t, tha t is their pro blem; and it is d ue to the d istin c-
tions they draw.

Blind to one's own blindness

Poerksen : For yo u, the indi vidu al - socially anchore d, of
cour se - is evi dently the centr al reality-crca ting instance . The
sociologis t Nik las Luhm an n, however, wh o refers explicitly
bo th to Spencer-Brow n an d your wo rk, only spe ak s of the
op eration of observing, - never the observe r. He wro te book
after book on science, ar t, religion, po litics, and economics,
reconstr ucting the form s of observa tion and the cen tra l se ts of
distinctions at work in th ese social do mains, to which every-
one enterin g them mu st necessar ily orient a te.
Vo n Foerster: Le me ju st po int out that society, too, is a rela-
tional stru ctur e; it is a framewo rk accordin g to which we may,
but need not, think. Jn my work, however, the self and th e indi -
vidu al are centr al and pr esent from the start. The reaso n is that
1 can conceive of respon sibility onJy as somethin g persona l,
not as depe nd en t on anyth.ing social. You cannot h old a society
res ponsible for any thing - yo u cann ot sha ke its hand , ask it to
justify its actions - and yo u cannot ent er int o a dialog ue w ith
it; wh ereas I can speak :"7ith another self, a yo u.

Poerksen : Wha t you mean is, I thin k, tha t observ ers - hum an
beings - can ind eed decide wh at distinctions they wan t to
make . My objecti on is that th e w orl d neve r is - in
Spen cer-Brow n's term inology - an unmarkedspace, bu t that
we are aJI press ured in many ways, and eve n conde m:ned, to
rep ro duce the distinctions and views of our own gr oup s, of
parent s, friend s, and ins tituti ons. To quote but a blatant exam-
ple: the children grow ing up in a sectarian communit y will
obviously absorb its real ity.
 At each an.deven; rnornent,1 can decidewho [ am 19

Von Foerster: This is possible, no doub t. On the other hand , 1

remain convinced tha t these people, these ind ivid u als, can
.ilways opt out of such a network and escape from the sectar -
lan system. They have th.is freedom, I wou ld claim, but they
,1re ali too often comp letely unable to actually see it. They are
blind to their own blindness and do not see that they do no t
sce; they are incapable of realising that there are still poss ibili-
lics for action. They have create d their bl:i. n d spot and are
frozen in their everyday mechanisms and think there is no
way out. The uncanny thing, actua lly, is that sects and d icta-
lors always manage to make actually existing freedo m inv isi-
blc for some time . All of a sudden, citizens become zombies or
Nazis commit ti:ng themse lves to condernning freedom and
rcsponsibi lity by saying: "I was ordered to kill these peop le, 1
had no choice! I merely executed orders!" Even in such a situa-
tion, it is obviously possib le to refuse. It woul d be a grea t deci-
sion, possibly leading to one's own deat h but still an act of
incredib le quality : "No, I will not do it. I will not kill anyone !"
ln brief, it is my view tha t freedom always exists . At eac/1and
every moment, l can decidewho l am. Moreover, in order to re n-
der, and keep, this visible I have been pleading for a form of
cducation and communa lity that does no t restrict or impede
the visibility of freedom and the mu lti.tude of opportun ities
but actively suppor ts them . My eth ical imperative is, there-
fore: "Act always soas to increase the nu mber of choices ."
Poerksen: Buthow can we re-invent ourse lves at each an d any
moment? Surely, that is out of the ques tion; the wor ld - ali the
inescapab le constrai:nts on our I ives - simply wil I not allow it.
Here is my counter -thesis : ln the act of observ ing, we rep ro-
duce either old orders or sys tems of dist inctions, or we
develop new ones from or aga inst them. Therefore, the free-
dom and arbitrar iness of constructions is massive ly red uced.
Von Foerster: It is certainly 11ot my contc ntion that the inven -
tion of realities is comp letely arbitrary and wilful and wo uld
allow me to see the sky blue at first, then green, an d after open-
ing my eyes again, not at all. Of course, every hum an being is
tied into a social network, no ind ividua l is an isolated wo nder
phenomenon but depe nden t on others and mus t - to say it
metaphorically - dance with others an d constr uct reality
through communality. The embed ding into a social n etwor k
necessarily leads to a reduction of arb itrar iness throug h
20 The Certainty of Uncertainty

comm unality; however, it does not at all change the essentially

given freedom. We make appointments, identify w ith oth ers
and inven t comm on worlds - which on e may give up aga in.
The kinds of dance one chooses along this way may be üúi -
nitely variab le.

Drop a distinction!
Poerksen : If I understand correc tly, hum an beings are -
toge ther with others - capab le of creating reality, in a positive
sense. Howeve r, w hat are we to do about realities tha t we
reject and do not want to crea te at all? Can we escape from
them through negatio n?
Von Foerster: No, Ido not think so. Lu dw ig Wittgenstein's
Tractatus-logico-philo sophicus made me see this clear ly for the
first time. There is the famous consideration that speaking
about a proposition "p" and its negation "nonp" means speak-
ing of the sarne thing. The nega tion is in fact an affirmation.
Thi s is the mistake commi tted by my dear friends, th e revolu -
tionari es, who want to depose a kin g. They keep sho utin g
loudl y and clear ly: "Down with the king!" That is, of course,
free propaganda for the king wh o sh ould , in fact, thank hi s
enemies: "Thank you very much for mentioning me sofre-
quently and for not stoppi ng to cal! outmy name!" Ifl nega te a
person, an idea, or an ideal, Iou dly and clearly, the final sepa-
ration has not yet been ac hieved. The negated phenomenon
will return and take centre stage agaü,.
Poerksen: Who want s to get rid of something fina lly must nei -
th er describe it posit ively n or deny it, in order to achi eve com-
plete separation . What is to be done, then?
~

Von Foerster: Something different must be done. I s ugges t

that certain distinctions are excluded beca use [ have noticed in
many discussions that their basis invo lves concep ts that Jead
nowhere but only genera te conflicts and hostilitie s. The nega-
tion of stu pid ity is no Jess s tupid beca use it forces us togo on
dealing with stupidi ty. To make these cons idera tions clear I
sho uld like to speak, for a moment, abou t the place-valuelogic
devi sed by the philosopher Got th ard Gti11ther. ln his papers,
h e analyses the emerge nce of a proposition, its logical place.
Even talking about a king who is then eith er celebrated or
sh outed down by revolutionaries requires, accord in g to
 A t each and every moment, I can decidewho 1 am 21

( ;unther, a certain pla ce. However, this place may be refu sed
ln order to prevent any talk about kings. ln this way, a new
kind of logic arises. The simple dichotomy of affirmation and
ncgation is left behind; certain propositions a re mark ed with a
rcjection-value in order to mak e clear that they do not belong to
lhe category of propositions w1der discussion.
Poerksen : Can you describe this kind of place - the basis that
is required by every proposition as the condition of its possi-
bility - more precise ly?
Von Foerster: I think the Russians understood this idea very
we ll. I once took part in a co1úerence in Moscow in the era of
Khrushchev who sought to bring abou t a new kind of interac-
Lionbetween bureaucrats and humankind . One day I took a
slroll in one of the small pa r ks near the Lenin mauso leum. I
saw the statues of th e Great Russian military leaders cut in
stone and sit ting on huge pedesta is, star ing in to the void wi th
their large mo ustaches. Sudden ly 1 saw a pedesta l with out a
statue, empty. Joseph Stalin cut in sto ne had once stood on it.
ln this way, the present government expressed its rejection of
Stalin. Had the pedestal been removed as we.11- the place of
the logical proposition in Gotthard Gü nther's th eory - this
kind of negation wou ld not have been possible. They were
very well aware of that!
Poerksen: This means that we can get rid of concepts simp ly
by stopping to mention them, relegat ing them to a domain of
non-existence, takin g away their pedesta l and their founda-
tion, as it were. They drop back into an amorphous and shape-
less sphe re, which is cogi1itively inaccessible to us beca use it is
not marked by distinctions and indica tion s. In this case,
George Spencer-Brown's fundamental imp era tive mus t be
changed from "Draw a distinct ion!" to "Drop a distinction!"
Von Foerster: This is an excellent new operator: "Drop adis-
tinction!" However, this sort of approach seems to have been
known to journa lists in Austria for some time; they say there
that th e best way of demolishing an idea ora per son is to stop
mentioning them. The formula is: "Do not even ignore !" If you
want to destroy a politician and president of a coun try it is best
not to write about his exh·amarital contac ts with interns and
other women; this wou ld be wrong beca use the mere men tion-
ing of his name makes peop le aware aga in of bis existe nce and
22 The Certainh;of Uncertainh;

may make them say: What a hand some man! 1t is much more
effective to speak abo ut the weather and th e weather frogs.
And the po litician inun ediately disappears.

Mysticism and metaphysics

Poerksen: Let me attempt a brief résum é. ln the process of rea l-
ity con struct ion, we draw distinctions, we nega te distinctions,
reject th em, try to distance ourse lves from them, and som e-
times drop them comp lete ly in order to get rid of unwanted
concep ts. We are left with th e tricky question wha t might exist
behind the univer se that we h ave cons tru cted . What exists
beyond th e space we hav e crea ted through our d istinction s?
Can you offer an answer, perhaps a very personaJ one?

Von Foerster: Let me te l1 you a littl e story about a personal

experience of mine. A few years ago, I was invited to a Jarge
conference and participated in a workshop called Beyond
Constructivism,organised by a charming French lady scie nti st.
People asked me, too, wh at was beyond con str uctivi sm. My
answer was: "Ladies and gent lemen, last night, after I had
heard of this work shop, I could n ot go to sleep for a long time
beca u se the que s tion troubled me con siderab ly. Wh en I finally
did catch some sleep, my grandmo ther appeared to me in a
dream. Of course, I asked her insta ntly: "G randmama, w hat is
beyond construc tivism?" - "Do not tel1 anyone, Hein z," she
sai d, " I will let you in on the secre t - cons truc tivism!"

Poerksen: We can never go beyond o ur distinguishing and

construc tin g of wor lds.

Von Foerster: Exactly. The distinction creates the space. With-

o ut this basi s, you cannot ask the que stion regarding the space
a nd the wor ld beyond the space.

Poerksen: Still, .i.fwe are to believe the reports of eas tem mys-
tics, there seem to be sta tes of conscio usne ss that are not con-
strained by the ord i nary human forros of d istinction s.
Concludi n g yo ur review of Laws of Form,you refer yourself to
a "state of ultimate wisdom" and to the ''core of a calculu s of
]ove in w hich ali di stinctions are suspended and all is one."

Von Foerster: Th at is indeed wha t I wrote; no more need be

said because that is precise ly what I wanted to say. I wo uld be
 At eac/1an.devery moment, 1 can decide who Iam 23

1•,roteful if we could simply let that utterance be as it is and not

t.1kc it to pieces as in an academic semi nar.

Poerksen: It seems to me that you have deve loped a way of

•ipcaking that offers indications and h ints at things you do not
wa nt to pursue any further once you have drawn attention to
lhcm.
Von Foerster: Iam concerned with inviting peop le to look. Jf
yo u are prepared to look, you may see, but you have to look
1irst. This is what I want to make clear.
Poerksen: W11atdo you want to show?
Von Foerster: That it is pos sible to show. Wha tever someon e
4Ccs is up to them.

Poerksen : Ido not follow.

Von Foerster: I understand. However, in man y cases,
unanswerability and answe rlessness gene ra te insight.

l'oerksen: What yo u call answerlessn.ess, could justas we H be

lhe chiffre of a mystic: in this space of uncertainty we might
.igain be able to envisage something abso lut e and "tota lly dii-
fcrent " .

Von Foerster: The very attempt to und er stand some thing

completely ordinary immed iately con.fronts us with puzz les
,rnd wond ers that we usually pass by and leave unnoticed in
our everyday lives. Mos t of these canno t be expl ained in any
serious scnse; in my view, we will never be ab le to penetra te
Lhem and r emove or even destroy their awesome qua li ty. Tbe
knowledge we h ave of our wor ld is to n,e like the tip of ani ce-
berg; it is like the tiny bit of ice stick ing out of the water,
whereas our ignorance reac hes far down .into the deepest
depths of the ocean. Such a claim of principlcd incxp licabi lity
and awesomeness undoubted ly makcs me a mystic. l wou ld
be a metaphysician if J claimed to have an answer to this
inexplicab ility.
 CHAPTER 2

We can never know what

goes on in somebody
else's head
Ernst von Glasersfeld on truth and viabil ity,
language and knowledge. a nd the premises of
cons tructivist educa tion

rn st vo n G lasersfe ld

E (b. 1917) st udi ed ma th e-

m a ti cs in Z üri ch and
Vienn a, wa s a farmer in Co unt y
Du bli n d uring the War, and
wo rked as a journali st in Ital y
from 1947. There he met the phi -
losopher and cybe rn etician Sílvio
Cecca to who, in the beginning
stages of the comp ut er age, had
ga there d a tea m of researcher s in
order to carr y out projects of com-
put ation al lingu is tic analysis and
au tom atic language transla tion.
Von Glasersfeld became a dose
collaborator of Cecca to' s, translated for him, and develop ed
projects of h.is own. ln 1966, he moved to the USA where he
was made a pro fesso r of cogn itive psyc holo gy at the Univer -
sity of Georg ia in 1970. Three princip al re searc h interests ha ve
mad e him one of the well-known found ers of construc tivism.
H e systema tica lly scoure d the hi story ofEuropea n philosophy
for varieties of epi stemo logical sceptic ism and set up an ances-
tral ga llery reaching back to the in sight s of th e ancient scepti cs
of the 4th century B.C. He repJaced the classical realist concep t
of truth by the idea of viability: theories need not and do not
corres pond with what is rea l, he says, but they mu st be practi-
26 The CertainhJof Uncertainty

cable and useful, they must be viab le . Finally, he i.nh·oduced

lhe work of the Swiss developm enta l p sychologist, Jean
Piage t, into th e constructivi st debate.
Jean Piaget, in bis book La construction du réel c'1ezl'enfant,
constructs a mode l of ho w know ledge is created and deve l-
oped through the c01úinnation or disappoint ment of exp ecta-
tions (or more precisely: of particu lar patt erns of action,
so-called sche m es) . A mode l of thjs kind has profound conse-
quences for the conception of learning and teachin g: it elimi-
natcs th e reification of informatio n and knowledge, the
conception of knowledge as a substance that can be trans-
ferred from the teacher' s head to the empty heads of stud ent s.
The mechanical idea of teaching evapora tes. We mus t face th e
inelu ctable subjecti vity of meanings and given cogn itive pat-
terns . From this perspect ive, the acqu isition of knowled ge no
Jonger appear s to be a passive reception of informa tion but a
creative activity. The upshot is that teaching som eone some-
thingwill on ly be successful if it is orien ted towards the reality
of t.hat someone.
Ernst von Clasersfeld is, at present, with the Scien tific Rea-
soning Research Institute of the University of Ma ssachu setts.
There he works on rnodels of teaching and learning that a pply
the theory of construct ivism to schooI pra ctice.

The God's eye view .

Poerksen: According to the farnous definit ion by Thomas
Aquinas, truth is adaequatiointellectus et rei, the correspon-
dence between mind and object. Idea and wor ld agree, it is
assumed, they en ter into exact correspondence. The object a nd
the predication about the object have the sarne structur e, as it
were. The schoo l of thoug h t of cons tru ctivism , whose promi -
nent rep resentative you are, cballe n ges th is correspo n-
dence-based conceptio n of truth and insis ts that knowledge of
trut.h according to this und ers tandi.ng is impo ssible.
Von Glasersfeld: I amcertain ly notthe firstno r the only one to
take th is view; the pre-Socratic philosophe rs already formu-
late it - ju st remember Xenophanes, the soph ists, and the
scho ol of Pyr rho11.They were fully aware that the ideas hu man
beings formed on the basis of their exper iences cou ld never
mirror a reality ind epende nt from them. Xenophanes states
tha t it can never be estab lishe d whether some imag e of reali ty
 We can never kn.owwhat goes on in somebodyelse's head 27

is comp letely correct because it is impossible to verify its cor-

rectness even if it were the case. We can never step ou tside o ur
perceptual and concept ual functions; ali our examinatio ns and
tests concerning the relation between image and reality as
such are, in any case, inevitably shaped by our instruments of
exper ience.
Poerksen: To grasp the truth, one would have to leave our
bodies, if I follow your thinking, in order to observe the abso-
lute from a comple tely neutral point of view.
Von Glasersfeld: Exactly. Some recent phi losop hers have
called this view from ou tside "t he God, s eye view." The prob-
lem is n ow, however, that even God - i.f we want to regard
Him/Her as a ra tiona l Being - is confron ted by the very same
problem: He/She needs an apparatus for experience - and
that means that even God's experiences would be depende n t
on that appara tu s. Ido not believe, however, that we can com-
prehend God. The God's Eye View is a metaphor for the
impossib ility of atta in ing an uncorrupted image of reality as
such.
Poerksen: This conside ra tion appears to me so mewhat
anthropomorph ist, to pu t it mildly. You are presenting God's
view as if it were - like our hum an view - cond itioned and
preformed by a priori categories and forros of perception .
Von Glasersfeld: 1f I decide to rernain within the bounds of
rationality, I can only use hum an reason, and human rationa l
thi.nking is always anthr opomorphic. I could, of course, argue
like a mys tic, as an apop ha tic theolog ian, who says: if God po s-
sesses all the ascribe d qualitie s, if God is onmiscien t, ubiqui-
tous, eternal, then God .is obviously totally different from the
wor ld that we human beings experience. And as we abstract
aJJour concep ts from our wo rld of exper ience we will never be
able to compre hend God by means of ou r concep ts. This view
seems centra l to me for two reason s. Firstly, the mystic s argu-
ing in this way formu late the perfectly logical assumption that
something that is believed to exist outside their world of expe-
rience can never be grasped in terms derived from that world
of experience. Secon dly, they explici tly separa te rational
knowledge from mysticaJ know ledge; both these forms of
knowledge may exist side by side but th ey are fundamentally
incompa tible. This is most important for me .
28 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Poerksen: Is it not rather str iking that we, in this conversation

about the possibility of comp rehending the absolute, immedi-
ately come to talk about God? My impression is that the way
you spea k about the absolute resembles the way certain mys-
tics describe God as the Inconceivable and as the "entire ly
othe r" Being.
Von Glasersfe ld: Perfectly right. Scientific and religious ways
of speaking also resemble each other in that they often purport
to offer absolute know ledge . I find that para llel also quite
arnusing at times. The belief of some scientists to propaga te the
tru th can easily berevealed a delusion beca use in the history of
science nothing ever stays the sarne; théor ies and mode ls of
reality constantly change.
Poerksen: However, you too, as longas you remain faithfu l to
your premises, cannot know with comp le te certainty whet her
any one of these theories corresponds with absolute reality or
not. The unconditionaJ negation of a corresponde nce betwee n
world and idea would obvious ly be a sor t of negative ontologi;,
a further variety of absolutism.
Von Glasersfeld: lt is quit e conceivable, of cour se, that one of
our constructions, by coincide nce, turns out to be a perfect
ma tch; but even such a theoretical and, in my eyes, rather
improbable po ssibility wo uld still not be sufficient to jus tify
and det ermine that we have been successful - that our
assumpt ions correspon d with absolute reality. If we asser t
that our conceptions correspond with the world, then we a re, I
bel.ieve,obliged to prove this corre spo ndence. And if we fail to
doso, then correspondence-based assertions mere ly have tbe
status of unwarranted theses.
Poerksen: lt seems to me that your criterion of truth is that we
cease to existas person s when we observe and that the knowl-
edge we manage to acquire is strictly indepen dent from the
cognitive i.nsh·uments we use. You demand something impo s-
sible, and therefore you are imrnun e to any kind of criticism.
Von Glasersfeld: Ido not feel insecure w ith my views at all,
and I know that l am in very good company; as already men-
tioned, the scept ics have, since the time of the Pre-Socratics,
repeatedly pointed out that we can never compare our image
of reality with reality as such, but that we can on ly compare
 We can never know what goes on in somebody else's head 29

images w ith images . Innum erable philosoph ers have ra cked

their brains in ord er to refute this claim; not a sin gle on e has
succeeded in prov iding pro of for the correspond ence betw een
world and idea. For this reas on, they have turne d to meta p hys-
ics, i.e. into mysticism.

The fault of evolutionary epistemology

Poerksen : May I star t anoth er attempt , and from a different
perspective, to justify the belief tha t there mu st be some sys-
tematic conn ection betw een our percep tions and the rea l
w orld ? Sur ely, we could argue that the percept ual apparatus
of hum ans has ad apt ed to given rea lities thr ough constant and
sornetimes fatal triais and erro rs durin g th e course of evolu-
tion. This was thc v iew of the cthologist and evo lutionary epis-
temologist Konra d Lorenz, who thought that the course of
evoluti on effected a grad ual approximat ion of the Kanti an
thing-in-itself, the real world . Constru ctions that fail to match
rea lity would simpl y be destroyed by the mechani sm of natu-
ra l selection .
Von Glaser sfeld: As I see it, we mu st always keep in min d tha t
the theory of evoluti on and ali the perspectivcs tha t app ear to
follow from it necessar ily, are only models that we have con-
stru cted and th at m ay be replaced by other models tomor row .
This is Konra d Loren z's mistake, I think: he sees the theory of
evoluti on as an on tological descrip tion, assumi ng that ani-
mais and hum ans havefac tually and in realityevo lved in a cer-
tain way . Now this is an empiri cally well-founde d hypothesis
but empiri cal assu mp tions can never support ontology. We
can certainly say that w e have invent ed the categor ies of space
and time becau se they are par ticu larly useful and fit the reality
of our experience. However, good fu nctionin g can never be
pro of of mirror ing the externa ! world. This is why I pr efer to
spea k of viabil ihJ in order to stress that we must alw ays reckon
with other poss ibilities of comp atibility .
Poerksen : Konr ad Lorenz formu lates: "The adapt at ion to spe-
cific envir omnent al conditi ons is equi valent to the acqu isition
of infor mation abo ut th ese environm en tal con ditions."
Von Glasersfeld : Adapt ation - n o matter how well an indi -
vidu al organism feels adap ted to an environm ent - do es no t
pro du ce an exact represe nt ation of th e envir onm ent; such a
30 The CertainhJof UncertainhJ

view is in my eyes 1ogically false. Adap tation can only mean

lhat we manage to get through, that we have fo un d a viable
course, that we do not fa il. To the neuro biolog ist Humber to
Maturana I owe the example of the instrumenta l fligh t, which
illustra tes our cognitive situation : there is the pilot in the cock-
pi t, who has no access to an externa] world and only reac ts to
what the instruments indicate. Neverthe less, pilots success-
f ully fly and land their p lanes, althoug h th understorms may
rage outside. The only thing they may notice of the thunde r-
storms is the occasional deviation of the instru ments from
their course, which they then immed ia tely correct. They iden -
tify perturbations and react accord ingly. They have no idea
whatever of the actual cause, the th understo rm, but manage to
land safely and thus to reach their goal. We can state tha t they
have got through. I would maintain that this situation of an
instrume ntal flight corresponds exactly to our relationship
with rea lity: we can never say what is outs ide the world of ou r
cxperience.
Poerkse n: If science is no Jonger concerned with unders tand-
ing an externai world and with spread ing the trut h in an
emphatic sense, wha t is its task, what goal is it to serve?
Von Glasersfeld: I have the greatest respect for science but I
would like to say tha t it shou ld pr imar ily deal with thc ur gent
pract ical prob lems of human coexistcnce in our time. Heie in
the United States one should, for instance, not spend billions of
dollars on particle accelerators as longas th ere are still peop le
who have to sleep in the stree ts, and as long as indu strial
plants continue to damage and destroy the environment . I find
this a bsurd but such a po int o~view is no t particu larly pop ular
among scientísts: they wan t to see scien tific resea rch as the
highest form of buman act ivity, wh ich sets its own goals and
keeps str ict neutra lity - no matte r what happe ns elsew here.
Poerksen: What specific criteria could then be laid dow n to
dis tinguish a construct ion of rea lity in the form of a scienti fic
theory from anothe r? lt s closcness to an imagina ry pole of
truth can no longer serve as a rnean s of distinction, if I fo llow
yom thought.
Von Glasersfeld: The criterion that I have in trod uced is u tility
or vinbilihJ- I have taken the concep t of viabiJity, which is
closely related to the concept of adapta tion, from the theory of
 We can never know what goes on in sornebodyelse's head 31

evolution. lt rep laces, in the world of experience, the classical

philosophical notion of truth , whi ch assum es an exac t repre-
sen ta tion of reality. An organism is via ble, my definition
wou ld be, if it manages to survi ve und er given con straint s and
environm ental condition s. And I call mod es of action and
thou ght useful or viable if they h elp to achieve a desired goa l
by overcoming aU given obstacles. The assessm ent of the via -
bi lity of a construction is, how ever, dependent on on e' s va l-
u es . It conta ins a subjective element and requir es a person al
jud gment. The choice of va lues, any ethi cal choi ce, canno t be
justified by constructivi sm: we deal with deci sion s and ru les
that are not qu estionab le.
Poerksen: Could you give an examp le of a viable theory?
Von Glasersfel d: Just think of the NASA space progra m; it is
füm]y base d on Newton's formulae when satellite s are
launched, dir ected to fly around the planet Satur n, or made to
land on the moon. Neverthel ess, there certainl y is no t a single
scienti st among th e many work ing for NASA wh o would
claim that Newton' s formu lae, which were long ago overtaken
by Albert Einstein, repr esen ted the truth. They were cre ated
for a particu lar purpo se and they are stil l helpful and effective
for all the relevant comput ation s, no more and no less.
Poerksen: But how do we know, to pu t the qu es tion more ge n-
erally, th at somet hin g is useful or will prov e usefu l in the
futur e? This wo uld requir e a proph etic gift because theories
that app eaTviab le right now may hav e the most terrib le direct
and indi rec t effects in the fu tur e. Therefore, we wo uld h ave to
integr ate a time lag into the assessmen t of theories.
Von Glasersfe ld : Ihe pra ctical impl ement ation of a theory
an d its pot en tia! effects can not alwa ys be foreseen, tha ti s clear.
Ido think, however, that a scienti st w bo spe nd s pub lic m oney
is und er the obliga tion to examine whether the theory he is
working on offers possibilitiesof applicationth at make thin gs
better or worse. Na tur ally, this is a re lative ma tter and ulti-
mat ely calls for a per sonal decision. The alternative would be
an objective criter ion in the sense of a repr esenta tion of abso-
lut e reality; the id ea wou ld then be that science continu ally
enlarges the d omain of true knowledg e, but that I consider
impo ssible. A theory is only a mod el, whi ch funct ions under
particu lar circum stances - and not under others.
32 The CertainttJof UncertainttJ

Poerksen: The fact, howeve r, that the concept of viabi lity is

borrowed from the theory of evo lution do es sugges t that it is
meant to be a hard criterion for the differe ntiation of reality
constr uctions. If an organism is not viab le, if it canno t find a
way to come to terms with th e cons traint s of the environm ent,
then it is, at the extreme limits, condemned to death . When a
scientis t formulates theories, then it is improbab le that he will
Failwith them in a similar way.
Von Glasersfe l d: Theor ies fail whenever observat ions or the
results of exper iments prove to be incomp atib le w ith them.
False theories do notkill us, that is certainly tru e. But ther e are
exceptions . The biologist and physic ian Alexander Bogdanov,
who in vented blood transfus ion, propose d the theory that giv-
ing the patients a transfus ion of healthy b lood can cure par tic-
ular diseases . Bogdanov did this once him self with a sufferer
from ma laria and something went wro ng and bot h were dead
with in two days. But what are yo u driving at?
Poerksen : l want to point out that there are theor ies that can-
not be falsified because it is, in a way, imp ossible to fa il wit h
them . Jus t think of the interpretation of a litera ry tex t, of a
poem, which may lead different a uth ors to fundamen tally
contr ad ictory th eor ies about its meaning. How would you
show now which of the theories is usefu l a nd whic h is not ?
Von Glasersfe ld: This is, of course, a different area of kno wl-
edge. I would ask the persons involved in the herm eneutic
activity why they are interpreting the par ticular poem. Are
they doing it simply for their own pleas ure, or do they, after
all, also want tofin d ou t wha t other peop le are ab le toseein thc
text. lf the la tter, then we can ask: w.hich one of two int erp reta-
tions is convincing? Which of the two theories do educate d
readers consider more plaus ible? A hjgh er measure of plau si-
bility might be an indica tion of a sort of viability.
Poerksen: So now you connect, if I und erstand corr ectly, the
criterion of viability with the question of intersubjec tive valid -
ity.
Von Glasersfeld : Right, yes . Especia lly with regar d to the
interpretat ion of oider texts, beca use then wecanno longer ask
the autho rs wl1a t they really meant. Let me point out, how -
ever , that this intersubjective plausi bilit y is also extremely
 We can never know what goes on in somebody else's head 33

important in the natural sciences. lf 1 develop a new theo ry

about a certain p henome non, then it will become scientific
only when others accept it. Can yo u remember poor old Alfred
Wegener ! He designed the brilliant theory of continental drift
- but nobod y believe d him. Only years af ter his death, and
after new observa tion s had become available, th e contin ental
drift appeared to be a viab le theory to oth er geo logists.

The craving for stability

Poerksen: lt is not yet qu ite clear to me what th e criterion of
viability primarily refers to: the exp lanator y pow er of theories;
th eir capaci ty for solvin g problems; the ethical or un ethical
goa ls a sin gle scienti st ora group of researc hers may pur sue?
Von Glasersfeld: For me, the question of e thical or unethical
goa ls is mor e important. However, a theory is fund am entally
viabl e when it solves the problem in hand. Of cour se, scien tis ts
will not - to put it quit e n aive ly - give up th eir work when
th ey are not confro nt ed by urgent prob lems . There are goo d
reaso ns for th eir carry ing on: they ha ve learn ed to appr ecia te
th e solving of probl ems, and so th ey will crea te n ew problems
to work on in their imagin ation - out of curio sity, as it were . I
thinl< this is com pletely jus tified simpl y because th ey ca:n tel1
th emselves that one day the solution they have found for
inv ented prob lems will en able them to an swer those ques tions
mor e qui ckly that hav e becom e top ical in th e mean time. This
app ears to me to be the recurs ive ap pli cation of indu ction:
inducti on means abstracting certa in regularities from given
experiences. Why do we do that ? The reason is that such reg u-
lariti es seem helpful. The inventi on of theories is something
quite similar: their co1:structi on was usefu l in the past - and
so it appears sensible to searc h con stantly for n ew questions
and new answers.
Poerksen: Reducin g our conversation about truth and viabil-
ity to a single conclusion, I would say: there is no ev idence for
an app roximation of onti c reality by triai and error.
Von Glasersfeld: Right, yes . And it is this belief, for examp le,
th at separat es m e from Karl Popp er with whom I share ma:ny
id eas otherwise. ln Popp er's book Conjecturesand Refutations,
there is a long and excellent chapter on instrum entalist or
pragmatist philo sop hy, which certainl y includ es my sort of
34 The Certainh;of Uncertainty

constructivism. 1t is exclusi vely interes ted in the functioning

of theories and models - and n ot in a piecemeal app roxim a-
tion of truth. At the end of this chapter, Popper wants to show
Lhat ins trumentalism is philosophically false and detrimental
to science. But he does not succeed. He merely asserts his view
but fails to provide philosophical proof for it.
Poerksen: Buti s Popp er not right if we argue psychologically?
Cou ld we not say that instrumenta lism is un satisfacto ry
because it disregards the fact that the sea rch for truth is a won-
dcrfu l motive for setting ou t on a quest that can, as we know
from the beginning, neverreach its end. Why labour if the con-
quest of truth is no longer the goal?
Von Glasersfeld : Because some th ing much mor e important is
Jt stake: surviving on our plan et, for instance. As soon as we
are born we wa nt togo on living . And the ques tio n is how we
can manage, despite all the constrain ts irnposed by reality, to
get th.rough life in a reasonab ly satisfactory way. Wh eth er the
methods we use are true is comp letely ir re levant. They mu st
on ly be goo d enough to help us reac h the goals we have set
ourse lves.
Poerksen: Still, it cannot be denied tha t an emph atic, and per-
haps admitted ly a naiv e, concep t of truth ha s stimulated
human bein gs in mo st prod uctive ways in the history of Clll -
ture and science. Might tb is sugges t that we n eed the idea of
truth as a cognitive motive?
Von Glasersfeld: This is cer tainly a very tricky gu es tion .
1-lowever,Id o n ot sh are your view that we :need the notion of
Lruth in this conne ction. l much rather belicve that hu man
beings requ ire regu la1·ities and the feeling to live in an ord ered
world; they n.eed to construct causal connections and correla-
tions, which they can pro ject in to the future. They want to
maintain their stability, at any rate. The mis ta ke is to cons ider
such regulariti es as truth s and to eq uat e them with the under-
standing and th e comp rehension of the ontic world. Science
and technology rest on the belief that cause-effect relations
cstab Jished .in the past will also func tion in the future. David
Hume already made clear tliat tliis is a necessa ry belief that
cannot be proved: the world may very well change.
Poerksen: And the sun will not r ise tomorrow mornjng.
 We can never know what goes on in somebodyelse's head 35

Von Glasersfeld: Who can claim to know that with the kind of
absolute certainty that reaches beyond past exp erience? lt
would be most embarra ssing for all of us. Naturall y, we hop e
that the sun will rise again and that we can rely on this in the
futur e. But that is a piou s hope.
Poerksen: Are yo u livin g in this spiri t of fundam ental uncer-
tainty?
Von Glasersfeld: As far as everyday Hfe is concem ed, it is
undoubt edly an advan tage to be able to rely on asswne d regu-
larit ies and Jong-established arrangements. It is not as if I
would open th e door of my house to check whether the bal-
cony is still there before I step o ut. I simpl y take for gran ted
that it hé!snot vanished, I open the door and step ou t without
hesitation. It has worked all right so far - but it is not a bsolute
kn owledge.

Sharpening the sense of the possible

Poerksen: What about the sphere of thinking and the sys tem
of personal beliefs? Can one live in the awa reness here that
everythin g could at any time be diffcr en t?
Von Glasersfeld: For my part, I think it has enormou s advan -
tages to be aware of th e relativity of one' s own con stru ctions.
Every thin g becomes eas ier. Take a trivial examp le: in the USA,
many people believe that one mu st own a car and a fridge in
ard er to be happy. And one day these people may be up set by
the fact that they can no lon ger afford the car tha t is suppo sed
to guar an tee their life's h app iness. Then such a fixation and
rigidi ty, such one-way thinkin g, will block other paths and
crea te un.happin ess . Tliis is to mean: the con str uctivist view -
at least in my experie nce - opens up possibilities of existence
that pr eviou sly seemed unthink able.
Poerksen: The writer Rober t Musil, in a similar vein, speaks of
the unwritten poem of my own existence and the sharpeningof the
sense of the possible.
Von Glasersfeld: That is sp lendid and suits me perfectly . This
poem of possibiliti.es mu st always be kept an op en option.
Every fixation and decision m ay mean the elimin ation of pos-
sibiliti es meritin g specia I consideration. However, i t would be
36 The Certainty of Uncertainty

foolish to believ e that we cou ld simp ly clear away our beliefs

- and then construct the desired and longed-for world at
pleasure.
Poerksen: What is the framework within which we may
invent omse lves?
Von Glasersfeld: The world is the sum of the cons traint s
impinging on ou r personalit ies, our plans, and movements.
What manifests itself here is a cybernetic prin ciple : cybernet ics
does not work - as already poi.nted out by Gregory Bateson
- withcausa l rela tions but withco nstra int s. Tha t is the point:
we roust lead our lives withiJ.1these constraints, and we should
not view our plan s to achieve some futur e goals as the on ly
possibil ity and try to implement them regar dless of the given
constra ints.
Poerksen: At what point doe s the wor ld rea ct aga ins t the
imposition of our cons tru ctions? ln what moment do the
objects scream "No!" when they are to be locked away in a
classified drawer of thought s?
Von Glasersfeld: 1 wou ld say that it is not a question of
objects. The ability to speak of objects presuppose s a structure
and certain relations hips with other objects. What yo u are call-
ing the world of objects appcars to me more Jike an amorphou s
whirling that is, however, so mu ltifariou s that we are able to
create cons tant models by means of the int erna] correlation of
sensa tions. Inside us the summ ing of con tinu al neuronal act iv-
ities constan tly gencra tes combinat ions of imp ulses from
which we then construct our wor ld.
Poerksen: How can one, from this point of view, distinguish
between illusion and reality, right and wro ng? How can yo u
do this as a scient ist without falling back on the emp ha tic idea
of tru th rejected before?
Von Glasersfeld: ln everyday life this is rare ly a problem .
When someone proposes a theory abou t the mounting of car
tyres without the use of a jack, then we can try it out - and I
can say to them: "Let's do it!" ln all practi cal matt ers viability
can, in pri:nciple, be established exper imentally. The main con-
cern of science is to engineer this kind of proof : a theory is pro-
We can never know what goes on in somebody else's head 37

posed; its utility must be exam ined; expe rim ent s are invented
to test it.
Poerksen: This so und s rather unglamorou s becaus e all it
mean s is: the con structivi st aband ons any exagge rated claim
to the knowledge of tru th - and then carries on as before. The
postur e reveal ed by yo ur stateme nt s do es not seem to do jus-
tice to the more or less dir ect promi se of innovation for which
constructivi sm is celebra ted toda y.
Von Glasersfeld: You are referring to the expecta tion s of cer-
tain peopl e; the y have nothing to do with me. Why should I
con sider mys elf resp on sible for such exp ectations? Sorry, but
this is not my probl em. Radi cal cons tru ctivis m, for me, is a
thoroughly prac tical and prosaic matter; all it offers is a poten-
tially useful mode of thinkin g, nothin g more. It is mo st impor -
tant to keep in mind from the begi nning to the end that
constru ctiv ism, too, is only a mod el. Wh eth er it is a viable
mod el of thinking or whether it seems prac ticab1e to people
canno t be determin ed for everybody and aU times; each and
every indi v idual mu st find ou t for him- or herse lf.

The linguistic world-view

Poerksen : How did you discover th is utility for your self? Let
m e spe culate: looking at your biography and roughly reco n-
stru ctin g its extern ai stages m akes me think that th e viability
of constructivism and the relativi ty of rea lity mu s t have been
formative life experiences for you. You grew up in th e Sou th
Tyrol, s tudi ed math em atics in Zurich and Vienna, were a ski-
ing instructor in Au stralia , a far mer in Ireland, a journa list and
trans lator in Italy, and a profe ssor of cognitiv e ps ych ology in
th e USA. *

Von Glasersfeld: Ther e is an intim a te conn ection between my

life and the cons tru ctivist in sight s - yo u are quit e right there.
Th e mere fact that I grew up with mor e than one langua ge, that
I did not on ly speak but live in th ese languages, rendered the
id ea of on e reality prob lematic. I learned Germa n, Englis h,
and ltali an in th e environm en t of my childh ood. I was taught
excellent Frenc h in a Swiss boarding sch oo l bu t only learned to
und erstand and rea lly incorpora te it when I lived in Pari s for a
year. It soon struck me that the world wa s different depending
on whether I spok e French, En g lish, Ger man, or lt alian.
38 The Certainty of Uncertaintt;

Poerksen: Do you take the view that every language shapes

and structures the exper ience of rea lity?
Von Glasersfeld: 1 think tha t this thesis must be formulat ed
more prude n tly and more precisely . Chil dr en realise right at
tbe beginnin g of the ir lives that they can achieve an enormou s
amo un t by utt ering sou nds, that sounds may be a most powe r-
f ul in strume nt. l3ut th ey also rea lise tha t it is very d ifficult to
lcarn the proper use of this instrument. We are no t equipp ed
with a plan at the beginni ng of our lives th at wou ld explain a ll
possib le meani ngs, but we are forced to lea rn from situ ations
and to expl ore lang uage by using it. The ap plication of eve ry
single word is accompanied by wrong inferences; and on ly
grad ually an din a lon g drawn-out prncess we are able to patch
Logeth er the meanings of our own words . And the meaning
associate d with a soun d or a letter fi.n ally result s from the
cxpe rience s we make in inte ractive sit uati ons with othe r
spe aker s . When I live among Jtalian s I am made awa re of a
particu lar way of v iew ing and analys ing the world. Sharing
cxper iences with Eng lish peopl e at the satTte time mak es m e
realise im media tely that there are marke d differe nces between
these two langu ages. The ltalian s and the Eng lish may both
believe that their languages represen t the wor ld in the appro-
priate way. Living between these two languages and world s,
as I do, I can on ly affirm the ins urm ou ntab le subject ivity of
word meaning s and point out the charac teristic difference in
the repr esentations of reality . From this experience of my life
stem s my int erest in what is caJled reality.
Poerksen: Cou ld yo u quote an example illu strating thc di ver-
sity of world views w1derlyi ng their ling uis tic repre sent a-
tions?
Von Glasersfe ld.:Ju st think of preposit ions a nd the ch arac ter-
istic relationships they can genera te within a la ng uage. Trans-
lating a couple of scnt ences from Eng lish into Ge rm an , for
instance, may inv ol ve the pro p er renderi n g of co nceptual rela-
tionshi p s expressed by prepos ition s. An d then we n otice
immediately that these two lang ua ges, whic h are n o t very far
apart historically, do no t match. The Ge rm an prepos ition in
inclu des at Jeast 30 spatial, tem p oral, and mod al re lations . Th e
English in is no less powerful but some of the relation s i t repre-
sents are differen t. (Tsay it in Engfishbeco mes "Ich sage es auf
 We can neuer know what goes on in sornebodyelse's lwad 39

deut sch"; in rny place becomes "an meiner Stelle"; in this way
beco me s "auf die se Weise" etc.). Con sider how of ten preposi-
tion s like in, on, after, over e tc. are u sed, an d ho w important
they are because they constitut e re lationships betwee n objects
and situation s, a nd you w ill rea lise that th ere are all sor ts of
relations and loose associations in a Iangu age, which do n ot
ma tch th ose in another.

Poerksen: Wh a t yo u hav e pr esented nicely illu strat es th e

so-ca )led " lingui s tic relativity prin ciple" formulated by
Benjami n Lee Wh orf in hi s famou s art icle Linguistics as an exact
science. He wrote: " ... user s of mark edly different gram mar s
are pointed by their gra mm ars toward differ ent types of ob ser-
vations and different eva luation s of ex tern ally similar act s of
observation , and he nce are not equival en t as obse rv ers but
must arrive at some what diff eren t views of the world."

Von Glasersfeld: Exact ly, that is quite corr ect. The div ersity of
the percep tions of r eality is what one experien ces wh en living
in mor e than on e Jangua ge. Hcrc is a littl e story abo ut a relc-
vant exper ien ce of mine. A friend from England once visit ed
me in Mila n. We went 011 a n excur sion and wandered alon ga
riv erwh en we reached aspo t where the r ailwa y tin e join ed th e
ri ver. ln the meadow n ear the riverbank, quite close to th e rail
tra ck, an Italian family wa s sittin g enjoyin g a picn ic. Su dd enl y
we heard the di stant rumble of the approac hin g tr ain; the
moth er jum pe d up and shou ted: "A ttenti bambin i, arr iva il
tren o." My En glish friend turn ed to me: "What did she say?"
And Ir ealised thatl co uld not simp ly give a lit era l tran slati on
of thi s sent en ce; it had to be: "Be care ful, children, the train is
coming" - and not: "Be car efu l, childr en , th e train is arriving."
The reaso n is tha t th~ verb to arrive pre supp oses a stati on ary
ele ment; the train mu st stop. ln Italian , you can use arrivareto
express tha t so mcthin g is in the pro cess of approac hin g.

Poerksen: Beco min g awa r e of th is fundam en tal diversity in

the meanin gs of expr ess ion s and r ea lising that even in one sin-
gle lan gua ge diff eren t group-specifi c semant ic sys tem s exist
sid e by side, the communicativ c situati ons we hav e to take into
acco unt appea r mo st complica ted. The que stion is then : Wh at
does it mean to und ers tand an utt era nce if the m eanin gs of
express ion s, as you maintain, are esse nti ally subj ectiv e an d
differ from langu age to Janguage?
40 The CertaintlJof Uncertainty

Von Glasersfe ld: ln my view, it is imposs ible to expect that a

person's utt eran ce activates p r ecise ly the sarne thought s and
concep tu al netwo rks that the person or iginally associa ted
wi th it. Thi s is to say : transmission,message,an d receiverare
mislea d ing metapho rs wit h res p ect to conceptual cont ent.
Communicationis never transport.What moves from one human
being to anoth er are sound s, gra phic figur es or, as in telegra-
phy, electr ic imp ulses - in bri ef, oscilla ting patterns of so und,
Iigh t or electricity . And we can only ass ign meanin gs to these
ener gy changes in terms of our ow n lingu istic expe riences.
Ever so often we speak with p eop le and realise two or three
days later tha t th ey have not und erstood a t all wha t we meant
to say or tho ugh t we sai d.

Poerksen: We never know whethe r we und erstand eac h

oth er?

Von Glasersfeld: No, we can never be sm e because there is no

possibility of control and inspection. I ca n neve r really know
wha t goes on in somebody else's hea d; I ca n on ly go by w hat
they say - and what genera tes cer ta in ideas in my h ead that
ar e themselves the pro duc ts of ind ivid u al and subject ive expe-
riences . The feeling of und er stan din g r esu lts, I thin k, beca use
the oth er p erson does not do or say anyt hin g tha t might indi -
ca te an i11correc t i.nterpr etati on on my p art.

Poerksen: Does thi s mea n that we r ecog nise failed cornmun i-

ca tion onl y whe n we in fact notice tha t we quite defin itely do
not und erstan d eac h other?
Von Glasersfeld: That is how it is. Th at we failed to und er -
stand cach oth er Jea n only effect ivcly ascer tain whe n the oth er
per so n says or does some thing that is, in my view, incomp a ti-
ble with what I sa id. However, the fact that socie ties and envi-
ronmen ts are comparative ly s im ilar jus tifies our expecta tion
that the people we talk to und ers tan d the word s that we use in
a similar way or at least interpret them in a way that doe s not
contr a d ict our own inte rpr eta tion s. Conse qu entl y, th e vague-
ness of the mea nin gs of exp ress ion s is signifi cantl y res tricted .

The end of instruction

Poerksen: Durin g the last few yea rs, you h ave publi shed a
great numb er of ar ticles dea lin g w ith th e pr in ciples of
 We can never know what goes on in somebodyelse's head 41

constru ctivist didactics. Your reflection s on the act of under-

standing and the viability of constr ucti vism are a good point of
depar ture, I think, to illu stra te the pra ctical import of your
thinking with reference to the field of ed ucation . Let me put
the question quite generally: What consequen ces for schoo ls
can be derived from your epistemological consid eration s?
Von Glasersfeld: Th e first consequenc e from what has been
said so far is nearly trivial: language cannot be used to tran sfer
conceptual con tent; all conceptual con tent must be con-
str ucted by the stud ents them selves. The compulsion to learn
thing s by rote, cons tant repetition, and other forros of dressage
cannot guarant ee und ers tandin g.
Poerksen: Are not the favolllable school report s, w lú ch the
childr en bring hom e, an indication that they h ave under stood
what they were taught?
Von Glasersfeld: Well, we simpl y need good reports an d
goo d mark s in arde r to be up graded. But they are, of course,
not unambiguou s indic ators of stud ent s' und erstand ing of a
subject, of whe ther, for exam ple, they are really capable of
appl ying some formula from physics. Despite goo d marks,
they often Jack the in sight into how the conceptua l connec-
tions betw een the symbols in a formula mu st be und erstood.
Poerksen : What ot her insight s can constru ctivism suppl y for
educa tion?
Von Glasersfeld: From a constr uctivist point of view, it seems
most import ant to m e to take student s serious ly as intelligent
beings capable of ind ependent thi.nking, that is to say, as
beings that con struct their own reality. Student s are neither
idiots nor victims to be filled with kn ow ledge. The respect I am
dcma ndin g here is justified by the fact that it is the stud ents
who, in the pro cess of learning, consb:uct knowledge actively
and on the basis of wh at they already know. It is therefore
indi spe nsa ble, I believe, that teachers build up at leas t appro x-
imate imageso f whatgoes on in them ind s ofth eir student s; in
this way only, they wil l stand a chance of changi ng so mething
there. This means th a t every thin g childr en say and do must be
taken seriou sly as an expr ession of their thinking.
42 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Poerksen: Even when children utt er patently meaningles s or

inconec t things?
Von Glasersfeld: Most children's utter ances are not at ali
meaningl ess - they are only incompre hensible to us adults , at
first. We must ask ourse lves : Why is tlús or that utterance
mean ingful for the child? H ow is that po ssible? - The "mis-
takes" of stud ents are, therefore, of enormous imp ortance:
they provi de insights into their thinking, and th ey offer deci-
sive hin ts for the creation of new situation s in which the fau lty
solu tions and methods of the childre n will no longer WOJ"k.
This is the bestway forinduci ng wha t Jean Piaget called accom-
modation: if the resul ts of one's actions do not match one's
expectat ions, then learni ng can begin.
Poerksen: Listeni.ng to wha t you are saying m akes me under -
sta nd one of the insp ired exaggerat ions voiced by the commu-
nication scien tist Gordon Pask: he proposes that the stud ents
become the teachers. Teachers hav e to learn fro111stud ents
what th.e stud ents do not know and why they have difficulties
to grasp and app ly wha t they are told.
Vo n Glasersfeld: The stateme nt by Gordon Pask that you
quot e is not too much of an exaggera tion. ln middle school, at
the lates t, teacbers can really leam from their stud ent s becau se
the stud ents may hit upon id eas unknown to the teachers.
Some of the childr en with whom I worked in math ematics
classes ma naged to invent dever methods of su bb·action that,
however, func tioned onl y in the precise]y delimited area of the
prob lem configu ra tion in han d. They cou ld not be generalised.
Neve rth eless, it is qu ite conce ivable that teachers can profit
enormou sly from stud ents; they may get to k now tricks that
stude nt s have managed to contr ive beca use they have per -
ceived their tasks from an unprejudi ced poin t of view.
Poerksen: For many peop le, ho weve r, the static culture of
instruction, which secures the maximal au thority of the teach-
ers, is definitely more attract ive.
Von Glasersfeld : Go and talk to teachers who have bee n
teaching for 15 or 20 years . Of cour se, Ido no t know the situa-
tion in Germany, but in the USA yo u will encounter many
soured and desperate people who know that what they are
doing does not work. Whenever teachers are successfully
 We can never know what goes on in somebodyelse's head 43

brought to observe constructivist methods in their schoo ls and

really att end to them , they are for ce d to acknowledge that
something differ ent and some thing new is happ ening therc:
the children become active; they even show signs of pleasurc ;
they enjoy their time in class because there is no fixed curricu-
lum; and they love doing somethlng when they are not com-
pelled to do it.
Poerksen: But this differ ent mann er of teaching would possi -
bly use up too mu ch time, time that simply is not availablc.
Some teachers probab ly fear that the children - if dealt wHh
according to the se id eas - would not lear n enough of all that
which they simply hav e to learn, too.
Von Glasersfeld: lt is the job of teachers to be patient. Natu -
rally, adapting to constructivi stically inspir ed teaching will
cost tim e, but applying these consid eration s continu ally wi ll
often produ ce so mething astonishing. It may happ en that chil-
dren ap proa ch th eir teacher s after class and ask for furthcr
tasks. Manne rs begin to chan ge; childr en realise that it is
enjoyabl e and sa tisfying to so lve problems. Fortunately, therc
ar e now quit e a few empir ica l inves tigation s that confirm the
succ ess of constru ctivis t me thod s in math ematic s teaching .
Th ey show that childr en at th e end of th eir firs t year are ju st
about equally good as the children tau ght in the conve ntiona l
way . At the end of the second year they are bett er, statistically .
And in their third year it becomes ap par ent that they hav c
lea rnt how to lea rn: the y are now sup erior to their contempo-
rari es also in other subj ects beca use their whole attitudc
towards school and the tau ght subjects has chan ged.

Poerksen: The cons tru ctivist pr emis e of the impossibility of

absolute truth also ifnpli es, it seems to m e, the teaching of even
th e hard sciences as historica l di scip lines. ln con crete terms :
m en tion Dem ocritu s wh en ta1king abou t atoms, Faraday in
conn ection with electr icity, and link optical ph enom ena with
th e his torical idea s about vision and visual p erception that
reach back into antiquity. And so on. Students would always,
in a more or less dir ec t way, be enli ghten ed a bou t the hl storica l
conditions of the origin and the relativity of wh at passes for
knowl edge.
Von Glasersfeld: A wonderful id ea that, how eve r, mee ts with
aggressive resistance from cert ain qu art ers . I hav e often spo-
1,~ The CertainhJ of Llncertainty

k(' l1 at confe rences of the lnternation.alAssociation of the History

,111dPhilosophyof Sciencein ScienceTeachin.g;
the relativisa tion of
ttl'ient ific knowledge appeared to many teachers who were
,,ttendi:ng these confe rences, an intolerable id ea that und er-
111inedtheir p osition of auth ority . I would therefore recom-
111cndtha t these teachers no longe r base their authority on the
quantity of apparen tly objective knowledge but on their capa-
l>ility and experience in solvi n g problems together with their
'li udents . What must be thrown ou t unconditionally is the
11otionthat teache rs are omniscient. Th is is my recomme nd a-
tlon.

From outsider philosophy to fashion

l'oerkse n: Leaving questions of educa tion agai n and s urvey-
lng the whole situation of constructivis m we canno t fail to
11olicethat, from the persp ective of the history of k nowledge,
,•onstruc tivism h as entered an explosive phase. It is in the pro-
1•t•ss of being transformed from an outs ider philoso ph y into a
lnshion, and in cer tain publications it eve n ass um es the traits
ní a weltanschauung.Did you ever expec t this kind of p opul ar-
hmtion and transformation of your ideas?
Von Glasersfeld: Not in my wildest dr eams wo uld I h ave
lhought that con structivism would be received in this w ay.
l'hc possibility of a transformation of these ideas int o an intel-
lt•ctual fashion neve r occurred to me; but there is nothing on e
t\ln do abou t it. What peop le do witb cert ain id eas is their bu si-
11e ss. True enough, an uncanny nurnber of peop le cal l them-
•wlves construct ivists today. At home th ere are many who
h,we no idea w hatever of the basic tenet s of con struc tivism.
My only hope is that these ideas wi ll open upa more adva 11ta-
11eousview of the wor ld for some peop le. And thi s h ope o ut-
wcighs the misunderstandings, the tra ppi n gs of fashion, and
1hc innumerable abound in g misconceptions. They seem to me
ltiss importan t.
Poerksen : In w hat ways is consb·uct ivism helpfu l for yo u per-
"onally? Can it possibly prepare for the inevitability of disease
,rnd pain?
Von Glasersfeld: But of course . Perhaps [am a bit na ive in this
l'l'gard but constructivism has made many thin gs clear to me.
1(1can, in pr incip ie, never truly know the reality beyond the
 \/\,~cau nec.,er
know ·w/J:;t goes 011 m somcbodlJclsc's hend 45

exp cricn tial wor ld of my lifo, then it is meánin gl'ess to worry

abo ut wha tm ay hap pen or per haps not ha pp en whe n my time
in thi s exper ie ntial worl d ís end.ing. lt seems tota lly mcru.1ing -
less to m e to be afr ai d of dca th; 1 am ali:aid of pain, of falling·
ovc r ru.1dli:acturing my bo ne.s. lt ha ppe ned last yeaI, a nd it
was pa inful; bu t that is somet hing en tire ly differcn l. And it is
cer ta inly imaginable lhat 1 will be str uck by senti me ntal feel-
inr;s of nos ta lgia one day, w hen I havc to accep t that I can no~
cul tiva tc my habits any ll'I Ol'e . But I do not kno w how 1 came
into lllY wu rk l; 1 d ú know tha t ll'I )' time in lhis wo!'idis limitcd.
Why s hould I woHy?
 CHAPTER 3

The k11owledge of
knoioledgeen tails
responsibility
rto R. Molurono on hui, ond opp ression,
Hu'1'1be
slruoture de te rm inism ond d ic tatooh,p, and 1he
au topaiesls o f llving

umbe rto R. Maturann,

H (b. 1928) fi rs t st udi ed

med icine in Chile, Ute n
a na l·cnny in Eng Jand. was
a wa rded IJ Ph.l) . in bio logy at
Ha r vard in 195S, a 11d s ubs;;:-
q uen tl y wo r ked al lh e
Massachusetts lnsti tutc o f Tcch-
nology (fvflT) . ln 1960,.heret u rn~'<'I
to wo r k w ith u,e Univers ity of
Chile a l San lfago, whid1 hc only
l eft fo r occ as ion pcr iods o f
resea rch and tea ching ab road. 1Ie
is par li cLtlar ly wc ll know n for his
th eo r y of au topo ie si s (~c lf-
crea tion) lhat he bega n to develop
in the late 1960s. This lheory p rovides a novel feat ure of living
bcinr,s go i ng beyo nd the trad itio na I crileria of biolr,gy -
reprocluction, mob ility. etc . Accord ing to Mat ura na, a circu-
lar, au top oie llc fo,.,n of orga nisalion dls tinr,ufahes liv ing
b~ings, fro,n the amoeba to hurnans. Living sys te ms fo rnl a
networ k o f i11lerna l and circul<1rly enmes hect processes of pro-
dt:ct ion that make them boundcd unit:les by cons tm, tly pro-
d uc:ing anel lhu s mniniai ning lhernse·lves. Au topoietic
sys tems are au tonomo us. Whatever mny h appe n inside the m.
wh.itcvc r may pc 1w tmtc and s tin1ulalc, pc 1turb or d éslJ·o)'
48 ·11,c Ccrlainty of Uncerlain,.y

lhem, is essenliall y det er min ed by their ow11circular organisa·

lion .
At the beginning of the 1970s, Matun m a fuythc r clabora ted
the lheory of autopoie sis together with the biologi st l'rand BCQ
J. Vamla, who was lhen a lso leaching in Chile. Tiw y coope r-
a te d with $ystems the orists and po litk ia11s wh o, on lhe inHia-
tive of the newl y e lected socia lis t 1p resident Salvador ,\llend~
ha d bccn engaged to reorganise lhe comn umication sys tem s
and lhe cconomy of thc Republic. ln 1973, thc dicta tor Pinochet
seized power Anel d estroy ed, amcmgst o ther thing s, thc cxist-
ing u,úv ersi ty enviro nm en t. Numerou s pro fessors were dis-
mi sscd and dr ivcn ou t; mru;y we re mu.rde.red 0 1· d epor h?d,
'Dcs pite rcpc a te d tbrcat s fro m th c s idc of lh e regi me ,
Ma tura.na stayed in Chile. The concep t of :mlup oit>;;isbcgan to
ga in greater popularit y in Lheear ly 1980s. ln lhe meantime, it
has cxploded in a cad cmic drclcs and bccome a synonym for
an a utonom ous form of reality prod uction. lt has take n on ~
vital Iifo of its owi1 as a univ ersally exp loita ble lrendy co ncep t
in journ ab on systcm s lhinkin g ao d Jam ily therapy oral lhe
conierences oi sociolog ists and n,ed ia schol ars - even in lhe
by Hs creator.
faceof resist-ance
Hu m berto R Ma lur ana is still aclive as a professor of bio l-
ogy who see ks to promotc a thcory of cogn ition in thec onle xi
of the nat LLtalscie nces. Until his retiré me nl. he was d irector of
thc Labornlory for Exper ime nta l Epistemology ru1cllhe BiOl-
l>gy of Cognit ion at the U nivc rs ity of Chile in Sru1liago, wJ1iclt
he had foundecl him self.

The exp lanatiou of expericnce

Poerksen: You once sa id that ln 1//i a11dreality often serve as.
mot ives for vio te ncc.-liow are we to und e.rsland this?
Mat urana: We livc in a cuhurc lhat does not rcspcc l diífor-
cnces but on ly tolera tes them. So ju.st beca use cestain peop le
thio k thnl they ru·ein the po sscssion of lruU1,lhe silu at ion f.re-
quen tly arises that eve,-ythb1g unfa miliar and ext rat>rd inar y
will appear a s an unncceptab le a nd insuppol'lab le llu ea l. The
po ssibl,: conscqu (mce (Jf suc h an a rtitu de is tha tp eoplc fccl jus-
liCied to use v iole nce beca use they claim lo have pr ivileged
acccss to rrnlily 0 1· to /·Ire lrnllr, or to light for a gTeat ideal. This
att iludc , so thcy bcllcvc, just ifies thcir l?chaviour an d seis
them apar t from co mmn11c rimin ais.
 11u! k,wwledge of k11111'1ledge
1:,ilili
ls rl!S/!ür1sibili1y 49

l'oerksen: Who i, the targe l oi this cr iticismof ru; idca oi lruth

lt1rncd total itar ian? Where d oyou sccsuc h form$ of conílict?
Maturana: They are ubiquitou s a lthou g h they need not
always encl in phy sical threats towardso ther peop le. IJ; polit.i-
cal a nd pOlf,mical d ebates, w lúch ,1l'C oftcn sim ilar t<.
> fighl, '"
cven wars.,,ve reje.ct othcr pcoplc and thei r views. \'\'e attncK
lhem w ilhout · lis tcning. in fact, we refuse toHs ten becnuse wc
11rc so very sure 1h at lhey hold views that are pa tcnt ly false.
Polilical te,·rod sm rcs ts on thc idca lh.tt éerta in peop le are
wroni; and rnu ~t, the refore, be killecl.
Pocr kse n : This might mcru, that ru1y id ca. oí h·uth nece~sarily
1.,ads to violencc. Woul d you accept that ? Or , to ,-e,·erse the
question: Is thcrc not a lessda ngero usan d less fanatical wa yo f
ha nd li11g the view lhat one ha s discovcrcd tbe reality of the
world as it is?
~fatur ana: lt a.li dep ends on lhe emo lions oí lhl' ~>cop ie relat·
ing 10 each other. lf thcy l'l'SpC<:teoch othcr. then the fact 1-hat
they hold d iffcrent views may offe r the oppor tunity of a íruit-
íul conve rs.,tion a nd a producti ve excha nge. lf peo ple, how-
c,·cr, dn not res ped each olher i)ul dcmand subscrvience, then
their d ifferin g views will cnge nd er mol ivt':>for nega tlon.
Poerksen : Rrodi 11g yo ur books or listen ing to you talkl.ug
giws me lhe imp ression lhat yo u h ave invented a new U1eo ry
of truth. Philo so ph ers speak ing a bou t tru th havea lways askcd
the <1ues tion: How does lrot h come .ibou t? Truth se,ime d to
them to li<'lhe resull of some social c(nwent i()n (consensus the-
ory of truth ), the result oi some expe l'ience of immc dia tc cv i-
clcncc (ev idence theor y of tru th), or l"l1c prod nc t of a
correspondenc e bctwce n 1-hcory an el reality (correspon dence
lheory of trnth). You cio not ask ho w tru th comes about bul
seck to <levelop wha t I wo uld cnJJa comeq,rcncc11,co ~r
!f Irut/1.
J"
Thequestio ,t now is: What ru·c tltc consequcnc es oi the ideaof
lruth ? How doe s lhe almo sphere of a con versation ch ange lf
noti,ms of b·uth star t lo dmn inatc it ?
"11aturana:[ hold a cliffcrenl view. lt is nol my goal to createa
new lhco ry of tru th . l a m conce rned w ith some lhin g thut is of
inu ch more fundamental impo rtan ce: The clussi<:i11guiri~s
into t!'u !h, rcafüy, or the t'SS(mceo fbe ing, deal with tru th, real-
;ty and bcing as wme thin g i11dependen 1from, a nd externa i to.
50 o/Uncertainty
TireCertai11l!J

an obsc r ver. My key ques tion s a re: How ca n éxp criénc e be

e.xplain ed? How can I do w hat I am doing right now? How do 1
oper at e as an obse rv e.r ? Wh at cri terion a m l using to justi!y
thal wha t Iam sayü 1g is jn foct the cas e? Su cb a vicw of thi.ogs
cba ngcs th e wh(>lc tradit io nal ~ystem of que st io ns ce ,ltr ed on
th e validation oi an e xte rn ai rea lity or tru tb - and lhe
obscrver moves into focus. Wc no longer occupy oursc.lv~
with th c ass um ed pwpertie s of an exte rn ai reality or tru th bu t
we begin to und ersta nd lhe re fere nces to /1,erc11/i1yor 1/Je/111/11
as Uw pro posa l of an cxplai1a l:iün by an obscrve r w ho is tclling
\lS about hi s expe riences . 1 do no t pres up pose reali ty as give n
in my work .
Poe rk sen : 1Nh at doe s U1is mcan? ln w hat scnscarc rcality an d
trut h alt cm plcd cxpl an at ions?

Maturana:Th ey ar ee xp lana tory p ropo sa ls to c li.mu1al edo t1bt.

lf yo u refer to reality a nd truth in thi s way , you nccd no lo.ngcr
deal wit h the prob lcm o f how you ki1ow wha t you are asser t-
ing. Wh;it you know sim pl~: derives from what lhere is, from a
conn ect ion with rea lity . When we say that wc are abs olut e ly
s ure of some thing , we me an Uiat wc nr c no lon gc r forc cd to
reflect, to a sk questions , and lo cntc rt nin doubts .

Pocrksen : So yoi t nrc no l conccm ed w ith qucst ions of lru th

true-false but wi llt lhe djst inclion l>elween
an d th e oppo sitir111
two fundamenta lly d iliere 1\l po sit ions: yo u cillwr asse1t that
ª" cognili o.n is ob sc rwr -dcp cnd cnt , o r you asser i th at an
ob sc rv er-in dcpend ent rea lity ca n be perce ived.

Ma tura na: You cou ld pu l il that way. ycs. Ia m no l int cres ted
in lh e gu es tion as to whc th cr án obse rv er-inde pe nde nt r ea lity
cxisl$ a nd whéther I 0 r somebody else may know it. l use lh e
ob se r ver as the sta.rti.ng-point o( my thinking . avo idi ng ru1Y.
ontologkal assumption, simpJy out of cw·iosit}'and iHte.res tin
the question s in vo lvecl The re is no high cr r eason , no ontolog i-
cal fou.ndation ,- _
no univc Ysally valid ju stifi cation for these
<1uestkm s. Qbserver s ob se rv e, see so m eth ing, aíbnu or deny
ilS existence, and do wha tevc r thcy do. With ou t th e ob sc r vcr,
th e rc is nolhing . The observe r is lh e iou .nd atlon of ali know l-
edge , of any ass um ption invol\' in i; lhe human scJf. lhe w or ld
nn d th c cos mos. Th e d isappear a nce of the observer wo uld
m ea n th e e nd and the dis a ppearance of lh e wor ld we know ;
there wo uJd be nobody lcf t lo pcrcc ive, to spcak , to desc ribe ,
 The Kll(!Wladge
of knowledgc entails re;-po11.<ibility51

and to explain. Wha t exists indep ende ntl y from this observer
is necessa rily an d in evitabl y a m atte r of bclid ~nd 11ot of
sen U'e know lcdgc bccau sc to sce somc th.ing a lways requ ines
somconc w]H, sees it. The observe r a11d th e ope ra ti on of
obsc rving are my topics of rese ar ch and, at the same tim e, its
object ive nn d ils instmmcn t. l.do not s ta,"twi.th onto io.,,y, 1star l
w ith cxpcr .ience. Her!, 1 am, [-lumbert o Malur a na, reflec ting
11nd posi ng the refl exive qu estlo n how il 1s possib le for me to
reflec t and lo know how I know. And thcn I am conf.ront cd by
the incsc apablcconcl usion th at I ha ve I<)dc,11w ith biol ogy: the
sc ien tis t iacing thi s que slion, the pl u1osophex, the mathemati-
cian, thc pr iest, U1c bu rg lar, lhe pol itician - they an)a ll hu m an
bcings. Hving and structure-determined syste1ns, biological
cn tities .
Po erkse n: Who is, in fact, ,l.t.1obscrvcr~ What do ob se r vcrs do ?

Mat urana: 1Iu rna,1 beings - belt1gs w ho li ve in langu age -

opera te asobscrvers w hc.nthcy, ncling in sc!I-awíl.reness. use a
distinction in ord cr to di!;tingu ísh som(~thing. T'hey are a,,vare
,1f $e~inga nd pe rce iving so rnet hi ng . Somebody who is simpl y
Jook ing out of th e w indow I wou ld nol consídc r an observer.

.roerks en: The a bilit )' to ob se r ve is ticd to thc po ssib ility of

sei f-rc fleclion.

Moturana: Anel Ulis self-refleclio n a11d tl1in ki ng abl) ut wha t

wcar e do .ing tak es p lace in language. Supp ose we both watch
a birei ea ting a worm or some olttcr insec l. Whcn we ask om-
selves whelhcr lhe hird kno,vs tbal it is e:iting:i wo11111wc pcr-
Jor m an ope ratiún in language tha t is una\' à ilable to the bi rei
bt,cau se it does not live in language. T he bird does no t prod uce
conun ent s tha l serve lo r c/Icct il s aclions. lt is lhe.rcfore not an
ob~ervcr. JI simply cal$ n wo rm - and wc humt111bc)ngs
ob~crve its behav iour.

Poerksen: Do yo u sep ar ate th e ob ser ver from th e ob se n· ecl?

Do you wo r k wi lh the lr ad ition ,11d isti.nction bc lween sub jcc t
and oojt..::I?

Matu .rana: T'he ~ct of d ist inction consists in ope ratin g ü1s uch a
rnamier as to produ ce somc thin g U1at see m s to be inde pende nt
f rom onc' s ow11 pc rson. N,>w, it h~s bccomc accc p tcd in our
cullur c to d ls tingu ish betwe en th e ob ser ver and the üb served ,
52 Tlic Ce,·tn111
ty of Unccrlai11lJ/

as j:f there were a d ifforcnce betwe en lhe tw(), as i.f lhcy were
disll nct. Ií lhis is ass1,n n ed an el a ccep leel, we ar e imrnédia te ly
Cún frontcd by the task ofde scribing thc rda lion be twee n thesc
tw o s upposeclly inelc pen den t e ntities w ith gre ate r pr ecisJon,, 1
do not myse lf wo rk w ilh this clas sic d istinction betwee 1,
ob servcrs an el ohserve d but Tshow how thal w hich is distin -
g uished is cunn ~'Cted wi th lhe perso ns pe rforming lhe d islinc-
tion, and to what exhm t obsc rvcrs are invo )ve d in thu
elistinct ions lhcy actually pe rio rm. My ce ntral poin l of d epar-
ture ís the experienc c ofo hu nta n being. f-Iow come that wct an
speak a bout lhings a nel obje ci,; as i( thcy were in de pe nele,,r
from us? Th is is w ha l [ wa n l lo find ou t.
roerksen: What a.rc tho conseq uen ces of Jearn ing to un der-
stand that· we are observc rs in thls scnsc, of becon1ing aware,
that wc our scl vcs actuall y crea te partic ular dis tinction s a nel
wr itc them i.nto the wo rld?

Ma tuxa.na: De.::om in g aw an! that onc is elo ing lh e obse rvin g,

a nel thcn ooíng aware of being a wa re that it is onesclf whci
ma kes tht: dis tinctions, one íllfains a new don1ain uf c xpe.d -
ence. Becomjng aware of onc's awareness anelu.ndersf.:mding.
one' s un de rsl-anding g ives risc to thc fccling of rcspons ibility
for wha t onc is eloing, for w hat one is CrCllling lh rough one' s
own opera tion s of d istinction . This kind oí insight lrns some-
lhing inev ilable: onc e this has becn u.nde rs tood , o ne cannot
pretcnd any [onger Lo be unaw are o( one' s ow n o ndc rstandi.ng
ifone is actua lly awnrn of il a nd is also awar e of th is awar eness .
Eveot those w ho de ny th is kind of aw are ness a re inc luctab ly
aw arc of il: for ac ting hypocritica lly and lying imp lies asse rt-
ing so methi ni; thah :onl radic ts one ' s owi, insig hts . 'llli s is wh y
1 wro te in lh e las l chap! c r of lhe book 11:e/l'eeof k11,
,w/edge tha t it
is nol und ersta nding Uiat en ta ils n.:spon sibility bu l lhe kno wl-
celge of know lcd gc .
Poe rksen: Your key con ccpl o[ U,e obseroerseems to me to ooa
som(iwhnt unfortunate choice to axptes:;;·whnt }' OU inte.nd to
say? ·rn o rdinary langungc. il signals separation: wc observe.
kee p a d is t,u 1ce, and i1\d irecl'ly insist o n ne utl',ility. Woul d it
not be ~ lte r to rep lace observers b}' J!llrli cip:mts or sharersw ho
are inseparab ly tied to their wo rlds and w ho massive ly c0t 1·
tri bute to thc prod ttction and constru ction of thcsc wo rlels ?
 Tl1c.boou1l,!dg? of know/edge enlails resf~msibilily 53

Malura na: 1 am no t at ali un hap py with the conce pl o( lhe

r,b:,er\Ter, d eli.nHclv not , beca use it actua llv invit es us to
. '
i,xplain lhc cxp;!rience of observing: lhe la blc and th,) chairs in
1his room, n1)' jac:ke t, the scar f l am wearin g - ali these th ings
11 ppea r to me to hav c a n cxi~h)nce o f their ow n tha t is i.nelc-
r>ende nl fro m 1nc. ·n,epro blem U, at s ho uld no t bc made inv is i-
iJ!cby a concept like ,uarl icip,1/ion is lhe follow ing: How do 1
know tha t these th ings a.rotherc ? What k ind of asse 1'tion do J
111 a kc wbe nl say tha t lh c world u nfoldin g beforcmy eycs in a li
lts beau ly cxists ind epe nd ently troou me? Your su gges tinn to
spc.. , k of a sh a rer or pil'rlicipant is mislea d ing beca use thc
11 ,, 1io n of pa rt icipa ti<m ~lread y rontain s a n explanatio n anela
1'eady-01adc ans1-ver ; the on ly adm iss ih le q ues ti<m left wou ld
thc n conce rn the specific mnn.ncr in w hich the assumed par tic-
lpation is rc.iIised. Observing is an experiencc which aiso has
tod o with thea ppare,1tl)' indepc ndcn t cxistence of Uüng,;, anel
lhat has lo bec xpl ained . T he .-.mcepl of lhe obs crvcr is a chal-
lengc t,1study lhe opera,tion of obscrv ing and to fa<.'I?up to lh e
cir<-ula rity of thc unelcrs tand ing of und e.rs tanding. lt is, aftc t·
all, an obscrv •"· w ho obser ves lhe obser ving a nd str ives to
cxpla in it; it is a brai u U, at wan ts lo cxp la in the brain . Many
people thin k that s uch rd lcxive pro blems are unocce plab lc
a nd unsolvab Je. My prop osal, how eve.r, is to accep t thisd rcu ,
lar sit ua tion fully righl frnm the s ta rl· <1nd to makc oneself the
instru ment by mcm, s of w hich the quest ion of one' s pcrs onal
l~xperience nnd o ne's ow n actions is to b,e ans wcrcd througb
one's vcry ow n ac tivilies. The point is lo obst:rvc the oper11-
lions, wh ich g ive risc to thc cxp<'rien ces lha t are to bc
t~xplained.

Fear of mad ness

Pocrk s en: Your plea for circular thinkin g so rneh ow see ms
dó!e ply clisturbing. cve n lhr ea tenin g. 11, e wo rld dissolves:
begin ning an elc nd beco me a rbltrar y fixntions no long~r off,)r·
ing a safe gr ip; aJ I fir m groun d is pu llcd from und er ou r fee t.
O ne wo ulel likc lo rush to the door a.nd ou lo f U, e room, bu t on c
ha s beco me u nct'rla in t:hat th at doo r is st ili tbc rc. You repo ,t ed
some_ wht!t"ethat. hav ings tmted to think in this way, you were
q uite sca.red íor so me time tha t you m ight go ma d. Why d id
that alar.m finally fa~1e a way?
54 Tlie. Ce1·t11i11l
y of U11cerl11i11ty

Maturana: 1'1,ere cam e a momc nt a t w hich l realised that circu-

lar lhinking ,iid JlOte nda1'ger thé sow,dn css of my mind but
that it expand ed my und e rstandin g. The (k d s ion, in pruticu-
lar, to procccd from my ow n <!xpe rience and no t from an éxter-
nal reality can havc a pro foundl y libernt ing an d comfor ting
cffect. The experie nces we ,na ke ,m : no longc r doub ted , 110
longcr denigratcd as unrenJnnd illusory; they are nc, longer a
pr oblem, the y no longer pr oducc cmo tion al cotú licts; they are
s impl y accepted for w hat they a re. - Sup posc, 1d aim lo ha ve
heard thcvo iceof Jesuss peaku1g tom e las t night. Whatdo you
thin k would l1ap pe n wh cn I told other peopl e of s uch an expe-
ricnce? Some body might exp lain to me thal f suffered from
halluc inations beca use Jesus was dead and cou ld therefore not
poss ibly s pea k to me. Soonconc cise mig hl lhink me ve ry va i1'
an d suspect th at 1wan ted to prese nt ,nyse lf as an ,;,lcct pers on :
it is, a ftcr all, Jes us who was speakin g to me. A tl1ird pe,-son
mig ht say thal dw-tng that night the clevil had lcd me into
temp ta tion . 1\11lhcse cons idc.mtions have one th ing in com-
mon : they reject the exp lanatio n wit h wlúch I run try ing to
ma kc scnseof my ex perience but they do not negate thc t>xpe-
rie nce itsd f; they don ot ca ll in to qu es tio.nthatl heard a voi~ .
l'oerksen; ln wh at way dol'~ this exampl e conl ribu te to
an s we ring my qu es tion co ncem ing your fcar of mad ness? r
~1ssun1c thnt rou r principled deci.sfon to start out from you.r
o wn ex pt!ric nce allayc d yo ur fcars, calme d yo u r mlnd, and set
yo u a t ease. On e a c~epts wha t one cxpe ricnces. Therefore, the
fear of madne ss m ight be a sort of cla nd,~,tinc a ttcmpt to
ddcn d oncse lí ag ai ns t on e' s ow n experiences .

Ma tu ra na: This is lhe po in l. To ca ll so meth ing 111/ldnw an s to

explain únt{s pcrccp tions and cxpe.ricncesin such a way as to
de value onese lf. lt is ·110 1 my in tcnt ion to rcjec t or devalue
cxpcr iences. O nce aga iJl: e:<pt"riences are nevcr thc problem.
Wha t I want to cxplai n is th eo pe rations thro ug h w hich cxpc ri·
ences ari~ .

L'ocrkscn: Do you bcliev e that sucJrn view , wh ich so forccfo Uy

arg u<'S in favour of thc !cg itimacy o f an y klnd o f experiente,
offers etllical adv anta ges?
M•tu .rana: Ycs, 1 do . We m ust not forge t that tl1e notion o.f a
rea lity existing indcpc ndcntl y from us correspon ds with the
belie( thnt it is possibJe to c1
chieve authoritative, u.niversally
 TJ,ek11etw ow/cdgcentai/s respo,rsibilily
lcdge oj k11 55

valid s tatcments . The '"' ma v then be used lo dfac red it cer tain
k ind so f expe rience. 11is the.re fcrcnce to this rea lity that is held
to mak e a s tate ment múvcrsa lly va lid; in a culture based on
pv we r, d omin at ion, aml cont ra i. it provi des the jus tifica lio n
for forcu1g o ther pe ople to subjec t the.msclvcs to on e's o,vn
vicw of th ings. Howeve r, as soon aso n c has realL<;e d tliat there
is no s ingle privi lcgc d a ccess lo reality, and lh at pe rcep lio n
and illus ion a re ind istingu isha ble ln lhe actual pr oçess of a n
expedcncc, t;hen the question axises what criterin ar1!uS('t. 1 by a
hum an be ing to clal m tha t somcthing is tlu,cáse. The very pos-
s ibility of pos in g th i~ qu est ion op ens LLP a s pacc of com mon
refleclion, ~ sphere of coope ration. Thc o thcr pc rscm becomes
a IP!;itima te coun terparl wil h w hom I am ab le to talk . fri end-
sh ip , mutu al res pcct, a n,l coo pe rat ion e merge . lt is no lon gc r
possiblc to deman..1 submission.; lhe m1ivc rS4.."' chan.ges inh>a
multive.rsewilhin which nlnnC'rot1s realities are valid bv refer-
encc to d ifforen t críteria of vali d ity. Thc only thini, o~e may
now do is to invite the oU,er pcrson to think al;,out w hat one
believes a nd hold s to bc valid one se lf.
l think w é ma y sens ibly d istingttish bctw cc11 tw o dis tinc t
a ltitu des, two p at hsof lhinkingan d expla in ing. The fi.rst path 1
c:a ll ol~eclii!i l!J wil'/ 1011! 1it1m 1l/1e.ses. lt takes fo i' grantcd thl'
observer-ind,;pe nde nt ex iste nce of objects that can be kno»o1;
it bclieves in the poss ibility of an ex terna i vhlida tion of sta te-
ments. Such c1 va1id ation wúukl lend aulho rHy aJtd.uncondi.,
tiona l lcgi ti macy 10 what is claime d and wo ulà, lhcrefor,,, a im
nt s ubmission . li e nta ils thc neg,, tion ofa ll thosc who are not
p repa red to agrcc wit h lhe "objective" íacts. On e does nol
wa n t to lis ten to ~,e m ot t:ry to u nd ers t.ind lhc,n. Tbe fund a·
mental e motion .reignin g hc rc is powc red by the a ut horit y of
universally va tid know l,idge .
Thc othcr al titud e I call olo jeclii>ily í11µn1·cut/1c,es;its c mo -
tional basis is the e njoy oncn t of thc com pan y of other h um an
beings. The q ucs tion of the obse rver is acce pte d fu lly, ,1nd
every attcmpt is ,nad e to a nswer it The d.is tinction o.f objects
is, acc(lrdin g to th is pa th, not d coic<l but the reference to
objects is nol th c bas is of explana tions, il is the coheHmcc of
ex perienccs wit h c>th er e,tperiences lhat cons titutes thc foun -
da tion of ai! exp la na tion . Jn Ih.is vicw, the obs.,rve r bt.>comes
the origin of all rea filies; ai! n:a lities are crea ted thro ugh tl1c
observe r' s o pcr~tio ns of disti nct io n. lf we follow this pnlh of
explnnatio n, we become awa.re thal we can in no waycla.im tú
56 '11:eCerlai111y ofl111cerln/11ty
be in possessio n of tlu; lrnl/J but that lhereare nu mer(>us possi-
bte rcalities . Each of the m is fu lly legitima te and valid
a lthough. of course, not equally desirable. Jf we follow this
patlt of explana tion, wc crumol dema nd the submi ssion of ow·
fellow hu man beings but wiJJ listen to them, seek cooperation
anelconvcrsation.

Pr incipies of aesthe tic seduction

Poerk seu: Such acc.:,ptancc of lhe o ther cottld be most hclpful,
1 bclicvc, to pul l the rug from undern cath lh<?irmumerab le
q uan-els in thc núcrocosms of p rivate live$ a nel in lhe macro-
cos ms of publiç spaccs. For me, lhe q uest ion is now how we
mighl prnmote and prac tise lhis vcry fu ndam en tal kind o(
respect in a rnannel' that does not in any way invo lve do m ina-
lion. lf you want to n:m ain consisle nt·, you sure ly canno t force
ot hei· p,:oplc to agrcc to yo ur thoughts. How are wc to pro -
ceed, the.n, if dom.i.nuncc n.n<lmanipulation are inadmissible?
H.ow d o you conv ince people?
Mahu ana: ! ncvcra l.tcmpl lo conv incea nyone. 11,e only tlúng
leJt form e to do is to converse wi th those pcop le w ho seek and
wish to converse wilh me. 1 give lecturés if pcoplc want to lis-
ten t<>me; 1 writc a rlicles and books dnd work w ith my stu -
den ts. A11dQne day pcrha ps a you ng man comes to 0 1ile from
Germany lo vis it me and asks for more pr~-cisc dctai ls.
Pocrk scn: Jn the las t pass ag<!S of you r fam<)us papcr Biologyof
C,:,gnítionyou out'line the conce pt of aestl,etíc$et/11tticm.What
does this mean? J-101,,v can onc use the aes1heticto convince in
cU'l nppealing manner?

Matu xana : TI1e idea of aesthetic seductíon is based on the

illsig ht tha l pcop le enjoy bea uty. We cal! somel hing bem1t(f1,!
whe n lhé circurnstan ccs wc íind oursclvcs in ma ke u-$ focl
wc ll. Jud ging so meth ing as t1gly and 1111pleasm,1 , on lhe othe r
hand, indka lesd ispleasu re be.:a use wea r,: a warP nf the di.ffer-
e nce lo ou.r views o f w ha t is agTecablc an d p leasant Th,! aes-
thcticisha rmony and pleasure, thcc njoymen l of what is given
to us. An att racli vc vícw lransfor ms us. A beaut iful piclure
makes us look ,,t it again and aga.in, enjoy ils colour schemc,
photograph it, per haps even buy it. ln brief, Uw relation ship
with a picture may tran sform the life o f peopl.e beca use the pic-
ture has lx.>comc a source oI aesthe lic experience .
 -rl,c h,owierlgeof kt!owlc1fgc e11lnih re,po11sibilit
y 57

r•oerksen : ll woul d interest me to know w hal th i.s id-,a of aes-

1heticscduc tion ,m,ans lo you w hcn you wii te, give lecturcs or
lntcrvkw s. Altho ugh lh.is S(,unds like probi.ng for rhctorical
hí cksand m at1ip ulat icm,1 wou ld like lo know w ha t ynu are, in
íact, doi11g w hen you try to seducc pt'Qple.
Maturana: 1certainly never intcnd to sed uce ar pe,·suade pco-
p!c in a manipulativc way. Beauty would van.ish if I tricd to
sed uce in lhis way . Ally a ttemp l to persu a de appli cs pre ssure
nnd dcstr oys the possib ility of Jistcrung. Pressur e creates
rt'St'lllment. Wanting to man ipula te people stimula lcs rcsis-
ta nce. Maníp ttlation means to exp loil our 1vJation w it:h other
peopk in suc h a way as to givc U1cm t:hc imp rcss ion tha t wha t-
~vcr liappens is beneficial and ad vantageou s to thcm. Bul Lhe
rcsu lting actions oi' thc manipu la ted person are, b1 fact·, usefu.l
for the manipu lator. Manipu la lion, lhercío rc, really means
cheat ing peop le. '.\fo, thc only thing left to me ill the way ofocs ·
thetic seducUot1 is just to be what I a m, wholly a nd m1tirely,
a ,1d to ndmit no d iscrepa ncy wh atsoever bctween what I am
sayin.g and wha t ·1 am doing . O f co ur.;e, ll iis d oes no t al all
e,:clude som<?jw11ping about a nel playac ling du r ing a lectur e.
But not in ordcr .to persuade or l'oseduce bul·in onier to gener-
ntc thc c xperience s U1al produce and make manifest whaf l am
tn lking abou t. Thc persons bt~coming acqua inted wíth me in
this way can then ,k d de fo1· 1h cmsclvcs w hcth!!r they want lo
ncccpt w hat lh ey sce bc forc th cm. O nly whe n the,:e is no dis-
i,re pancy be lwccn wha t is sa id and wha t is done, whc n thcre is
110 pre lcncc a nd no pressure, aesth ctic scd urtion may unfold .
ln such a situa tion, lhe pcop Je listen ing and deba ling w ill fecil
accep ted in suoh measu re >IS to be ab le lo prcscnt thcmsdv es in
a n un tn h ib ited and p k a su rablc mannc,r, T hey a re n ot
attacked, they ru·c not fof'Ccdl<ldo th ings. and U,ey can show
thernselvcs ilS thcy are, because so meone e lse is p rcsc nting
himsc lJ nnked a nd u npro lecled. Such bel1aviour is a lways
scd nçtive in a respcct(u l w ay bcca use a li g uestions and fem-s
sud clenly l>ecomc lcgitima te a nd complel ely new possibiliti(.,:;
oí cncount er ing o ne anoll1cr ct11erge. l th ink peo ple reaUsc
immedi ately w hen som~thing is w rong: lhey are expc rts in
d étecting h ypoc risy.
Poe rkscn: Lct us assu1nethat so mconc catcgo rically re.fused
to listen to you and lo follow your t houg h ts. vVhat would h ap-
pcn th cn?
58 Tlte Certa/11~1 o/ Uncer/ainty

Maturana: Wha t coul d happe n the n? Thn t is ,111perfec tlyJeg rt-

irnate. ln so m(lof my lcclUies l men tion that 1have addcd three
fu,th er right ~ to thc Unito d Kati ons catal ogue of hum :ru,
righls: the i-ig ht to ma ke n1istakcs; lhe right to chan ge one·~
vicw ; and the righl to leave tJ1e r<1om at ,my rnoment-.lf peop ,le
a re allowed to ma kc ntis takes, they ca n co rrc:,,;t them. People
w ho are ent itled to change U1cir views can reflec t. íf pcop le
ha ve lhe righ t to ge t up a nd lea vc at an y m omen t, they will
smy only if lhey wis h to.

T he sal am andcr and the internai constru ction

of the world
Pocr kscn: ll may be use fu 1at this po int to rt'Ca ll some of your
fund amen tal idcas in ordc ,· lo move on to anotl, er to pic. You
say tba1·ali know le dge is neci~sa ri Jyobservcr -dependen t; that
abs olut e real ity asse rt1ons Jcad lo terro r, and that a ny fonn of
coc rcion must be rejec ted . My imprcssion is that ali lhe ídêas
w,~ have bccn di.scussing so far invo lve ethi cnl assum pti ons in_
a ve ry w ide scnse . We have bcen lalkí ng ab ou t conclusio ns
nnd conscqu('nces rela ting to lhe da im tha t objective know l-
ed ge is imp oss iblc. ,\ 1y q uestio n is no\v whethe r your ctltic al
de mrn1ds can be justified ep.istemologica lly. Is there ev ide nçe
for U1e impo ss ibility of objective knuw ledi.;eof lhe world '? Is
the re pT<iof?
Matura na: Answe ring your,1ucs tion requ ires theda riíi ca ti.on
o( wha t we want to accep t as proof. Wc mu sl first establish
wh at it rca lly mcans t·o say thal some thi.ng is tm e or fnlsc? Is a
hypothC'Sisp rove d beca use it fits into wha l Iam thin king? A m
1 ~ rbops prc pare d lo lislen a nd to tru st thc mc thod of proof
s imp ly [,ecau;;e of this cor.rcspondence between thc so•ca lled
ev idence and my o,i., presuppositions? Do we tllere f11re call
so111cthing íalse because it is not in hanno ny w ith our preco1t-
cep tions? c~nso mcthi.ng bc false or right ,L>erse?V11h1tare the
criter ia use d by pi;'()p]eto ncccpt some assertion as provc.n? My
own nnswe r to Uiese ques tioos is that l am a scicntist w ]10 is
abl e to s ta le the con di lions un d er which sorne th ini; ha pp ens
that f cla im is ac tua lly ha pp ening. Whal Iam sa ying is ne ither
lruc nor false.
Po erk scn: ln you1· books yo u de ~~ribc c.xpcrime nls w iU1fro gs.
salarmm dcrs, an d pi geo ns. You s tudi ed pe rception it1 these
 o/kno;v/cdg~,,, 1,11/sretpo11síbi/ily
The k11ow!.:dgc 59

.,ni rnals: yo ur ep iste n,ologica l .insigh ls ar e. as 1 und erstan d

you, thc produ cts oí your wor k in th c. laboratory. Do tl1esc
•t ud ies me rely iJJustrn te the assu rnp ti,m, wh k h is unpro va blc
ln princi pie. tha t we can never know lhe 1-cal wo rld, or is there
more to them?
Matura na: Thesc cxpe riments relate to my pe rsona l lústory
and my cxpcric.nces as a scien tist; tlley m ust not bc lakcn as
uvidc nce or indic at ions of trnt h; t:hcv oull inc nnd describe the
point~of depar tmeand lhecomsc of my own way of thi nking,
Wl1en I spcak ílbout theexp,~rime nts witltfrogs . p igeo nsorsa l·
a mandcrs I refer to Htecircumstancesin which 111)' idcasdevel-
opcd ovc r time. [n lhis way, lhe co ndit ions are rcvea led that
índuce d me to lcnvc thc ln1d itio na.l pa ths of perce ption
re,earc h and to cha ni;e the establi shed syste m of cp is lcmo ·
Jogical inquir y.
Poerksen: Co uld yo u excmp lify the h is tory oí yo u r re-orienta-
tion by som e relevan t experim ent?
Matur ana : l..ct me select a n u.mbe1·of expc t:imcnts can-ic;-do ut
by the Americrn1bio logis l Rogcr Spe n-y in the early 1940ies.
Roger Spen-y remov cd onc o f the eyes of a sal ama nd er, sev-
ered the optic nerve, "1ta ted the eye by 180 deg recs, and care-
íu lly p ut it back m io its socket Thc oplic nc rvc rege ne rnt,;d
anel the vision of lhe rotntcd eyes i.n the animais ret urn ed a lter
some time. Evcry th ing-heale<'Ib ut the re was a crucial d iffcr-
cncc: thc salama11ders th rew Uwir tongue "~ lh a devia tion o f
L80 degrees , whe n thcy wanted to cak h a wo rm. The extel1to í
the dev iali on correspo nded exactly to the dcg ree of ro lnlion
pcrfonned on the eyes. With these exp ~rimcnts, fü,ger Sperry
wan ted to find out whct her th e opt ic né rve was capab le of
regene rating ru1d whet her lhe fil,,-es of lhe optic nerve wo uld
J'l.,_g1·owto join their original projection areas in 1·hc bnli_n. The
nnswer is: that is lnd ced w hnt hap pens . He<1lso wan ted tofi nd
out whe thcr thc salamande rs a re a ble to con-ect thcir beb av-
iour - , vhether they wouJd munngc to hit thc worm aga iJ1
wlth their tonguc. The nnswer herc is: no, that js nol possibfo;
the '1.nimnls k~ep to11gu i.ng w ith a deviatio n of 180 deg rces;
thcy sta rve to dea th ií lhey ar e not fod . When l myself heru·d
abo ul tJ,ese c,-pe1:iments I bega n to rea lise, howevcr, that
Rogc r Spc rr y had formu laled a ntislead ing q ucs tion tha t
tcndcd to obscure the observed p henomét101í.
60 T/ie Ce,-tai11ty
~( ll11c:~
rt11
i11ty

The hidden ep iste mology of the experime nt

Poerk sen : ln w hat resp ecl w,,s hís resea,·ch goal 111
islead i11g?
Ma tu ra na: RogcrSp e.rry sl-arte d ou l from theassumpt ic;,n tl:lat
the sa laman cler a ims ata worm in the oxlcrna l wo rld with his
tong ue. Hisques lion imp lied, a~Grego ry 6ateson wou ld have
snid . a whole e piste mology. li takes for g ranted im plicitly that
th,:,cxten,al objcct is p roccssed in U1e brnin of lhe sala mander
in the form of inionna lion about its shapc and location. The
sala mand er, conSêq uen tly, rnakes a mist<- 1kc; it does nol pro-
cess thc ilúorma tion coming from oulsi d e correctly. Howe ver,
1 found it rnuch more mcaning ful lo int,;-rpre l lhe experimen t
in a co,ttple tely d ifferent way . Thesa lamandcr , 1d aimed , cor-
rela tes lhe aclivitles of the motor app ara tus of its tong nc with
the a<;tivitics of its retina. [f its retina shows the Íl!1age of a
worm, itt hrow s c)ut its ton&ruc; it do es not aitn atil worm.in the
cxtcrnaJ world. The correlalíon given in thisc aseísan i11ternal
one . Secn in this way, it is no l at a li surpr isi.ng tha l it does not
change its behav iour.
l'oerkse n: How did you you.rse lf discove r the hidd en cpiste-
in0Jo1,,yoi tlús cxpcriment? And what experiences a nd o bser-
valions have lecl you from thc cxper imcnt lo an e mpír ica!
e píslemol og)•?
Mat uran a: Whcn I performcd expcr ime nls 011the colou r per-
ceptio11of p igeons, 1 pro cecded from assu.mptions qlúlc slmi ·
la r to Ulose made by Roger Sperry. M )' goa l was to sho w how
the c.-.lou r,; in the (!)eternal wotld , which l had spccified in
terms of thci r spectral composition, are correlated wi1h thc
aclivitics ín the rchna . 1 wa ntcd to es tablish lhe conneclio ns
between Red, Green and f31 ue and thc act ivit-ics of thc reti na,
i.e. lh e retinal ganglío.,; cells. What clíd the red, grée n. or blue
objecls relcasc?
Poerksen: So you lh o ug ht 1.i.l<cwisethat tl,e externai object
dete r mines whal happe ns ú1side the organ ism.
Maturana: Quite righ t. But one da y it dawned upon me that
n I was looking forcoul d it1 ali pro babilily never
the correlati.1>
be established. Perhaps I shou ld, 1,aid lo myself, dea l wi th the
quc slion whether U,e aclivi ty of:the .retina cou ld be $1,own to
be conn<.'Cted with tbe nam csofc olour s. TI1e conseque nce was
a momei, tous cha nge w ith n,gard to the goa l o( my resea,·ch.
 owlcd~cClll ail s res,J()11sibilily 61
dge of k11
'/1,e kncnvle

Sudd enly [ found mysc lf outside the es tablis hcd lrad itions of
perccpt ion research.
Pocrlcsen: Thís does indeed sou nd so mewha 1·strange. :,,James
,rncld esigna lions of colou rs or whatever are, after all, m crely
arbiU'ilry,merely co11ve11tional.
Matu tana: True. Peop le naltll'ally though t 1. was crazy. Th e
oolvur terms, howcvcr, do say something aboul lhe pcrsons
who have particular experiences, they areindicntors of t~xper i-
cnccs. they point 1o expc ricnccs. What I had to dem onstrale,
lhérefore. wns tbal thc ;;1ctivities of t:he teti na are corrdn tcd
wi~h the sp ccific expe riences represen led by colour n11mes.
That is precisclyw hatl manag ed lo show in 01\t'Of my stud ies.
A c(1lour is, to pursue lhe tl1ought fur the r, nothi ngexte rnal bul
somelhing happcn ingi nan organism - mcn:ly relcn~d b}' an
exlernal soun :e o f Jight. The colour desigT1ali<m refors to the
particular ex perfoncc úf an ind ividual in certain siluation s,
which is indc penden t from the given spec lral compositi.on of
light. l\i;ai nst th is backgro und , thc phenomcna of illusory
colou ,.,.can be explainc d. ln bricf. thcnb jectiv~ of my t'esearch
was the n lo comp are thc activity of lhe nervous syslem wil h
the activ ily of thc n ervOLL~syste m, and lo conceivc o( thc ncr·
vous systc m as a closed syslem.
Po crlcsen : Comparing this cxper imcnt on the.colour percep·
tion o f pigeons wílh Lhesl,:iking be hav iou r of the man ip u latcd
sa laman d ers, wc find \lt1rselves fad ng lhe sa me situation.: thc
focus is always on ínterna1states, not on their plupo rted exter-
nai detcnr 1inan 1S- colomc d objccts o r n,cwing wor ms,
~talura.n a:Yes - êlndsuddcnly Iwas forced to consider,vha l
"knowi.ng" nctua lly mcanl it theexperime nls wercto be t;,ken
seriously . l t is 110 lo nger possible to refor to externa i objects
that determin e wh ill wc pcrceivc. W hat d oes it meru1 '·to
know'' if wc consider the nervous syste1nas a closcd system?
l'oerkse n: lf I und ersland colrcctly , you wé re taugh t by ro ur
experiments. l!ut th is is the classJca l procedure o( lhe rcnlisls:
thcy prop os1:a hypol hesis, lesl il, il foiIs - nn cl thev mod ify it.
The circu mstnnces, the rc.• I world, force the m to revise their
idea s. TI1e course ;incJthe cürectíon of your lh.inking, m·c they
not cssc ntially n ,a lístk?
62 Tire Ccrl11i11ty
of U11c
ertnillhJ

Matu .rana: This is a n interes ting po int . Wc might , of cours o,

say that I actcd like a rea lis t when I cha nged the tradi tionnl
problem s of thé théo ry of kno wledge in such a way as to be J~J
to rcjct t rea lis m. But that is not of pr imary impo rtance. [w ouJli
claim that a scicntisl'. and nota p hilosop her, w11 s at wo rk the,rc,
w ho tackled the prob lcm of thc possible existence a nd tlw
d cgrcc of ínfluence of an exte rnai rcality. Thc disti.t1ctlon
be tween scienccand plú loso phy that [am s ugges ting horeJ,a s
to do with the question of wh at philo sophers a nd scientists
want to preserve and sus tain whc n they de velop a theory.
Th eir il1tentions are d iffe rent. Philosophica l theor ics arise, 1
wo u ld claim. wl1~n wc try to prese rve certa ln explana tory
princi pies that we cons id er va lida prior i. Th is interest in th~
prcscrva tíon of principies and the ir cohc rc ncc justiíies d isra -
gardi.ng what may bc cx perience d . Scie ntific thec)ries, 011 l.h o
contrary, arise \\then we want to preserve Ute coherences ia
.relat iun to what we are capab le of exp eriencing . 'fh e scicnt is l
can, therefo re, ignore pr incip ies - dissolve th em - and
des .ign a sde ntiiic the ory . TI1a t is precisely what l did . I started
out frorn the coherences with in experi ence, 1 invcstíi,>atcd the
colQur perc,:ption of pigcons, i.e., r inves tigate d lhe opexation s
of living sys tems - and had to do tcrrible thing s lo them for
lhe purpo ses of my resea .rch. The qut"Stion as to whe ther an
externa I rea Iity rcally ex is te d had little releva nce for me; it was
not one of my proh le ,ns.

Th e lim its of extern a i d e ter m ina ti on

Poerksen: Cm, you sec cxperimcnts and cxperie.nces that
might 1:cfu te yo ur p1'Csent claim s and pu t you back on thc path
of rea lism?
M'aturana: 1 cou ld ni, ly givc up my vicw s if the s tmctu raJ
dctcn ninism oi üving sys tem s wete no lnngcr in force. Wh at
hap.pensin any living system, ,vc must bear in mind, is nt"C es·
saril y de termin ed by âts sh·uch rrc nnd not specifiable by ex te r-
na i influcnces. Howcvc r, tJ1c ass um ption thal livii1g syste ms
are structure-det e rrnined sys tc111sis ln no wny re lated to an
obscrvcr-indep endent realit y; it is an ab straction rcsulling
from the coherences th at obscrvers ma y <? xper ience.
Poerksen: What do you mean by slm cl11mi dcl·cmli11is111?
 f!,e b,owledge of kncrwledgee11t.1/l
s rcs11011sibili
ty 63

Matur an a: Wh<!Oyo u press lhe kcy of your record i11 g rnachine

wllh ycmr index:finger in order to recor(l our conversat'ion.,
lhcn you expcct tllc mach inc to record. Should Lhe uw chin efai l
1í/ doso, you w(mkl cerlainly nol go nnd scc a d o.:tor to have
thl' functionin g of y our inde x finge,· checked . You wm take lhe
1•ocordh1g machinc to som eone who w1ders lands its stru cture
,111dwill, therefore, be ab le lo re pair it so th at il w ill react to lhe
prcss ure of your índex fini;cr in the ap propria te way. This
111Cilll S thal we trcat your little recording mac hin e as a sysh,m
lII w h ich ev<."')'thing that happen s in il or lo it, is de termine d by
íls struct ure. My daim is thM this sb'ucttira l de tenninism is
vnlid foi· a li syslcm s . Hu man being s are s truc turc-det ermined
sys lcms. too .
Pocrksen: ln what wnys? Coulrl ) 0 ll give anothe.i·examp le?
1

Mátura!la: Supposc you Sc'C a do ctor abo ut a pnin in your

stomnch. You will be prop erly cxam ined - an el pe rhaps you,·
i!ppend ix wlll bc rcmo vcd. So you w ill be treated . like a stn,c -
lure-de ter m incd S)'slem : the pa io you fell beforc thc ope r,1tio11
and lhe relie f yo u experienccd aftcn var ds were both det er-
m ined by your s lrucl urc and its mod ification by lhe do clor.
More ge neral ly, this m eans that a n externaJ age nt irnpinging
o n som e molec ular sys tem tr iggers certaiJ1 cffccts bu t ca1111<1t
dele m1ine the m. Any impi ngc me n l fron1 oulsid" mere ly t1·ig-
gcrs $Onie s truclura l dy namic s; a li its c<11s1eque nces are , how-
ever. speci (ied and d<:t<)rmir,e,i by lhe strncl tu·c o( thc syste m
itselL
Pocrkse n : Is this so? Let us assume l offcr you m edici nal la b-
lets or hard dr ugs nn d wc both lake son,e; we shall experi~ncc
si111ilar U1ings. Drugs ha ve quit e speci fic effects.
Maturana: Pcr foctly correct, but the similmity of ou r expe ri-
<"nc
cs does not ref ute stntct uriJI de lcrmi n is111 at all. T<,king
,hugs mea, 1s br ingiJ1g molecule.s with a spe cific s lru ctu:rc into
yo ur orgai ú sm, whiéh the n beco me par t of it and modify the
st ruct ure of its nervo ussys tem. Wh at h a ppe ns wi ll, howcvc r,
nec<!ssarily dep c n,l 0 11 the stru ct ure of lhe ne rvou s system
itscl(. Withóu t recept ors insidc thc organis m for lhe sub-
sta nçes yo u pul in. nothing can ha pp en a t all. A receptor:, onc
mus t reme mb er, i$ a spe cific mo lecufor config ur~tion tha t
mal chcs th~ s trnct u1e of tllc subs tan cc in ques tilln, a d.rug, for
instanO:!. [n this way, a chnnge in the organism Jstriggorcd.
64 The Ce1·t,1i11
l!f o{ llncerl,1inty

Poe rksen: Doe~ this rncan tha l t11e the.~is of the s tructural
de tcnninis Jll Of all sys tems is essc n lially irrefutable? ln 1,thcr
wo rds, can you stule condition s uncler whic h so meUili1g dead
or alive would no longer be s ubject to univ ersa l str uctttra l
dc tcrminism?

Ma tura na: OnJy a mirncle ca n vio la te slTucturnl d etermi nisrn

an d mal<e il inope rat ivc. Sud de n ly tlle im possiblc ~cem s pos--
s ible. Even observ ing then appcars to bc some Uüng wond Qrful
a nd mi.rnculol ts - a nd is lherefore inexp licablc.
Poerkscn: Are you waiti ng for a mira cle?

Mahtrana: No. l do notCXJ>eCt amira cle. A nel, ,1uite gcne rnlly,.

1 do nol tlünk tlrnt wccou .Jdrcally do ve ry m uch w ith miracles ,
Pocrksen; Wh y no t? Mira d es, to me. ;ire glorious mo111c!l l'tS in
which sornething suddenl y loses its lradit iona l validit y.
Ma turan a: On thc conlr ary. MiracJe.s are ra thcr imprac lical
eve nls. Ju.st remembe r lhe s tory of King Mid as of Phryg ia who
off.e rcd h.isservices to th e god Dionysos. Jt s how s - in a satiri -
ca.l way for me - lhe usel ess ness oi rniracles that suspend
slt'uctural de termini sm. Dionysos as ked Ki11 g Midas wha t
l<ind of rewa rd he wa ntcd for his services . King Mi da s
an,;wcrcd that he want ed eve.rything he touchcd to turn into
gold. And that is wha t it happe ned. He touched the grass - it
bccam e gold; he touc hed thc tab le - go ld! Happily, he wcn t
homc. and his daughter ca,ne nm n.ing towards bim; he
embraccd her - and she became rigid an d lu rncd into a
gold en sta tue. Vv
1, ati s thc tragedy of King M idas? My an swe r:
His tragcdy was llrnl he had noc::him ceof bccominga n ana ly ti-
cal chemi st . f.vc ryt hing he louched wa s th e sarne for bim :
gold.

The powctles s ness of p ower

Poerksell: You dn.iff1 tha:t human beings are struclllfe-deter~
mined sys tems, t (J<). This concc plion se ts na rrow Ii111its for U,e
conccpt of direc t and linea r n ,ntro l. How eve r, is not lhe wiel d ·
ing of powe r and force by diclators a compe lling cx~mp le of
how exle nsively peop le can be conlroll ed and infl uenced by
externai forces,afler aJ!?
 'J'/iek,wwh,ige of k1wwled:<
e e11lail s rnpomibilily 65

Maturana: No , tha t is notth e case. As r have lived un d.cra d ic-

líltorial rcgfo 1c, 1 k11ow wh ,ll l am tal.king abc u t. Strn ngely
cnough, ixiwer a rises only wbcn thcrc is obed ience. lt is thc
çonseq ue nce o( aJt acl of submission depend in g on thé dec i-
<tlons an d thc stru cture of tlle ind ividua.Js subject ing them-
$elvcs. lt is gra nted tod ictator s by rluing wha t t11ey wanl. You
grnnt pow er lo o thcrs in urde r lo l<eepor sa vc so mcth ing -
life, freedo m, possess ions, jobs, a xelalio ns hip, etc. \1y t11esis
is, in briei: Pmmr nriscsllmmg/1s11 bmissi111:.
When diclalors or
other people poin t a gu n a t me and wa nt to force' me to do
somel hini;. the n Ia m theo ne w ho has to conside r: Dol want to
gront powe r to thesc pc-op?c? Per.haps il is sensible to mcct
lheirdemandsfor $Ome l i1ne in order lo be abte to get the better
of thcm in fovour able cirn tmstan ccs .
Poerksen: Does wha t you llre sayi ng also app ly to U,cdic talor-
slúp of.thcN at:io na l Socia lisls? Was it the terr or of the(;es tapo
tha t made Ado lí H itler powc rful? Or di,l the peop le actual ly
d<edd e to g ran l pow e r to a !.hi rd -cla ss ,pain lc r from /\ ustri a?
Matura.na: lt w1,s a consdo us or asubcon scio us dccision of lh e
peop lc, whic h gave power 1·0 /\dol i Hit le r. Ali thooe who di d
not p rotes t had de cidtxi not t<>p r()test. T hey had decided to
subject t.hem sclves. Sup p<lSI!a di ctator comes a long and kiUs
every pcna.m rd using to obey him . Sup posc lhe peop le ú Í the
coun try refuse to obey him . 'l'lu, co nscquen ce : He kills and
kills. Bul for how long? Wcll, in the extreme ca se he w ill go on
killing un W cvcr ybody i.sdead. Wh ere is the dicla tol' s powc r
then? lLha s vnnished.
L'oeckse n: 1-(ow do you w,mt u s 1·0 i,ttc rprct lh is re-form ula -
tion of lhe relalion s l:úp betwecn pow er anel helple ssness? ls
th.is an ide alistic call not tos ubject ou rselve s ? Or d o yo u rcall y
mean whnt you are saying?

M atucan a : J am total.ly serious w hcn J say: w<:alway ~ do wha t

wc wa nt to do , even U1oug h wc m ay claim te, be actl ng aga inst
ou1· will or to have bee n co mpe lled lo do somctb i.11 g. Nobody
m n fo rce you to s hoot ai ano tht'r pcrso n bu t yo u rnay, oí
cour se, decide to shoo t ín orde r 10 Sdve yo ui· own life. 1vlain-
taining lhat you we re forced to s hoo t is on ly an excuse tha t
obsc ures the goa.lyo u werc pursu ing. name ly, to sa ve you r lifc
f.or the pr k eof s ubjecliJ1gyour se lf. tVhen yo u decid e. insuc h a
s itua tion, not to shc:,c)l at anothe ,· pe rso n. a shot may still be
 66 The Certainty of Uncertainty

heard but it will be a sho t fired at you - and you might die,
preserving your dignity.
Poerksen: The Chilean dictator Pinochet ordered, as we ali
know, the abduction, torture and murder of many of his oppo-
nents. How did yo u exper ience thi.s phase of Ch:ilean history?
What did you do when Salvador Allende wa s dead and the
socialist exper imen t h ad met with a bloody end?
Maturana: I decided to practise hypocrisy in order to stay alive
and to protect my family and children. At the sarne time, I tried
to move and behave in such a way as to avoid end angeri ng my
dignity and my self-respec t. I kept away from certain situa-
tions, respec ted the curfew, did not d iscuss certain topics in
the uni.versity. When tbe soldiers carne and ordered me to
raise my hand s and to move up to the wall, I rais ed my hands
and moved up to the wall. However, it was quite clear to me in
those moment s that the tim e would come when I would no
longer be prepared to gran t power to the dictator's regime.
Poerksen: Would you like to tel1me about a parti cular situa-
tion?

Maturana:On edayi.n theyear1977 [was arreste d and putinto

prison. The rea so n was that I had given tlu-ec lectures. The first
lectur e dealtwith Genesis and theFa ll. I sai.dthat Eve whohad
eaten from the apple and then given it to Adam could serve as
an examp le. She was di sobedient, and her reb e!Iion against the
divin e commandment laid the foundation for human
self-knowledge and responsibl e action , for the cxpulsion from
paradi se, a world without self-know ledge . ln th e second lec-
ture, 1 spoke about St. Francis of Assisi. Hi s way of perceiving
human being s, in . my eyes, generates such deep resp ect
toward s them that it becomes impo ssib le to d efine them as
enemie s. And I added that every army mu st first tran sforrn
other human being s into strangers and then into enemi.es in
order to be able to maltr eat and kill them. The third lecture was
devot ed to Jesus and the New Testament. How do we live
together, I asked my audience, if we base everything on the
emotion of love? A few days !ater, I was taken to prison and
treated like a pr isoner. I was to be int errogated, I heard. One
day somebody arrived and called out my name and said: "Are
you Professor Humberto Matura.na?" When I heard that I
though t that I wou ld remain a professor forever even if these
 The knowledgeof knowledgeentails responsibilitt; 67

people killed me. The status of profe ssor was the pro tective
shield they had granted me. They took me to a room where
tlu-ee persons were waiting. I sat down and asked the qu es tion:
"ln what way bave I violated the stat emen t of princip les
issued by the mil itary government?" Thls mean s that it was
me who began the i:nterrogation and changed the rul es of the
game . I would not say thatl mani pu lated those people bu t that
the interrogation took place in a way tha t allowed me to keep
my dignity an.d self-respect. I cont inued behaving like a pro -
fessor and tried to counter the accusations they formul ated.
And I gave these people a lecture on evoluti onary theory and
explained to them why they wou ld never be able to destroy
comn wn ism by persec uting comm uni sts. I said that it was
necessary to change OJ elim inate the condit ions tha t mad e
communism possible, in the first place. The three men listened
to me with growing astonishment. I told them they could
invite me for a lectur e any time. Then they took me back to the
univers ity.
Poerksen : Your very own exper iences during the years of the
dictatorship are most impor tant to me because they make me
understand you better, I believe. You do no t p lead for some
fatal heroism, you do not condemn tho se who subject th em-
selves, but yo u plead for a maximum of awareness in the han-
dling of power .
Maturana: Natura lly, yes. lt can be very stupid not to subject
onese lf for a time and to wa it for a suitable opportunity to
str ike back. My fundamental po intis to declare one's responsi-
bility and to invite others to act in full awareness. Does one
want the wor ld tha t emerges whe n one grants power to oth -
ers? Does one primarily want to surviv e? Does one reject the
world emerging through the wielding of p ower in an un condi-
tional a.nd uncompromising way?
Poerksen: Do you believe tha t that different state of awareness
is really decisive? It might be argued thatconscious or subcon-
scious subjection leads to the sarne consequ ences: the dicta tor
stays in power.
Maturana: Thi s different stat e of awa reness is decisive
because it allows you to be hypocritica l. Be ing hypocritical
means simu lating a non-existent emotio n. You remain an
observer, keeping an inner distance, and one day yo u may act
68 The Certainh;of Uncertainty

in a differen t way ag ain . Th:is mea ns th at th e pe rceptu al abili-

ties of th e hyp ocrit es are not destroye d, and their selJ-respect
and di gnity are p reserved . Due to these decisive and very sig-
ni ficant exper iences, they may be able to lea d a d ifferent life. If
one gives up thi s attitud e of the consc ious han dlin g of powe r,
one is lost beca use on e has decided for blin dn ess.
Poerks en: How can we be s ure tha t th e belief tha t w e are
m erely hyp ocritical an d observ ing is n ot ju st a su btle and
refined form of self-de lusion ?
Mat urana: Well, that is a difficult problem , ind eed. The situ a-
tion is partic ularly preca rio us when peo ple are convinced that
they are immu ne to the temp tat ion s of power . These peopl e
have become blind to their own temp ta bility, to the delight s of
wieldin g power, the p leas ures of th e w1con tro lled execution
of con trol. My view is th at we shou ld never believe that we are
in any way special as far as m orality or any thing else is con-
cern ed: we are then mentally un prepared for situ atio ns that
may ma ke tortur ers of us. Those wh o think they are i.mmun e
will be the first, I believe, to become tortur ers in certain sHua-
tions. They are n ot aware of their ow n sed ucibility. Wh a tever
h orr ible or wo nder ful thin gs one hum an being can do - there
will always be ano ther, and it could be yo u or me, who is capa-
ble o.f do ing the sarne. Such an insight allows us to lead our
tives in fu ll awareness an d to decide whether to s up port
de mocracy or a dictatorship.

The emerg ence of blind spots

Poerksen : At the en d of 1973 - followin g the coup of th e mili-
tary und er Pin ochet - many memb ers of the uni versity fled to
ot her co untries. You remained. Wh y?
Maturan a: On the day of the mj Jitary coup I rang my friend
Heinz von Foerster and as ked him to help me and my family to
leave the count ry. He inz von Foers ter tried to ge t me an invita-
tion from an American unjve rsity, which was not at all easy, of
course. N obo dy wa nt ed m e. Te n days later, He inz von
Foers ter had m an aged to interes t a neurop hysio logist in Ne w
York in my work. But by that time I h ad already dec ide d to
stay in Chi le. My motives to stay were of different kind s. My
fu s t thou ght was: If ali d emocra tically mind ed peopl e left the
co untr y th ere wo u]d soo n be no recollec tion of a de mocrati c
 The knowledgeof know/edge entails responsibility 69

cultu re and of another, a better time. ln this perspec tive, every

older person was a living treasure. Then I was concerned
about the fate of ali the many students who were disp irit ed
and suddenly found themselves drifting throug h the univer -
sity on their own. Many professors had fled or gone in to hid-
ing, or had already been arrested . Finally, I wan ted to kn ow
what it means to live under a dictator. I wanted to unders tan d
the Ge rmans and, in particular, the history of my fr ien d He inz
von Foerster who had survived the Naz i terror d ue to his
understa n ding of systems. He once sai d to me: The more speci-
fied a system is the easier it is to cheat. I also asked myself
w hether I might be able to observe in such a d icta torial sys tem
how peop le gradually go blind, and wha t the causes of suc h
perceptual dep r ivation were . Can one, if one has been d uly
forewarned and is aware of the dangers of ideo logically pro -
duced blindness, prevent it from develop ing and retain one's
capabi lities of visio n and perception?
Poerksen: You wanted to come to grips w ith thee pis temology
of ideologies .
Maturana: You might p u t it that way, yes . When inn um era ble
Germans insisted after the War that they had known no th ing
about the horrors of the Nazi period, I was conv inced tha t no t
ali of them were liars. Perhaps some of them were simply
unable to face up to the terrib le truth . I wa nted to kn ow w ha t
had beengo ingoninside themand in their psyches . How does
one live w,der a dictatoria l regime that makes it so very diffi-
cult to keep away from it? ln what measure does one unavo id-
ably go blind even tbough one defini tely does not want it to
happcn? Does one go b!iJ,d because on e k:nows tha t one cou ld?
How and in what ways is blindness produce d at ali?
Poerk sen : What did you observe?

Maturan a: Nobody is cverywherc. If you decree cur fews, yo u

preven t people from seeing certain thin gs. They w ill be unab le
to notice that peop le are murdered in their street d urin g the
nig ht ; they will not sec the corpses. Everyt hing hap pens
behi.nd a curtain. So people might not believe the rumo urs an d
tales they come across when they go out in the morn ing. There
is nothing to be seen, not even a trace of blood. Moreover, peo-
ple will probably say to themse lves that soldie rs are human
beings too, and thatnohuman beingca n behaveii, such best ial
70 The Certainty of Uncertainh;

ways. Such humanist pr esump tions may therefore very well

ma ke us blind: they protect u s against the h orror and they pr e-
serve our trust in other people. Of course, the new situ ation of
a dictatorship creates new adva nt ages for some peop le: Sud-
denly particular jobs are availa ble beca use other people had to
give them up and get away.
Poerksen: I find it str ikin g that you and various other au thors,
who are coun ted amo ng the fou nd ers of consh·uctivism today,
all had to suffer und er dictatorial regimes and were con-
fronted with dogmatic worldviews. Hei nz von Foerster had to
hide from the NS-thugs; Erns t von Glasersfeld Jeft Vienna
when the Nazis seize d power; Paul Watzlawick has repea t-
edly sugges ted how deeply shocked he was by th e NS-regime;
Franc isco Vare la escaped from Pinoc het to Costa Rica. And so
on. Is there a connectio n between the theor ies of these author s
and the expe rience of dictators hip? Alternative ly, is this bio-
graphical corres p ondcnce purely accidental?
Matu rana : It is not accidental but the res ult of the period. Infi-
nit ely many peop le were confro nted wit h autho ritar ian sys-
tems mor e or less directly durin g the pas t century - the
cen tury of the Rus sian Revolution, of Fascism and Natio naJ
Socialism. I can, of course, only speak for myse lf, but my own
understanding of power do es not derive from the experie nces
I went th.rough after the military coup in Chile. Ra ther the
rever se. My life under the dictator ship was informed by my
und erstandin g of powe r, resu lting from my perma nen t long -
ing for democracy. Supp orting democracy obviously enta ils
the rejection of dictatorship that, therefore, becomes an enemy
and a constant threat lur king in the backgro und . AJI those
actively engaged ii_:ithe democ.ratisation of a countr y quickly
realise how difficult and laborious it is to keep a democratic
cultur e alive. One has to come to term s w ith the ideal of perfec-
tion, which is widespread and deep-rooted in our cultur e, and
wit h the attempt to generate seemingly perfec t and allegedly
democratic forro s of living together even with th e means of
oppress ion. O ne is evidently opposed to dictatorship and,
consequently, an active supporter of th e individual, not of the
goa ls of some collective. Still, one must not lose sight of the
whole of society when working for the democ rat ic participa-
tion of the in dividual. The persons you mentioned have, I
think, been well awa re of these difficulties and und erstood
 The knowledgeof knowledgeentails responsibility 71

that there is no antagonism between ind ividua l and society.

This is what they all have in common.
Poerksen: Structure-determined systems - human beings -
can only be controlled in a limited way; one can per turb them
but no t contro l them. My thesis is: You have developed an
cpistemology that removes the concep tual foundation of dic-
tatoria l power.
Maturana:I strong ly suppor t this thesis and want to add tha t I
destroy the concep tual foundations of dicta torship because
my work allows me to achieve a more profound unders tand-
ing of democracy . Democracy must be created anew every
day, I believe, as a space of living together in which participa -
tion and cooperation are possible, based on self-respect and
the respect of others. The firs t thing a dicta torsh ip destroys is
the self-respect and the autonomy of every single in dividual,
because it demands subjection and obed ience as the price for
staying ali ve.
Poerksen: Cou ld it be that the imm ense pop ularity of your
ideas today is due to the often-invoked end of all ideologies
and theco llapse of the sortof socialism tha t" rea lly existe d"?
Maturana: 1 see a connection. What J have wr itten provid es a
new foun dation for the poss ibiJity of self-respect, wh:ichis fun-
damenta lly negated by dictatorships. What the readers of my
work may realise is tJ,at we are all unavo idab ly part icipat ing
in the creation of the world we live in. We bring fort b the world
that we live. This is the view that 1 invite people to b-y w ithout
compulsion or cost, a view that values the individual. And
whoever feels apprecia ted and respected, wil l be enabled to
appreciate and respect themse lves. They can accept the
responsibility for what they do. lt is indeed as the Beatles song
proclaims: Ali you need is love.We are all looking for love, and
still cannot help being scared of .it.And now , to make matters
worse, a scientiststands up and sta.rts talking abou t love! Some
of the people reading these passages may think that he must be
mad ! Neve rth eless, it is a fact that ali we want is love . And
what is love? Love means to live in a community that is sup-
ported by selí-respect and mutual respect and coopera tion .
72 The CertainhJ of Uncertainty

Language and self-observation

Poerksen: Does the idea of respon sibi.lity for th.is self-gener-
ated and perhaps love-influenced world not fly in the face of
str uctural determini sm? Can structure-dete rm:ined sys tems
be held respon sible for any thin g? A dog that a ttacks me
because it feels thr eatened is evid ently a structure-determi.ned
sys tem. Howev er, we would never think of ascribing respon-
sibility to it or cond emnin g it because we do not consider it an
autonomous being capable of free decisi.on. Therefore, free-
dom is the prerequi site of respons ibility. If yo u, however,
describe human beings generally as structur e-determined sys -
tems, then you necessar ily negate, I wou ld assert, th e possibil-
ity of respon sibility.
Maturana: Perfectly correc t. Li ving sys tem s cannot act
respon sibly because they know no purpose or goa l; they sim-
p ly live in the flow of existence. Only human beings can
ass um e responsibility in the domain of relations because they
exist in language. They are capab le of describ ing a certain
acti.on as respo nsible. Langua ge enab les us to reflect and dis-
tingui sh the conseq uences of our action s for other living
bein gs and to classify them as respo nsible or irrespon sible. ln
this way, our carin g for oth er peop le gains pr esence - and the
po ssibility of rcsponsiblc action arises.
Poerksen: But, sur ely, this requires freedom. Any person
d esirin g to act ethically mu st hav e the freedom of cho ice and
self-de termined decision. Repeati ng the qu estion: Do not your
key concept s of structural determin ism and yo ur special
und erstandin g of aut onomy force you to abandon the idea of
freedom and, conseque n tly, the po ssibility of respo n sible
action?
Maturana: The experience of choice and decision, which we
hum an being s rnake, does not at ali contradict our str uc-
ture -determinedne ss. Human being s wiJJ always remain
stru ctur e-determined sys tems; they may, howev er, by virtue
of a perspective op enin g up in a meta-domain, mak e the expe-
rience that they hav e a choice. Then th ey mov e in ano ther
domain but still operate as stru ctur e-determined sys tems.
This experience of the potentia l choice between different pos -
sibilities, howev er, is a uni.que charac teristic of the human spe-
cies and requires langu age . Having a choice pres uppo ses the
 The knowledgeof knowledge entails responsibility 73

ability to observe and compare at Jeast two different situation s

appear in g at the sarne time, and then to adap t one's p erspec -
tive in such a way as to be able to make ou t a difference
between these situations. At first one sees only sa meness and
is blocked . A change of perspective and posi ti.on may enab le
us to see potentia l distinction s in what appears to be the sarne;
then we can move - accord ing to our own pr eferences and
ways of life - and choose one poss ibility while negatin g others .
As this proces s is an intentional act in the language of Jiving
beings, it is possib le to classify i t, frorn the point of view of an
observer, as a proc ess of choice.
Poerksen: Does this mean tha t it is the meta-pe rspective that
makes it possible to identify a11action as an act of choice and
decision?
Maturana: Exactly so, yes. Only from that pers pective does it
become possible to char acterise someth :ing as a cho ice and a
decision between different possib ilities. We perform an opera-
tion 011a meta- levei because we have th e ability to use lan -
guage and to mak e ourse lves awa re of an even t and its
consequences . ln this act of becoming aware, the ph eno mena
we are dealing with are tran sfor med into objects of contempla-
tion. We gain a form of distance that we lack when we are com -
plete ly imm ersed in ou r activities and situa tions. If we accep t
this and cons ider it adequate, an action may then be described
as responsibleoras irresponsible .
Poerksen : Could yo u elucidate these ideas by mean s of a pa r-
ticular case?
Maturana: Some time ago, reports travelled ro und thc world
that a boy wlio ha d been h·ying to get to Miam i together wit h
his mo ther in a small boat from Cuba was saved fro m drow n-
ing by dolp hin s. For some rea son, their boat sank and the
mothcr drowned. The boy, howeve r, was kep t afloa t by a
school of do lphins, saved from drowning, and finally res cued.
What those dolphins did we can, as beings living in language,
describe as responsib/e.The dolphins do not, as far as we know,
po ssess the ability to comment on their activities and to tell us
abou t w hat happened betwee n them and the boy floating on
the sea. However, we are capab le of talking about the relation-
ship between those animals and the boy because we opera te in
the domain of language. We can charac terise what happ ened
74 T'1e CertainhJ of Uncertainty

as an effort to keep an oth er bein g alive. From this meta-p er-

sp ective th e activi ty of the dolphin s app ears as a res ponsible
action .

Poerksen: To act resp onsibly, then, means to take care of

som eone else and th en to observ e one's actions and classify
th em accord ingly .
Maturana: Exactly. Peop le are awar e of th e circum stances and
reflect the consequ en ces of their activ ities. They can ask them-
se lves wh ether they wan t to be wh a t they are as they are doing
wh at they are doing . ln th e moment of se if-observati on, all the
cer tainties an d sec urities of the state with out re flection disap -
p ear. Wh en, thro ugh the linguistic operatio n, a form of con-
templ a tion and an aware n ess h as bee n generat ed that allows
observa tion, then p eopl e will, at the nex t s tep, act accordin g to
their ow n p references, that means they will act responsibly.
And wh en they, with a furt he r step, try to find out wh ether
they valu e their own pr eferen ces and int end to maint aiJ1them,
th en they are free. Do I like my predil ectio ns? Do I like thc de ci-
sion I have taken and of whi ch J ha ve just said that I like it and
th at it correspond s w ith my desires? ln thls momen t of the
reflection of their own choice, th ere arises th e experience of
freed om .
Poerksen: I want to keep on qu estionin g: How can a s tru c-
tur e-d etenn in ed sys tem fee l respon sible for its ow n actions? If
I canno t contra i and influ ence others then the effects of my
activiti es become cornpl etely incalculable. We are confro nt ed
by a paradoxofresponsibility becau se w e are to be held res p onsi-
ble for sornething tl1e co nseq uences of whi ch we cou ld not
p ossibly foresee. Doin g good may po ten tially trigge r terr ible
conse qu ences (a nd vice versa).
Matura n a: The concep t of respo n sibility is ambi guo u s. Some
auth ors mean by res pon sibility that we mu st be acco unt a ble
for all the possible consequ ences of an actio n. Responsibility
then means cau sation. For me, res p onsible action is a qu es tion
of aw are ness. Pers on s act or fail to act in the awa reness of all
the poss ible and desirable consequ en ces of th eir actions. lt is
not necessa ry for the con sequ ences of an action to be fuUy cal-
cu la ble and foreseea ble; there may in deed be und esirable con-
sequ ences in the end . ln my view, being respo n sible simp ly
means to be in a cer tain state of attention an d mindfuln ess:
 The knowledgeof knowledgeentails responsibility 75

one's act ivities ma tch one's desires in a reflec ted way, tha t is
all.
Poe rkse n: The concept of responsibi lity is, for yo u, not linke d
to the idea tI,at it is possib le to plan the conse q uences of an
action?
Maturana: This is not releva.nt. To plan some thing means to
envisage ways and procedures for achieving a cer tain result
and to subordinate the next chosen steps to this imagine d
resu lt. The potential consequences of an action need no t come
about, however, and pe rhaps they exis t only in the min ds of
part icular people. It is cruc ial, in any case, that th e peo p le
designing thlngs in th is way live respons ibly and ac t in full
awareness of the poss ible consequences of their actions. They
are respons ible for what they say an d do. Neverthe less, they
are not accow1table for what other peop le make of what they
say and do.

Are social sys tem s autopo ie tic?

Poerkse n: Professor Maturana, the concep ts yo u have create d
now circu late in the scient ific commu ni ty all ove r the wo rld.
However, dur ing the three days we have been talk ing to each
other here, you have not even once use d the concept th at has
become a trcndy designer tcrm in thc scient ific com mun ity:
autopoiesis . Why? Is there a deepe rr easo n for this abs tinence?
Maturan a: The reason simp ly is tha t I use the co ncep t on ly
when it is adequate and necessary. Autopo iesis mea ns
"self-crea tion " and consists of the Greck words autos (self) an d
poiein (produce, create). The concept of autopoies is sup plies
the answer to the quest ion what charac terizes a living sys tem.
In the course of the history of biology it has been claimed that
Jiving beings are characterised by the capab iHty of reprod uc-
tion and mobility, by a specific chcmical com position, a spe-
cific aspcct of metabo lism, or by some com bina tion of these
differe n t criter ia. I propose another criterion . Wh en yo u
regai ·d a livmg system you always find a n ctwork of processes
or molecules that interact in such a way as to produce mo le-
cules that tl,rough their m terac tions in turn prod uce the very
network that pro du ced them a11d de termine its boun dary.
Such a network I call au topoietic. Wheneve r you enco un ter a
network whose ope rations event ually prod uce itse lf as a
76 The Certain.ti
; of Un.certainty

result, you are facing an aut op oietic sys tem. It produ ces itself.
This sys tem is op en to the input of matter but closed with
rega rd to the dy nami cs of Üle relation s that gen erate it. ln brief,
I use th e concept of a utopoi esis in ord er to descr ibe the key
prop erty of livin g beings . Th at is all. Wh eneve r p eop le are not
d ea lin g with this probl em but with other topics, Id o not see
any reas on wh y the con cept of autop oiesis should be u sed.
Poerksen: Perh ap s an exampl e dem ons tratin g th e aut op oiesis
of th e living wo uld be helpfu l at this stage. Yo u h ave oft en
referred to the cell as an auto po ietic sys tem. Would that be a
comp elling model?

Maturana: ln my tenn ino logy the cell is d escrib ed as a m olecu-

lar a utop oietic sys tem of the first ord er. Thi s mea ns th at a cell
as a totality is an auto poie tic sys tem in its ow n ri gh t. Con se-
qu entl y, multi cellul ar organisms are aut opo ietic sys tem s of
th e second ord er that are related to oth er organism s in diverse
social, paras itic, sym biotic, a nd oth er w ays . We mu st, quit e
fund am ent ally, rea lise tha t livin g sys tem s for m to talities and
repr esent in dep end ent entiti es, an d tha t there mu st be bound-
aries and ed ges th at constitut e the diff eren ce be twee n a sys tem
and its en vironm ent. Th e speciaJ thin g a bout cellul ar me tabo-
lism is th at it pr odu ces com pon ent s, w hich are int egrated as
entir eties int o th e netwo:rk of tran sform ation s tha t pro du ced
them. The pro d uction of compon ent s embodi es, therefo:re, th e
conditi on of th e p ossibilily of an edge, of a bo un d ary, o f the
membr an e of a cell. Thi s membran e, in tum , pa:rticipa tes in the
on goin g p rocesses of tran sform ation, it par ticipa tes in the
aut op oietic dy nam ics of the cell: it is in itself the conditi o n of
th e p ossibility of the oper ati on o f a network o f transfo rm ation s
th at pr odu ces the network as an integra l w hole. Without the
bound ary of the cell riiembr ane every th:ing wo uld d isso lve
into some sor t of m olecul ar slime, and the molecules w ould
d iffuse in ali dir ection s. Th ere wo uld n o longer be an ind e-
p end ent entit y.

Poerksen: This means tha t the cell produ ces the membr an e
and the membran e th e cell. The prod ucer, the ac t of pro du c-
tion, and th e produ ct, hav e become indi stin guish able.
Maturana: I would say, a Jittle m ore rigorou sly: Th e molecules
of th e cell memb rane p ar ticipa te in the realisa tion of the
aut opoi etic processes of th e ceJI and in the produ ction of oth er
 The knowledgeof knowledgeentails responsibility 77

mo lecules within the au topo ietic netwo rk of the cell; and

au topoiesis generates th e molecules of the mem bra ne. They
produce each other, and they participa te in th e constit u tion of
the who le.
Poerksen: You have been try ing hard to retain the r igorous
concept of autopoiesis exclusive ly for the character isa tion of
the living. Never theless, your readers an d devo tees are not
w illing to follow yo u. On the con trary: your ideas are n ow
commonly used insoc ial theory, in the descriptio n of society.
Meanwh ile, everything is an aut opoiet ic sys tem - scien ce,
journalism , foot ball, families, art , pol itics, societies, etc. -,
everyth:ing vibra tes along according to its own rules with:in its
own boundaries.
Maturana: That isso . People like an d hon our me as the in ven -
tor of the term and the concept of autopo iesis - par ticu larly so,
when I am not p resen t and unab le to tel1 them wha t I rea lly
said . When I appear in person, however, I always poi n t out
that the concept is, in my opi nion, on ly va lid for a certain
defined domai n for wh ich it solves a par ticular pr oblem . A
few years ago, for instance, I was invi ted to a conference at th e
London Schoo l of Econom:ics, w h ich dea lt wi th the problem of
whether socia l syste ms could be seen as aut opoie tic. Th e
debate Jasted three full days and, at the end, 1was asked to say
a few concluding words . I said: "For three days I have been lis-
tening to your ideas and exchanges, and I want to p ut the fol-
low ing question to you now: Wha t are the fea tures of a social
syste m that wo uld just ify choos in g as the top ic of this confer-
ence the problem wheüie r a social system co uld be class ified
as au topoietic or not?"
Poerksen: You meant to suggest a diffe ren t sta rting poi nt for
th eir delibe rations: one rnu st first unde rstand th e social ph e-
nomena bcfore on e can attempt to descr ibe th em more pre-
cisely with a concep t borrowed from biology .
Maturana: Precise ly. App lying the concep t of au topo iesis to
explai n socia l phenomena will cause them to va nish fr om yo ur
field of vis ion beca u se you r wh ole at ten tion will be absor bed
by the concept of au topoies is. Nat ur ally, we can disc uss
whethe r the house we are sitting in now is an aut opo ietic sys-
tem . The choice of this topic, h oweve r, has the u navo idable
effect that the features of an au topoietic syste m will guide our
78 The Certainty of UncertainhJ

reflection s. Asking for the constituti ve prope rti es of th e entity

of a house, how ever, and whether its ch aracteristics accord
w ith the concept of aut opoiesis, w ill leave us free to analyse
and invest igate. We mig ht th en find th at houses canno t be
described as autopo ietic - or must be described as such. Who
k.n ows?
Poerkse n: l n Germany, the sociologist N ikJas Luhm ann at
Bielefeld Universi ty has been one of the best-known propo-
nents of the theory of autop oiesis. H e intr od uced the concept
in his cen tral w ork SozialeSysteme,pu blished in 1984, and from
there w en t on to ela bora te this theory by describing ali th e dif-
ferent domains of society as self-dfrected produce rs of their
own specifjc reali ties. Luhmann brou ght about th e aul'opoie tic
turn in sociology.
Maturana : When I was a visiting pro fessor at Bielefeld I never
withh eld my criti cism bu t art iculated it freque nt ly in num er-
ous deba tes. "Thank yo u for having m ade me famous in Ger-
man y," l said toN ikJas Luhmann, " butl disagree with the way
in which yo u are using my ideas . I su gges t that we start with
th e question of the char acteristics of social phen omena. The
concep t of socie ty hi stor ically prece d es th e id ea of the
autopoiesis of living sys tems. Society was the pritn ary subject
of debate; aut opoiesis and social sys tems carne mu ch later. It
follows, therefore, that we shou]d first deal with ali the rele-
vant phenomena appea rin g in the analyses of society and only
afterwards ask ou rselves whether they may be elucid ated
more precisely in terms of the concep t of au topo iesis."
Poe rksen: You are ca uti oni ng agai nst th e d a n gers of
red uctionism.
Maturan a: The pr oblem simpl y is tha t Niklas Luhm ann uses
the con.cept of autopoies is as a principle in the explana tion of
social phenomena, which does not illum inate the processes to
be described nor the social ph eno mena but tends to obscur e
them . Aut opoiesis as a biological ph enom enon invo lves a n et-
work of molecul es th at pro du ces molecules. Molecules pr o-
d uce molecules, form themselves into other molecules, and
may be divided into molecules. N iklas Luhm ann , howeve r,
does not proceed from molecules pr odu cing rnolecules; for
him everythin g revo lves around comm unications pro du cin g
comm unications. He believes tha t the phen omena are similar
 The knowledgeof knowledge entails responsibility 79

and that the situations are compara ble. That is incorrect

because mo lecules produce molecules wit hou t extra neous
help, without support. This means: autopoies is takes p lace in a
doma in in which the interactions of the elements cons tituting
it bring forth elemen ts of the sarne kind; that is crucial. Com-
munications, however, presuppose h uman beings tha t com-
municate. Communica tions can only produce commun ica-
tions witb the help of hu man beings. Th e decision to replace
molecules by comm unicat ions places comm unications at the
centre and excludes the hum an bcings actua lly commun icat-
ing . The human beings are excluded and even considered
irrelevant; they only serve as the backgro und and the basis
into which the social syste m - conceived of as an autopoietic
network of comm unications - is em bedded.
Poerksen: Whatsw ims into focus if we follow this perspec tive
and describe a social system as a network of autopo iet ically
self-reproducing communications, is an exh·emely weir d
socia l struct ure: a society wi thout huma n beings.
Maturana : That is precisely the form of description manu fac-
tured by Nik las Luhmann. His concep tion can be compa red
with a sta tistica l view of social systems: people with par ti.cu lar
features do not feature in it. When we speak abou t socia l sys-
tems in our everyday life, however, we na turally have in min d
all the individuais with their pecu liar proper ties, who would
protcst against their characterisation as autopo ietic ne tworks
- and doso, anyway, when they criticise N i.klas Luhm ann .
But why does he proceed in this way? He told me once that he
excluded human beings from his theore tical framework in
order to be abJe to make universa l statemen ts. If you speak
about human individua is, he argued, you cann ot for mu late
universa l stateme nt s. l do not share this view, either.
Poerkse n: The systems theory designed by N iklas Luhm ann
could perhaps be conside red as a sort of negativeanthropologi;:
We can not but rernain silent in gent le hu mility and revere nce
regard ing the in.finitely manifo ld and incffable mys tery of
humanity, the object of worship.
Maturan a: That is possib le; bu t even in the face of suc h a pro-
posal you will have to take account of the people who may
possib ly complain and protest aga inst theirc haracter isatio n. lf
you depr ive people of this opportunity, you trea t them like
80 The Certaintt;of Uncertainty

freely disposa ble objects; they have the statu s of slaves, com-
pelled to function without the oppor tunity of complaining
when they do not like what is hap pe ning to them . Such treat-
ment and cont empt of people is standard practice in cert ain
companies, commun ities, and coun tries that negate indi vidu-
ais. A socia l syste m that for bids and even fund amentall y
excludes comp laint and prote st is not a social system. It is a
system of tyranny.

The dutiful worship of systems

Poerksen: The concep t of au topoiesis ha s created a furore not
only in science and amongst the followers of Nik las Luhmann
but also won huge popularity in th e New -Age scene. I think
we are witnessing a sor t of paradigm change with the theor ists
and opin ion leaders of the New Age. Years ago they were
at tracted by m odern phy sics and the dance of the atoms. It
used to be reported that the phy sicist Werner He isenb erg, the
creator of the Uncertainty Princip le, and the Buddha, practi-
cally shared an identi cal view of the essence of matt er . Toe
syncretism that emerged could be called quantum theology. For
some time now, the key concepts of th e New-Age scene have
been provided by Gregory Bateson, Fra ncisco Varela and -
Humb erto Maturana. The pro tagonis ts of thc scene - Capra &
Co. - have been brew ing a ra ther explosive mixture of spiritu-
alisrn and science, a sor t of nehuorlctheology,which is su ppose d
to be the scientifically Iegitimated foun dat ion of the wors hip
of univer sal conn ectedness.
Maturana: We h ave now h it upon th e problem of
redu ctionism, which is character.istic of o ur cu ltur e. Just look
out the window for Jl moment. Over there, you see a loving
coup le, a yo ung woman and a yo un g man kissing each other.
What is happen in g ther e? My answer would be: Whatever
happens there happe n s in the domain of hum an re lations.
Nat ur ally, you can po int out that in such exchanges of ten-
derness horm ones and neurotran smitt ers are involved; no
doubt we can spea k of sys temic processes in both organ isms.
Ali that would be correc t, but what is occur ring in the enco un-
ter of those two persons, their feeling of love, is no t grasped or
descr ibed by refer ence to such processes: the loving tender
relation that those two persons are living cann ot be reduced to
hormo nes, ne uro transmitt ers and sys temic processe s. Wha t
 The knowledgeof knowledgeentails responsíbility 81

they are actively livin goccurs in them in the flow of their inter-
actions as these give rise to the flow of what they do with each
other through them . When Fritjof Cap ra and others promote
their quantum theology or some network theology and begin
to worship systems or networks, they are thinking and argu -
ing in a reductionist way. They flatte n and blur everyth ing.
They no longer speak of molecules but only of syste ms that
they elevate to their new gods. This is obvious ly reduc tionism,
too. What Ido is fundamentally differe nt from a reductioni st
approac h. Since Iam alwa ys aware of the existence of different
non-intersecting phenomenal domains, I take care not to con-
fuse them in my thin king or in my wri ting. Indeed, if one does
this, one can see that the phenom ena of one domain cann ot be
expressed in terms of the phenomena of another domain.
Thus, whatever happens in tJ1edoma in of the operation of
the organism as a totality in its rela tional space cannot be
expressed in terms of the molecules that compose it, or vice .
versa. Ali tha t an observer can do is to see wh at happens in
those two domains and attempt to establish a generative rela-
tion between them. I preserve, and attend to, the differences
between the separate phenome nal domains in my descr ip-
tions. ln this way, one sces the domain of mo lecules, the sys-
temic doma in, the domain of relation s, etc. Ali these different
doma ins cons titut e their own specific pheno mena .
Poerksen: Although I am no t particu lar ly inclin ed to defend
the New-Age scene against anything, I th ink that it is no acci-
dent that your work has become attractive to that scene. The
the sis of the observer-dependence of all know .ledge can be
interp reted as the remova! of thc sub ject-object rift tha t we
encounter in the description of spiritua l and mystical experi-
ences.
Maturana: These spiritua l exper iences have, in my op inion,
noth.ing to do with experiences of transce nd ence in an ontolog-
ical sense but much rather witb an extension of awareness and
an intens ified feeling of participation: You beco me aware of
being all atone with other human beings, w ith the cosmos, the
biosphere, etc. When people now talk abou t spiritu al mat ters,
however, they generally refer to some experience contai nin g
an ontological understanding ora true know ledge of nature.
Such insights are, in my view, impo ssible in pri ncipie. No th-
ing that can be said is ind ependen t from us.
 82 The CertainhJof UncertainhJ

Poerksen: Have you yourself had expe riences that might be

described as spiritual in your sense?
Maturana: I suffered from lun g tuberculosis as a young man.
After having spent seven months in bed, I went back to my
school to find out whether I could still comp lete the school
year in the regular way and so avoid having to repeat it. It was
in December and l - havingjust got out of my sickbed - had
to listen to a presentation prepared by my fellow pupils con-
cerning the menace of tuberculosis. They described the terrible
risks of this disea se and the extremely limited opportunities
for therapy available at the time. While 1was listeni n g to them,
I felt myself slowly beginning to faint and decid ed to observe
this process of fainting. When I rega ined consciousness, I was
in the middle of the room and heard the voice of my teacher
who said that I wa s looking very green and want ed to know
what had happ ened.
Poerksen: What had happened?

Maturana: I shall tel1 you how I exper ienced the situation .

Wh en I prepar ed to observe the proce ss of passing out, I lost a ll
feeling for my body. I had no body any more but was still
awa re of being alive and gradual ly disa ppearing - like a wi sp
of smoke floating quietly and silently through a room - in a
glorious blue cos mos. I felt like dissolving int o that magnifi-
cen t blue, fusing, and becoming one with everythin g. Then
suddenly everything was over. My head ached, I was sick; I
h eard the voice of my teacher and carne round. What do es tlus
wonderfu l experience mean, J asked mys elf. H ad I see n God?
Was it a mystical expel'ience? Or had I been on the way to
death? ln the following week s and months, I read the few
book s that existed at the time about near-de ath experiences
and stud ied the medical and the rny stical literatur e. [t became
obvious to me that I walked a very thln lin e w ith all the differ-
en t interp retations. Reading the medical books and accepting
their statem ents led me to believe that I had experienced what
it is like to die and w ha t effects are ca used by insufficient blood
supply to the brain. If I believed the my stical literatur e, rny
experience üwolved a.n encou nter with God a.nd the unifica-
tion with the totality of existence. At the time, I opted for the
medical inte rpretation of what h ad happened to me as a.
near-d eath experience.
 T'1eknowledgeof knowledgeentails responsibility 83

Poerksen : Are these two interpreta tions so very different?

Death could be a me taph or telling us of the gift of a new begin-
ning: the old personality is dying.
Maturana: It was, in any case, an exper ience that trans formed
my life. This transformation and tbe elemen t of the exten sion
of awareness restored to my expe rience a spiritual, a mys tical,
dimension that was not so clear to me when 1 was young and
thought I had to decide between the two int erpr etatio:ns.I lost
all fear of death; I stopped clinging to things and unrea sona.bly
identifying myself with them because throu gh the encounter
with death I had experienced my connectedness with the
who le . 1 became more reflective a.nd less dogrnatic. This is not
intende d to mean tha t I wa nt to describe my self as an illumi-
nated beíng above ali earthly ties, not at all. That experience
was so penetrating that ít chan ged my life. Everything is tran-
sien t, 1 realised, nothing but tran sition . We do not have to
defend anythin g, we ca.nnot hold on to any thin g.
 CHAPTER 4

Truth is what works

Francisco J. Varela on cog nitive scie nce,
Buddhism, the lnsepar abil ity of subjec t and obJect,
and the exaggerations o f cons truct ivism

r an cisco J. Varela (1946-

F 2001) stu di ed biology in

Santiago de Chile, obt ained
hi s doctora te 1970 at Harvard
Univers ity wi th a thesis on the
insect eye, and worked there for
some tim e in the laboratory of
Torstcn Wiese l, the ]a ter No bel
Laureate for m edicine. Fro m his
sc ient ific beginn ing s as a
researcher in biology, he did not
on ly study and pract ise biology
but, res isti n g th e dominating
mainstream, pur sued a researc h
programme that ignore d and
broke do wn trad itional disciplinary boundarie s. This researc h
programme is best chara cterised as experimentalepistemologiJ,a
experimental
concept intr odu ced by the neuropsychiatrist and cybern eti-
epistemology cian Warre n S. McCu lloch. Varela' s grea t asp irat ion was to
examine and answer_the phi losophic al ur-que stion of cogni-
varelas aspiration tion with scient ific precision and w ith the help of the best
possibl e theore tical framework.
Having ob tained hi s doctorat e, he went back to Chile to
work as a profes sor of biology toge ther with Humberto R.
Ma turana. He con tributed to the writing of the theory of
au topo iesis w hich was to cau se a furore in the world of science
as a universa lly app licable explanato ry mode l. After the over-
thr ow of Allende and the installation of the dicta torship by the
put sch general Pinochet, Varela first escaped to Costa Rica,
the n became professor a t the America n un iversi ties of
Colorado and Ne w York, and finally re turn ed in 1980 to th e
86 The CertainhJof Uncertainty

University of Chi1e in Santiago for five years . Temporary pos i-

tions as guest professor for neurobio logy, phi losophy, and
cognitive science in Germany, Switzerland and France led him
to Paris, in the end, where he worked as a research director of
the Centr e Nat ional de Recherche Scientifique until bis deat h
on 28 May 2001.
ln bis research work embrac ing cognit ive science, evo lu-
tionary theory, and imrnunology, Varela, constan tly inspired
by bis fundamen tal interest in the key questions of epistemo-
Jogy, gave the episte mologica l debate a new orien tation. ln his
thi:nking, he refuses to accept the strict separa tion of subject
and object, of knower and known, whic h as a rule unite s real-
ists and construct ivists alike. Varela rejects the fundam ental
duaJismd ividin gmjndand world, which had shape d Western
ph.ilosophy from its earliest beginnings. He does not sub scribe
to the idea that human individua is can inv ent their own reali-
ties blindly and arbitrarily, and wi thout exp eriencing any
resistance from the externai world and all other thing s give n.
He equa lly distances himself, however, from the diametr ically
opposite position that overstates the irtherent power of the
world of objects. The external world and all other things given
can:not determine what happens in an organism. Francisco J.
Varela'sclairn is tha.tindi vidua l and wor ld create each other.

The computational model of the mind

Poerksen : The anc icnt key quest ions of philosoph y are at the
centre of modem cognit ive science . What is the essence of the
mind? Do our conceptions represe nt a given wor ld, which is
indepe nd cn t from our minds? What is the forma tive pow er of
externaJ objects over our perceptions? How doe s cognit ion
function? The search for an adequa te answe r and an improved
understanding of the huma n mind has led many cognit ive sci-
entis ts to entertain the assumption that the brain is actually a
kind of computer. Mcmory is taken to bea store. Thinkingand
perceiviJ,g are understood as data processing in the sense that
an ind epe ndent extern ai wor ld is computa tionally trans-
formed into symbo ls a:nd represen ted in the or gan ism in this
mam1er. You are very criticai. of this view. Why?
Varela: lf tbe brain is cons idered as a kind of compute r then
cognit ive research is limited to discovering certain self-su ffi-
cient shapes - the symbo ls - together with the ru les govern-
 Truth is what works 87

ing them - th e pro grams . But this search for symb ols an d
the limits of progra ms w ill never be pro fitable because it sim ply does not
thinking brain d o justice to the way th e bra in fun ctions. There are no symbols
as a computer
to be discovered in the brain; the brain is not based on soft-
w are; objects or hu man beings are definitely not repr esent ed
by way of sy mbols in the br ain, alth ough even mos t intelligent
peo ple once believed this to be so. So there is little poin t in
searchin g for neur on numb er 25, which is supp osed to repr e-
sent my gra ndm other or some other par t of the world . The
brain is essenti ally a dynamica lly orga nised sys tcm; num er-
what the brain is ous inter depen dent var iables have to be take n int o account ,
which can only be d issocia ted from each other in an ar bitrary
way.
Poe rksen: You are cr itical of the rcsea rch program mc based on
the identification of brain and comput er .
V areia : Not only that; my cr.iticism has not on ly empirical but
also epistemologica l found ations. Alone comm on sense find s
n o difficulty in und crs tanding that Jiving beings necessar ily
manifest th emselves in par ticular actions and in their app ro-
priate env ironm en ts. The actions of an anim al and the wor ld in
which it perform s these action s are insepa rabl y connec ted.
Going thr ou gh life as a small fly makes a cup of tea appear like
an ocean of liqui d; an elephan t, however, will see the sarne
amo unt of tea as an ins ignificant dr op, tiny and barely notice-
able. What is perce ived app ears insepara bly com1ected with
perception is an
embodied action
the actions and the way of life of an organism : cognition is, as I
wo uld claim, tbe bringingforth of a world, it is embodied action.
Whoever, on the contr ary , believes in the comput er model of
the mind , inevitably believes in the existence of a stahle wo rld
in depend en t from l~vin g beings. This wor ld is recogn ised by
Jivi:ng beings and repr esent ed in thei.r nerv ous syste ms in the
form of little sym bols; cognition, acco rding to thi s view, is a
kind of comp utation on the bas is of symb ols.
Poe rksen: I supp ose that such a view also imp lies a naive kind
of rea lism: one believes in static, given world tha t is rep re-
se nted in our cogniti ve appara tus.
Varela: Not necessar ily. No t every cogn itivist or scienti st fol-
lowin g su ch a model is necessar ily a naive real ist. The key con-
cep t rests 0 11 two centr al p remises that admit of different
epistem ological in terpretations. On the one h an d, cogn ition is
88 The Certainti;of Uncertainty

assumed to be essentially a form of sym bol processing, which

resembles the functioning of a compu ter. Such a concep tion
accords with scientists of both a realist anda non -realist orien-
tation alike. On the other hand, the relation between the cogni-
tive system. and the world is, iJ.1the classical sense, seen as a
rela tion of semantic representation: the m ind processes sym-
bols, wh ich represent the proper ties of the world in a specific
way. This idea of a fundamental sernantic corr esponde nce
between symbol and world is also open to interp retat ions that
need not necessari ly be rea listic.
Poerk sen: But surely, anyone claiming th at there is some sort
of correspondence between world and syrnbol is inevitably a
realist.

Symbol and world

V arela: No, because we cou ld say that there is a specific rela-
tion and a sema ntic correspondence between the word table
and the object that we call a table . A re lat ivist and critic of rea l-
ism favour ing this view would then add, for instance, tha t the
relation between symbol and world is obv ious ly di fferent for
an Eskimo and for a pygmy, and that they have dif feren t
words, i.e. different symbols, for wha t we usua lly call a tab le.
So even a relativ i.st can uphold the no tion of seman tic corre-
spondence.
Poe rkse n: Why did the computer mode l remain at tractive for
so long? lt seems to me that it promised the more or less imrni-
nent expla nation of brain and mind. Taking the comp uter as
the archetype of cogn ition generates clearly defined resea rch
objectives, unambiguous questions, and justi fied hopes for
success.
Vare la: Exactly . 1 am not at all surprised by tbe ap peal of this
mode l because it ma tches common ideas and is an expression
of our craving for transparency. It is deep ly roo ted in theratio-
nalist traditions of the West and supported by them. The idea
of representation in the form of symb ols has long been the
founda tion of ma thematics and the basis of linguis tics,
whereas the ideas that 1 pursue introduce some thing very
novel. There is still less exper ience with the inves tigation of
dynamic and em.ergent systems, every thing becomes mo re
comp licated and less easy to penetra te. Cogn ition is the bring-
 Truth is what works 89

ing Jorth of a world; th e meanin g of something is no lon ger

definition of
cognition und erstood as res ul ting fro m a corr esp on dence be tw een an
object and a symb ol but as the emerge n ce of sta ble imp ress ion s
and p a ttern s - i.nvar iants. These develo p in the cour se of
tim e. A reg ular pat tern mu st have ap peare d first befo re we can
take it to be a fea ture of a wor ld that we consider in depe nd ent
fro m us.

Poerksen: You h ave pu blished num ero us stu dies on colour

pe rcep tion. How does a stabl e colour imp ress ion com e a bout?
H ow do ani ma is or hum ans pe r ceive colour?

V areia: Look h ere, th ere is a book on the table in fron t of us.

Du e to our essen tially iden tical stru ctur e it ap pea r s in a colour
th a t we call green. We hum an beings are the p rodu cts of an
evo luti onary lin eage a lon g wh ich our ances tors d eve lope d
spec ific patt erns thro u gh their en count ers w ith the en viron -
m ent s in whi ch they foun d them selves. lf we now ass um e that
our given world and so me object tha t we ca ll a book h ave p ar -
ticular prope rti es, and if we ta ke int o acco unt the his tor y of our
desce nt, then th ese tw o factors yie ld a m u tually d etermining
in va riant pattern. Both of us call this pa ttern a colour and
n ame thi s colour green. Bu t we have known for a long tim e
bird's colour per- n ow tha t bird s, for exa mp le - due to their evo luti onar y his-
ception is different tory - p erceive som e thin g that we sim p ly can no t im ag in e:
from humans
num ero us bir ds see m to h ave a colour syste m comprisin g four
bas ic colou rs w h ereas thr ee ar e s ufficien t for us hu mans .
Or gan isms exist in d ifferent p ercep tuaJ w orld s, they live in
diff er ent spaces of chro ma tic in var iant s. So the ques tion
arises : w hat does thi s boo k look like? Wh o is right ? The bird s
or we? The answe r is: both. These d iffere nt pe rcep tions permit
both birds andhum ans to stay a live. The mean in go f an object,
its colour or its pro pe rt ies, emerges throug h lon g ph ases of
co uplin g be tw een or gani sm an d wor ld . A co lour is n ot the
res ult of a con stru ction ta kin g place excl usive ly wit hin the
or ganis m, nor does it exist - the other extr eme - in itse lf and
ind ep ende ntl y from the liv ing bein g that perce ives so methin g .
We are faced by stab le qua liti es that can only deve lop on th e
bas is of an evo lu tionary hi story. They caiu1ot be assigne d
un equi voca lly to either the knower or th e kn own , they cannot
be clearly attribut ed to eith er the subject or the object.
 90 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Poe rkse n: What you call the bringingJorth of a world, related

thinkers simp ly designa te the constructionof realih;. The differ-
ence between these two concep ts is, for me, tha t cons tructivis ts
have traditiona lly foregrounded the sub ject p ar t. You seem to
plead for a more balanced view of the relat ionship betwee n
subjec t and object . You insist : there mu st be both; both are
indispensable for the act of cognition.

Varela: That is the central idea. Only the co-constructionof su b-

ject and object can overcome the tradit ion al logica l geogra phy
of th e strict sepa ration of knower and know n, inte rn a i and
externa i wor ld. There is no sub ject, as the cons truct ivists sug-
gest, on one side, constructing its reality in the desired way.
And there exists no object, as the rea lists believe, on the other
side, which detennines what happe n s in the or gan isrn. My
view is that sub ject and object determine and cond iti on eac h
POV about
subject and other, tha t knower and known arise in mutual depe nd ence,
object determi- that we neither represent an externa i wo rl d insi de n or blin dly
nation
and arb itrari ly cons truct such a worl d a nd projec t it o utside.
My plea is for a midd le way that avo id s bo th the extremes of
subjec tivism and idealism, and the presumptio ns of rea lism
a11d objectivism.

The philo sophical probl em factory

Poerksen: Perhaps two aphorisms by Heinz von Foers ter
co uld contribute to further clarifica tion . He epito mi ses the
centra l idea of rea lism with the words: "The wo rl d is the cau se,
experience the consequence." The fundame nta l pr incipie o f
constructiv ism is, however: "Experie nce is the cause, th e
world the consequence."

Varela: I do not agr ce with either pos i.tion. As one printed ver-
sion of this conversation is intended for a German a udience, I
should like to sta te quite clear ly an d u nam biguous ly: I am no t
a rea list, and [ do no t consider myself a constructiv ist, h ow-
ever of ten I may be classified as suc h in Germany. Classic aJ
why he disagrees
with constructivi consb·uctivism does not at all impress me as a convi n cing
sts mode of thought beca use i t posits one side of the cog nüi ve p ro-
cessas abso lute: the organism forces its ow n Jogic and its ow n
mode ls on the wor ld. l do not believe that to be th e case a t ali.
Suc h an assumpt ion appears to me to be a re lapse int o
neo-Kantian thh1king. I have bee n try ing for years to keep my
 Truth is what works 91

na me out of this debate - bu t obv iou sly I have no t been very

su ccessful.
Poerks en: To repea t the questio n : wh en confro nt ed by th e d is-
tinction between su bject and object, yo u refuse to side wi th
on e or the other?

V arela: The goal of my work in cogni tive science is no t the dia-

lectical nega tion of one side or th e oth er. My question is n ot
w h ether the wor ld is rep resen te d in the organism, wh ether the
subject is pr im ary or wh ether the dec isive inf lu ence is d ue to
an object, my po int is the tota l aboli tion of bo th extre me po si-
tions, n ot their affir m ation or nega tion. My p oint is that ne ither
th e su bject nor the o bject is pri mary. Both exist only in mutu al
depe nd ence an d in mutu al d etermi na tion.
Poerksen : If yo u are unab le to make this decision, h ow can
you de fine a clear ep is temologica l stan ce?
Va rela: Wh y d o I need the decision for subject or object in
order to do ep is tem.ologica l resea rch, to formula te hypo theses
an d design researc h projec ts? The task of ep istemologica l
th oug h t and researc h effor ts is the qu estion of how we can
un de rstand the way know led ge comes abo u t and h ow concep -
tions of rea lity arise . Th e dec ision for subject or object alrea dy
cont ains a d efiniti on of cogn ition and know ledge alth ough
that is, in fact, the p roble m to be so lved.
Poerks en : We could argue, howeve r, th at the di stin ction
betwee n su bject a nd object is the cen tra l philoso phi cal prob -
Iem factory. Th ose wh o p ut th e object first, inves tiga te the
difference between
the distinction
wo rld - an d its imp inge men t on the su bject; they pr actise
of object object-cen tred p hilosop hy. Those who hold the su bject to be
and subject research
primary, analyse its ~pec uli arities, its fea tur es, its logic. They
neg lect objects an d prac tise subject-centr ed phil osop hy.
Varela: I in sis t: th ev iew that an ep istem ologist is comp elled to
dis tingui sh be twee n su bject an d objec t in order to stud y th e
rela tion betwee n the two is the her i tage of Weste rn ra tiona lism
and the Kanti an th eory of kn ow ledge . This view is historically
con ditioned . I am sorry but I rea lly d o no t wan t to p lay this
ga me becau se p hilosop h.ical concepti ons have been ava ilable
for a long time tha t evade this allege d coerc ion into dua lism .
Th e p h e nom en olog is ts Edmund H usse rl an d M a ur ice
92 The Certainty of UncertainhJ

Merleau -Ponty have shown clearly th at an inevita ble an d

inseparable connection exists between wh at mig ht be called a
subject or an object. They are not oppos ites.
Poer k se n: But the early studies of the pheno menolog ists tha t
you incorporate in your work in cognit ive science, are of a real-
ist orien tation. Edmund Husserl, the founder of p henomeno-
logy, already formuiated the battle cry destined to become
famous : "Zu den.Sachenselbst!" ["To the objects themse lves!" ]
Is that not the research programme of a realist, a tum in the
direction of the object?

Vare la : lt is, in my opinion, one of the amusing puzz les how

little Edmund Husser l, whorn I value as the grea test phi loso -
pher of the 20th century, is understood in his own country, and
how incredib ly heis tumed into a caricature of himse lf in Ger-
man universities . What Husserl mea n s whe n he speaks of the
need to turn to the objects themselves, is not rea lism a t all, defi-
nitely not. Heis not concerned with some thin g already exist-
ing in a given way. The purpose of bis phenomeno logica l
work is to examine, without premature j udgme n t, th e
perceptions of things an d objects that appear to be given . This
is precisely the programme of phe n omenology that is of suc h
crucial importance to modem cognitivc science: to inves tiga te,
without prejudice and rash judgmen t, our exp eriences and
perceptions, to incl ude ourselves as scien tis ts in ou r reflec-
tions, in order to avoid any disembod ied, pu rely abstrac t,
analysis.

Poerkse n: But if we, as you suggest, begi n with our percep-

tions and exper iences, we immediately see : th ere is a subjec t
and an object. Both appear separated. That is the funda men tal
ins ight we gain. It shou ld actually lead us back to rea lism
aga in.

Vare la: You are now speaking of common, everyday exper i-

ence, which is formed and shaped by a who le set of theor ies
and metaphysical presumptions. I do no t propose to trust tha t
kind of experience. On the contrary, it is the very du ty of phi-
losophy and natural science to question and challe nge ord i-
nary perception and everything that seems self-ev ide nt, and to
confront it with new approaches. These may contradict com-
mon sensebut that is no problem for me at ali and qu ite irr ele-
 Truth is what works 93

vant; the crucia l question is wh ether they fit, whether they are
tru e. The reference to common sense does not prov e anything.
Poerksen: What do yo u mean by "fittin g," "true" approaches?
If truth is the goal of your resea rch es, then you definitely
assum e a realist position, after all. Of course, there are people
who believe that we could keep truth as a kind of ideal anda
distant goal because we can never do more than approximate
it step by step, anyway. But that th esis seems contradictory to
me, too. lf we wan t to establish whether we have achieved
some partia! und erstand:ing of th e abso lut e or come doser to
the truth, we mu st be able to compare our partial under-
standin g with abso lut e truth itself. Ho wever, this comparis on
of realities presupposes th e possibility of appr ehendin g abso-
lute truth - otherw ise th e claim of its approx imation remains
und ecidab le. My thesi s is th atw e can only maintain the idea of
truth as a goaJ of human knowing, how ever distant, if we
assume an extreme realist position a t the sarne time.

From necessity to possibility

Varela: The attempt to characterise my pos ition as clandestine
realism anda m asked belief in truth is du eto th e definitional
decision yo u have take n, which ! certainly do not accept. You
are working with a concept of tr uth thati s based on correspo n-
dence: truth is the correspo nd en ce between theory and reality.
Su ch a position will i:nevitably make you a realist. Let me just
point out that there are many ways of spea kin g about truth.
My own concept of truth , which is inspired by phenomenol-
ogy and the phil osop hy of pr agmatism, is best und ers tood as a
theory of coherence: whatcount s is the consistency of theories,
the coherence of viewpoints. Truth is, the motto of pragma-
tism proclaims, wha t works.
Poerksen : What, then, is false?

Varela: ln a pragmatist sense, something can be false only, to

putit very bluntl y, i.fit k ills yo u. Every thin g thatworks is true.
Reconsider the example of coJo ur percep tion . Bird s and
hum ans experience colour ed objects; their different truths,
how ever, are not du e to a corresp ond ence between their views
of reality and reality itself, but to the mutu al determination of
subject and object. The perception s of birds and human s and
innum era ble other living beings are ali viable because they
94 Th.eCertainty of Uncertainty

allow the continuous coupling with the world. lf an organis m

does not develop a consistent capability of moving in a col-
oured world, it wilJ, in the worst event, disappear from this
earth. The species will die out.
Poerksen : But there are so infinitely many, totally contradic-
tory, perceptions and theories that simply work and that do
no t kill us! Deadly failure as the criterionof falsificatio n is a bit
too vague for me .
Varela: This vagueness and the fact of lacking consent are no
problem at ali . A li this conform s exac tly with scienti.fic prac-
tice. In contradistinction to the pre ju dices of some people, sci-
entific truth do es not consist in the correspo ndence between
theory and reality. Scient ific knowledge is inev itably relat ed
to the surr ounding circumstances of the social wor ld and -
between virtual quotes - the realitt;.Every single object of sci-
entific research is, as Bruno Latour use d to say, a mixed object:it
is social and it is real, it is real and it is social. Wh en someone
develops theories about DNA, black h oJes, or the weath .er,
then these theories mu st be discussed - irrespective of any
hope of absolutely valid justification and ultima.te secu rity.
Then other people poss ibly develop conh·ar y conceptions. So
we try hard to find out wh ich of the hypot heses work better
and wh o has the more convin cing argu ments. And one day
new and compJete ly different considera tions and theor ies
enter the deba te.
Poerksen : Pursuing the idea of ultimate failure and final falsi-
fication a little furtber, we might say: the loss of life in a fina l
conflict with the real world tells us that our assumptions were
wrong . ln a similar vein, Warren S. McCulloch, one of füe
father figures of cyberne tics, once said that the acme of knowl-
edge was to have proved a hypothesis wro ng.
Varela: I wouJd never talk like that simply for aes thetic rea-
sons because the central images of such formu la tions are con-
flict and stru ggle . When 1 explain that individual organ isms
bring forth their wor ld, and that all the different views of the
worl d are equally true and viable, conflict and strugg le lose
their importance. Falsification is no Jonger the cen tral concern
of scientific wor k. There arises a panora ma of coexistence, a
dia logical space iJ1the world and in science. We can find joy
and fun in comparin g the p lethora of poss ible forms of exis-
 Truth is what works 95
tence and the diversity of views and assump tions, w e can
deve lop ideas, exchange and de bate them . Absolut e reaJity, in
my eyes, does n ot dictate the laws we have to obey. It is thc
patricharchal p erspective to pro claim the truth an d to decree
absolut ely valid ru les th at constrain , limi t, and eradicatc
oppo rtu nities. Wha t might be caUed abso lut e reality, tend s to
app ear to me as a feminin e matr ix, whose fu ndame ntal quality
is the openin g up of poss ibilities.
Poerk sen : Wha t is n ot imposs ible is poss ible?

Varela : Exactly. And what is not pro hibit ed is permi tted.

There are natural limit s bu t there is no densely w oven, block-
ing, and stifling sys tem of rul es. This is the soft and sp ace-
crea ting qu ality of a feminin e ma trix.
Poerks en: Can yo u reconst ru ct how you broke thr oug h to this
different und erstanding of cognit ion and life pr ocesses? What
inspire d your criticism of conven tional scientific practice, of
mainstream cognitive science, an d of classica l epistemology?
Varela: When l was studyin g at Harvard as a yo un g man and
w ritin g my thes is, I felt d issatisfied w ith the prevailing dis-
cow:se of represent ationi sm, with the compu tational mode l of
mind , and with the dominant epistemology. Why? I am not
rea lly sure myse lf. At the beginning, it was probably m ore of a
feeling that something was wro n g. One reaso n may have been
tha t l carne from ano ther coun try with a different cultur e and ,
therefore, never reaUy belonged; .in addi tion, I had no t been
edu cated in the stan dar d US way. It helpe d, I su ppose, tha t I
rea lly carne to the USA frorn a nother plane t.
Poerksen : You are re!err in g to Chile?

Va rela : No t on ly that; I spent my ear ly childh ood wi th my

fam ily in a small village in the mo un tains where everythin g I
h ad was the sky and th e an imais. Life there h ad barely
changed since the 18th centur y. At some la ter stage, I we nt to
school in the big city, with out ever forgetting abou t my roo ts,
and finally won a doctora l scholarship for Ha rvard , one of the
centr es of the scie ntific world . The lack of belonging and the
feeling of estra ngeme nt have accomp ani ed me since the days
of my bir th. To ap pear a little odd somehow an d to feel
somewh at peculi ar, is natura l for me and prov id es, so it seem s,
96 The Certainh; of Uncertainty

quite a good p latform for new discove ries and for perce pt ions
that may seem perplexing at first. When I began to prese nt my
own views, to expose them to critical deba te and to defend
them, my feeliJ1g of margina lisation ret urned in differe nt
form. I felt myself easily excluded, appea red as a weird charac-
ter to the scientific estab lishment, as someone who could no t
qu ite be trusted . But then I had the good for tune to mee t peo-
ple with whom a harmon ious relationship was poss ible, and
slowly my own perspective gained stab ility w1til it finally
became part and parce l of my persona lity.

The theory of emergence

Po erk se n: Your search for new and unfamiliar perspec tives
has led you, as one of your most recen t books shows (T'1e
EmbodiedMind: Cognitivescienceand lrnmanexperience), to com-
bine not only American cognitive science and European ph e-
nomeno logy, but also to unite these two disciplines with a
philosophy from the East - Buddhis m - to crea te a new the-
ory and a new research programme.
Varela : This combinat ion and connec tion is, in no way, arbi-
trary ora resu lt of persona l predilectio n only; iti s a cent ral part
of my work as a cognitive scientist. The ques tion is for me why
Buddh ism shou ld bc so in terest ing to a phenomen ologically
oriented theory of cognition that treats the bringi ng forth of
wor lds . The reason is that ther e is, at prese nt , a deep rift
betwee n natural science and the wor ld of immediate exper i-
ence that urgent ly needs to be bridged - par ticular ly wi th
regard to cogni tion. What is an investiga tion of
our min ds
worth if it does not even touch on living, embodied experi-
ence? What is the point of abs tract and disembodied reflec tíon
that separates body and mind into differen t objects of inqu iry?
Now it so happe ns that Buddhism is in itself a prac tically ori-
ented, non-Western phenome nology offering a precise analy-
sis of what human beings may experience, which is analogo us
to the cen tral research rcsu lts of cogniti ve science. lt sup ple-
ments, inspires, and supports the expe rimen tal approac h.
Buddh ism - sustained by qualified techn iques of self-exami-
nation - trains reflection that may be re-e nacted in one' s own
experience and <leais, amongst other things, wit h the essence
of mind, the notion of the self, and the concep t of a static and
localisable iden tity. The weak ness of Husse rlean phe n omen-
 Truth is what works 97

ology and its centr al orient ation towa rds experience is that it
lacks a well-de scribed and directly app licable meth od to
examine experience: the techn iques of Budd hist med ita tion as
prac tised for 2500 years inclu de such a method. This is th e rea-
son for uniting Bud dh ism with phenom enology and cognitivc
science.
Poerksen: How are we to und erstand tha t? Are you suggest-
i.n g that cogni tive scientists ought to m editate? It is har dly
imaginab le that the offensively rationa list science scene would
accept such a propo sal.
V arei a: I do n ot care wh ether peop le practise Budd hist medi-
tation or no t. Nor am I advo cating a com bin ation of Eastern
a nd Western thin king of w hatever kind; my goal is quit e
simp ly and clearly to perfo rm successful research . And that is
why I think that all good cog:nitive scientists, wh o want to
un de rstand th e mind , have to d ea l w ith th e specific
inves tigation and ana lysis of their own experiences and to
incl ude them selves in their reflection, in orde r to avoid the dis-
em bodied, abstra ct for m of descript ion of some ethereal min d
that does not carry us forward. This study of hu ma n exper i-
ence, w hich is grad u ally movi ng in to the centr e of cogn itivc
science and is accompa nied by a real boom of the inves tigation
of the mind, requires know ledge, trainin g, and a method; Bud-
dhi sm suppli es this m eth od. Runn ing around in gar den s does
n ot make people botanists; listenin g to sound s does not makc
p eople musician s; looking at colours does no t make peop le
pai nters. And in quite the sarne way, cognitive scien tists who
wan t to focus on the analysis of their own experiences and thc
study of the min d, must first be tau gh t to be expert s. They need
means and meth oqs to ov ercome their ord inary sense of rea l-
ity, to experi en ce imm ediately the p erp etuai activity of thc
mind , and to res train its unceasing restlessness. The Buddh:ist
techn.iques of medi tation lead to experiences an d insight s that
wo uld be w1think able w ithout such me thodica l schooling.
Poerks en: On e of th e cen tral goa ls ofB uddh ist meditation is to
realise th at the ego or th e self - understood as some stable,
localisa ble, and au tonomo us i.nstance of contr ol, wh:ich gov-
ern s our decisions - does n ot exist. This very thoug ht, how-
ever, con tradicts the stan dard concep tions of peop le socialised
in the West; they m uch ra ther see k th e stren gthen ing and
98 The Certainh; of Un certainty

sta bili.sat ion of their indi viduali ty. WiU this not lead to a new
rift between Buddhi st notions an d Western experiences? In
other word s: can cogn.itive science really be cornbin ed w ith
this key id ea of Buddhi sm ?
Vare la: Na tur ally, the ord inary m ind w ill have great difficulty
in even comp rehendin g the idea of self-lessness. Its exp erience
is, however, the conseq uence of d isciplined practice, no t the
res ult of a superficial ana lysis of the p ersonal self. Of cour se,
we alJ assum e, as a rul e, that there is a sta ble and und o ubtedly
even localisable self, and that this self is the actual found ation
of all our th ought s, percep tions, and actions. We believe in our
ident ity and the refore pr esume a firrn bas is on which w e stand
and from wh ich we act. When, however , the purport ed exis-
tence of this a utonomo us self is qu cstioned, then Buddh ist
exper ience and the insights of cognitive science rese mble and
sup p lement each other. Concem ing tltis specific qu estio n, in
par ticular, there is no gap at all betwee n the insights reached
thr ough me ditati on and the research res ults of cogn.itive sci-
ence. Both arr ive at the ide ntical conclusion that an independ -
cnt self canno t be detected and th at the search for it inevitably
lcads us astray .
Poerkse n: U there is no such thin g as an unamb iguously
localisab le self, how do you explain th e phenomenon that we
are all convinced of possessing a stable iden tity and an
uncha11geabJe essence?
Varela: On e of the m.ost impo r tant scient ific discover ies of the
20th centu ry is that locally i:nterac ting comp onents, if sub -
jected to cert ai n requ ire d rules , can p rodu ce a glob ally
emerging pa ttern - a new dimension of id entity, another
levei of being - that optim ally sa tisfies a certa in function. This
transition from locally effective ru les to globally emerging
pattern s en ables us to explain num erous different ph enomena
that would oth erwise re main totally mysteriou s and impene-
tra ble . Ali of a sudd e:n, we have - wi th in the fram ework of the
theory of complex ity and w it11the con cept of the dy namic sys -
tem - a universal key to unlock the bra in, a torn ado, an i.n sect
colony, an an ima l popu lation, and ult imately the experience
of the se lf. Why is tbe idea of an emergent pattern so in terest-
i ng? Con sider, for example, a colony of an ts. Jt is perfectly clear
that the local rul es manifest themselves i.n the interaction of
 Truth is what works 99

innumerable individual ants. At the same time, it is equal ly

clear that th e whole anthill , on a global levei, ha s an identity of
its own: it needs spac e, it occupi es space, it may di sturb or
obstruct the activiti es of human beings. We can now ask our -
selves where this insect colony is locat ed. Wher e is it? If you
stick your hand into the anthill, you will only be able to grasp a
numb er of ant s, i.e. the incorporation of local rul es. Further-
more, you will reali se that a central contr a i unit caimot bc
localised anywhere becau se it does not hav e an ind ependenl
identity but a relational one. The ant s exista s such but their
mutual relations produ ce an emer gent identity that is quite
real and amenable to dir ect experience. This mode of existence
w as unknown before: on the one hand, w e perceive a compact
id entit y, on the other, w e recognise that it has no determinable
substance, no loca lisable essential cor e.

Security in insecurity
Poerksen: So the se lf of a hum a n being w ould be, for you, an
emer gent patt em, too?
Varela: Exactly. This is one of the key idea s and a sh"oke of
geniu s in today' s cognitiv e science. There are the different
function s and comp onent s that combin ea nd togetherproduce
a tran sient, non -localisabJe, relation ally form ed self, which
neverth eless manif ests itself as a perceivable entity. We can
greet this self, give it a namc, .i.nteract with it in a pr edictable
w ay, but we will never discover a neuron, a soul, or some core
essence that constitu tes the emer gent self of a Fran cisco Varela
or som e oth er person. Any att empt to extricate a sub stance of
this kind is misleadin g and bound to fail as both cogniti ve sci-
ence and Buddhi sm demon stra te.
Poerksen: What are the impli cation s of these id eas forcla ssical
ethics where the essentiali st autonom ou s self is invok ed as the
addr essee of the demand s of the good and the bea utiful? We
might claim that giving up the id ea of the autonomou s self
rob s ethics of its found ations. Unexpected ly, the actor has
gan e missing . The aut onomou s, reflecting actor disso lves into
emergent patt ern s.
Varela: Thjs point of view d erive s, of cour se, from the Westem
conception that an autonomou s individual is the pr erequi site
of an ethical relation . You envisage an individu al that intera cts
JOO The Certainty of Uncertainty

with ano ther ind ivid ual in an ethica l or an UI1ethical way . Id o

not share the pre mises un der lying this view; they are not at all
convincin g and they do no t accor d w ith th e lates t resea rch
result s and the empir ical da ta tha t su pport the idea that the
mind is no ta singu lar ph enomenon but an intersubjective on e.
Recen t data from child develop men t research sh ow that the
very first actions of childre n are not primar ily intend ed to
streng then the indi vidu al perso nality but always serve to
build up relations hips with othe r peo ple. We develop our self
prec isely to the extent that other peop le h ave already att ained
such a self; the reflection in the other m akes the other' s aw are-
ness our own awareness . Th e situ ation manif esting itself here
recalls the relat ions between orga nism and environm ent, sub-
ject and object. There is mu tual determination; we cann ot say
whoorwha t was first. Th ismeans: the view tha t the min d of an
ethical actor is anchored somewhe re inside tha t indi vidual
contrad icts empir ical data. The mind that we ascrib e to an
ind ivid ua] is, in a most interest ing sense, already of a collec-
tive, intersubjective natur e. Wha t we are, as num ero us exper i-
ments w ith pr im ates and also divcrse neuro biological result s
show, is to the sarne extent individual and non-indivi d ual: it
belongs to the sphe re of intersubjec tivi ty.
Poerk sen: Mar vin Minsky, too, in.bis book Mentopolis, tluow s
ou t the self with the help of argum ents from cogniti ve science,
bu t then goes on to say that we should neverth eJess hold on to
the esscntialist idea of an aut onomous self: w e mu st, he writ es,
decide in favom of this self in arder to sa feguard the concep-
tual foundat ion of et hical behav iour.
Varela: ln respo nse to this I can on ly exclaim: what utt er non-
sense, wha t inane waffle! This is definitely the worst ever writ-
ten by Marvin Minsky. Can yo u imag ine th at yo ur ow n ethics
and you r releva nt mora l principies are based on decisions?
Poerksen: Of course I can. Whoever acts cthically, decides,
a nd chooses betwee n good and bad. And th is very act of choice
pres upposes an autonomo us and sta ble persona l self.
Varela : To my mind , such a p lea for an ethics based on deci-
sions seem s absurd because l believe th at my own moral pr in-
cipies should be based on tr uths that can be experienced and
re-enacte d . An eth ics of appa rently ra tion al decision s is highly
problematic both for pr agma tic and aesthetic reasons ; it lacks
 Truth is what works 101

powe r to convince, and it sedu ces to mora l pr eaching. The

decision to believe some thin g and then to act accor din gly is
arbitr ary and unco nvincin g for others. lt is without foun da-
tion, and it is no possible bas is for ethical behavio ur. Ho wever,
ifl take the assumpti on, which is self-evident , that every self is
int ers ubjective by its very natu re, as my point of depar tur e,
th en ethics acquires a new basis th at is no less liberating . There
is then no longer any need to pr each and observe comm on-
p lace mora l principl es, to procla im som e know-what, to
demand ra tional justification or follow an impera tive, but it is
impor tan t to develop an un ders tandin g of non-m oralist ethics
toge ther with the know-howof learnin g h ow to cope with situa-
tions in a spont aneo us and imm ediate way.
Poerkse n: Id o not agree. If my choice betwee n good and cvil is
usur ped by some experien tiaJ truth of wh atever kind, then
every possibility of acting in a resp onsible way is gone.
Every thing is decided, every thin g is pr e-ord ained; all I can do
is to endo rse my truth and my scientific view of the wor ld
accordin g to design. Eth:ics, in my view, pr esup poses the
freedom an d the necessity of choice - and choice requires
resp onsibility. Basing my e thics on so me truth , however,
des troys all my int eractive spaces wit h th eir openings in both
good and bad dir ections.

An ethics of spontaneous goodnes s

Varela : What can I say? You cannot seriously impl y that my
concepti on of truth is a sort of fund amenta list weltanschauung,
justified in so me way or other. For me, truth involves the ra di-
cal and maximally unbi assed observation of perso n al experi-
ence; it is .the result of Buddhi st practice, p heno menologicaJ
studi es, and scient ific researc h. lti s nothingfina l, it is no t fixed
for ali time, but it provid es a justification for my reflections of
eth ical ques tion s. If our po int of depart ure is a kin d of
non-esse nti alist iden tity and the int ers ubjective n ature of
hum an existence, then ethics can be justified in a mea ningful
way sup po rted by hum an experience . The contin ua [ p ractice
of se lf-explorat ion, the discove ry of self-lessn ess and the
intersubjective na ture of hum an existence, accord ing to the
ethical tradit ion of Buddhi sm, lead to behaviour insp ired by
care and comp assion for the fellow being. Openin g yo ur eyes
will enable you to w aJk on with out stumb ling. Exploring
102 The CertainhJof Uncertain.ti;

yourself and gradually building up your und ers tanding of

self-lessness and non-ind ividua lity will enable you to make
out the goal of the cultivation of the exper ience of inte rdeperl-
dence. And the condition of the fellow being will turn in to a
matter of direct personal concern.
Poerksen : If I unders tand yo u correct ly, th en wba t yo u are
proposing is actually to reverse the thes is formu lated at the 11:
beginniJ1g of our dispute abou t ethica l ques tions. You asser t:
the self is not the basis of ethics, at all; it is, on the cont rary, a
concept of division, of estrangemen t between me and anot her;
it is the reason for the impossi bility of real good ness.
Varela : Of course the idea of the ego or the self is of pragma tic
value as longas it is not understood in an essen tialist way; it
helps in everyday affairs; it helps to cope with life. But if you
understand your own self in an cssent ialist way as a territor ial
entity, which is firmly bounded and clearly defined, then you
are forced to defend it and to fortify it - and this sense of self
or ego then turns into a blockadc for a desira ble ethics. An
identification with an essentialis t self is a cause of suffer ing in
Buddhism .
Poerksen: Could one speak abou t the emergenceof ethics, in
your sense as we ll as in a Budd hist sense? All a t once, and
without centra l contra i and de terminatio n, a new quality of
behaviou r emerges, a practice of compassio n .
Varel a: Exactly. The ethica l qualit ies th at emerge then are not
the product of rationa l cons tru ction and ar tificial determina-
tion. The point of departure is: respons ible action consists in
the contin uai practice of self-explora tion. Ma rvin Minsky's
plea, in contrast, seems absurd : he demands of his readers -
knowiJ1g full well that he is contradic ting bis own insig ht s - a
lasling faith in an essentialis t self and the indi vidua l. Can one,
I ask myself, justify a moral po in t of view by mea ns of declara-
tions of faith t.h at one knows to be false? Mru:vin Minsky's
mora l dilemma consists in this bizarre kind of sch izophrc nia:
one ought to behave in a way that contrad icts one's ow n
insigb ts.
Poerk sen: Such schizopbre ni a does not appear bizarre to me,
at all. I can give you an examp le from personal expe rience tha t
may be helpful in this connec tion . A few years ago, I pu blished
 Truth is what works 103

a number of articles dealing with th e increasing aggressive-

ness of German neo-Nazis. In the course of my research, I met
a young man who had left the neo-Nazi scene - in th e face of
grave peril of his life and various bomb threats - and who is
now assist ing other neo-Nazis in gett ing out. When I became
acquaint ed w ith thi s young man, he still lived in a stron gly
id ealogised world, was still a racist, and was still fascinated by
physical violence. And yet, he was horrified by the terrible
conseque nces of h.is own belief s, wh en his so-ca lled "com-
rades" se t fire to a hou se inhabited by Turki sh familie s so that
the inhabitants burn ed to death. The death of those people
really touched hi:m. H e did not give up his view s immediately
but he de cid ed to ge t ou t. What I wa:nt to say is: his eventual
schizop hrenia proved to be the foundation of his hum an ity.
The contradiction betw een his ideo logica l truth and th e deci-
sion to live and act differentl y in spit e of it, became the basis of
an e thics. It transformed a battering Naz i into a compassionate
cont emporary.

Varela: This example is definit ely un suitabl e to d efend

Marvin Min sky' s pJea. Minsky demands to believe so mething
of who se falsity one is convinced. The story of that neo-Nazi
tells us, however, tha ta young man reali ses, for w hatev er rea -
sons - through intuition , an a.rgume nt, or some surpri sing
insight - that his ideologically cond itioned perception of th e
situ ation is ev id ently wrong and untru e. I su spe ct that the
renewed a nd less pr ejud iced ana lysis wa s the cau se of the
chan ge: h e parted with bis sys tem of beliefs becau se h e had
beco me convin ce d by argument s, by slow ly growing insight,
or by hi s own per so nal exper iences .

Poerksen: But the que stion h er e is not at all whether a percep-

tion mat ches the fact s or not. The cause for th e tran sformation
of that neo- Nazi, in my opinion, was nota n ew and more cor-
rect insi ght. The re lev ant distinction is not betwe en true and
false but between good and evil.This neo-Nazi changed beca u se
he reali sed that it wa s bad, that it wa s m1jus t, to kill oth er peo-
ple, alth oug h h e con tinu ed to consider them inferior.

Varela: I do not see w hat you mean. Wh en that yo un g man

reali se d that lt was not right to kill other peopl e, he reject e d
and repudiated with thi s new insight his old belief that it was
quite acceptable simp ly to murder alleged ly inferior p eo ple.
104 The Certainti;of UncertainhJ

He sudden ly r ea lised th at th e stran gers whom he though t to

be inferior were hum an beings, that they suffered, tha t they
were worthy of !ove and that they dese r ved his compas sion.
Such an insight can only come abo u t after a searching ana lys is
and exploration of the situation and the se lf, whi ch will then
grad ua lly chan ge the prevai lin g belief. You see m to refer the
tran sfor mation of that yo un g manto some tot ally ind epend ent
and mome nt-bound decision, the reby making thi s decision
appear a wholly rational matter through which one, in full
awareness, turn s onese lf into a sch izoph renic. However, thi s
idea of a p ervasive ly ratio na l and totally inde pend ent decision
is, in myeyes, ani llu sion: onenever decides; one is simp lycon-
fronted one da y by a chan ge in one's beliefs. At some sta ge,
one contemp la tes one's life, com p arab le to a process of emer-
gence, and fi.nds tha t an even more fundamental change rni ght
be call ed for.

Poerksen : What do you rnean by saying that we do not make

any dec ision s with reference to ethi cal q uest ions? Perhaps
ano ther concrete examp le, one that seems closer to your v iews,
may be of assistance her e. The phi losopher Hans Jona s claim s,
like you do, that eth ics is not a matter of rationa l decis ion. His
key examp le : you notice a baby lying on the ledge of an open
upper-storey wind ow and see it slowly mo ving back and
for th. Jona s says: "Ju st look - an d yo u kn ow!" Th e impul se to
rush u pstairs in order to rescue the littlc being from falling is
so immediate, so spo nt a neo u s, and so direct that we sim ply
cannot speak of rational delibe r ations of any kind.

Varela: The Chinese writ er Me ng- tzu uses a sim ilar exa mple.
lt invo lves a smaH child on the ed ge of a we ll. Who , the tao ist
Meng -tzu asks, wou ld not rush to the we ll and pull the child
away? Bu t Meng-tzu interprets the situ a tion in a somewha t
different way from Hans Jonas: the sponta neous, sudd en
insight tha t something whic h is good for oth ers is also good for
onesclf, appears to 11.imto be a gene r al human trait. His co nclu-
sion is th at we do no t have to take any decis ion or invent any
rules in such a situation. Sp ontan eous com pa ss ion is, h e
th:inks, already pr ese nt in all hum an be i.ngs. The virtuous dif -
fer from others only because they develop this exper ience of
spon taneous co mpa ss i on furth er and expa nd it to
accommodate ot her situati ons; they detach it, as it were, from
the very sim ple and extre me case of the sweet little bab y
 Truth is what works 105

threatened by deat h. The virtuo us have manage d to exper i-

ence, and thu s to comp rehend in a very pro fou nd sense, tha t
we are all one, tha t hum ankind possesses a collective con-
sciousness. Such an insight, howeve r, inev itably re qui res
intensive trainin g. We need to train o urse lves in a sys tematic
way to be able to assess less extreme an d less clear-cu t
situations in order to reac t immediately. Budd hi sm even goes
one step furth er th an the Ch inese wr iter Meng-tzu, wh o
believes in the fun damental goodn ess of a ll hu man beings. If
the experience of self-lessness dee pens, i.t is claimed, then this
may in itself eventu ally become an express ion of the highes t
ethics, a manifes ta tion of spont an eous, loving care, as it rad i-
ates from the Buddh as pas t and prese nt. They do not rad iat e
this Jove for others because they have been think ing, nor
because they have decided on love, b ut beca use their who le
being is love . The expe rience of an abso lu te rea lity is love. It is
imm ersed in Jove.
Poerks en: ln your book EthicalKnow-Howyou also refer to this
rea lity imme rsed in love. You quote the Budd hist assumpti on
"that au thentic sorro w inh abits the found a tions of ali Being
and can be made to unfo ld fully through continuai e thical edu-
cation ."
Varela: I cons ide r this a most interesting hypo thesis, not a
truth that I would submit to un cond ition ally . Iam no t decide d
as to tha t, but such an assum ption at tracts my special attenti on
beca use I have always h ad the good fortu ne in my life to mee t
peop le who radi ated an uncond itional feeling of loving care
and spo ntaneo us mercy. It is very moving to see how such love
and concern for ano ther rnani fest themse lves in action - with -
outr equ iri ng word s. Finally, mu ch of what is said in Buddh ist
circles ma tches my own modest experiences: the less I culti -
va te my ow n small self as the centre, the better I manage to care
for others, the better I can listen to my children and p ay a tten-
tion to them and their needs.

Postmodern biology
Poerksen: How, do yo u think, can we reach a decision on
whether there is realJy something like a fundamentnlly good
existence?
106 The Certain.t;tof UncertainhJ

V arela: Well, my answer will pro bably strike you as qu ite

familiar : "Keep your mind open! Let us continue to look !" The
goa l is not at all, as Buddh ist teachers never tire of poin ting
out, to accept some dogma without reservat ion; the goal is, on
the contrary, to cast doubts on it and to test it in one's own
experience . We must pus h on with self-exploration in order to
be able to decide about the poss ible truth of such a hy pothesis
quite pragmatica lly.
Poerk sen: Study ing the teaching parab les of the Buddhist
masters reveals that their tales and stories keep contrad icting
conventional moral ity fundamen tally. There is the drun ken
figure of the holy fool. A crazy sage appears who hacks off one
of his discip le's fingers in order to pus b him into some spir i-
tual experience. There is the illuminated knave who sleeps
with his female pupils. My question is now: how is this abso -
lute ethics and tbe unconditional, all-embracing, loving care
related to conventional mora li ty, which is pr imarily
concemed wit h lead ing a respectab le life?
Varela: I cannotreally say anything precise about that because
I simply do not know. However, l wan t to wam of the prema-
ture ju dgment making conventiona l moral standa rds the base
for an all-encompassing devalua tion and degrada tion. I am
not atall opposed tocensur ingeve n extraordinary people bu t I
p lead for the proper expansion of the context of observat ion
and for avoiding a fixation on isola ted transgressions . Na tu-
rally, we may be angry with a mastcr who is always drunk but
we must also see his behaviour in the light of his self-effacing
activities from wl1ich so ma ny people profit simultaneous ly.
Poerksen: l shoul d like to conclude with a qucs tion anda the-
sis. The question m ight per haps - part icularly at tbe end of
this conversation - sound strange in your earn becausc it is
directed at sornething like a rela tively stable, attribu table iden-
tity . Here it is: Who is Francisco Varela? One possible answe r
comes from the cultura l scientis t Andreas Weber: he once
wrote that you are practising some thin g like a post modern
biology. Among the characterist ics of pos tmodem thinking,
whet her well-intentioned or not, are the rejection of absolu te
conceptions of truth and static ideas of iden tity, the integratio n
of va riety irrespective of traditiona l boun daries, a fundame n-
tal enth usiasm for the plura lity of the Jiving and for all new
 Truth is what works 107

possibilities. Would you be cont en t with this categorisa tion of

w hat you do as a kind of postmodern biology and cogni tive
science?
Varela: Well, such a la bel does not mak e me unh ap py nordoes
it di sclose any extraordin ary insight s for me. I know, of cour se,
that my a ttempt to combin e diverse perspectives and researc h
do mains tend s to disturb the pr esent scie ntific scene. And I
supp ose one coul d, in fact, descr ibe this int egrative p osture as
a kind of postmodern qua lity. I cann ot, h owever, iden tify in
prin ciple w ith the confidence with w hich the postmode rn
think ers believe in the comp lete base lessness of all thin gs. My
love of science and my daily work as a scienti st make me
assu me a mor e conservat ive attitud e here. I am not sure,
either, wha t Jabel might descr ibe me be tter . My tcach er
Chõgyam Trun gpa once called me an all chee1ful bridgeand
gave me th.i.s name . What does it mean? He said that I was a
man who always wan ted to buil d brid ges, design new connec-
tions, and combine different thin gs w i.th enor mous enjoy-
ment. Tha t is corr ect.
 CHAPTER 5

We are constructs
ourselves
Gerhard Roth on the c rea tion of rea lity in th e b ra in,
on a rea lity indepe ndent from human
consciousness, and on the relat ionship between
neurob iology and philosop hy

erh ard Ro th (b. 1942)

G studied philosophy, Ger-

man phil ology, and mus i-
cology, obtained doctorates in
phi losophy and in zoology. Sincc
1976, he has been professor of
behav ioura l phy siology at the
Unive rsity of Bremen, since 1997
al so fo unding pres iden t of the
Han se- Wis sen schaft slwl leg a t
Delmen horst near Bremen. This
College is intende d to be a place
for the cross- borde r deb ate of
quest ion s of cogni.tive science,
anda forum for the interdiscip lin-
ary exchang e between the social and the natura l sciences.
Roth' s primary research intere st - he is, at pr ese nt,
engage d mainl y in brain research - is the encoun ter of a
barcly conceivab le kind : the encou nter between mattcr and
m ind, natu re and cognition, in the brain of an adu lt hu man, an
organ weighing about 1300 gra ms and containin g betwee n
100,000 million anda billion neuro ns. It is still some thing of a
puzzle how the material substance of the neuro ns affects the
immaterial substance of the mind (and vice versa). It is we ll
know n that the act of thinking is accompan ied by a concert of
firing neurons, and that it cannot, therefore, take p lace with ou t
a base that is located in the brain; but as yet, a full unde rstan d-
110 The Certain ty of Un.certain
h;

in g of the m echa ni sm s of thi s int erac tion h as no t bee n

achieved .
The basic project, whose con tour s ha ve - desp ite the m an y
un so lved problems - becom e discernibl e, is comm itted to
unr ave lling ul tima te m ys teries th at do no t repose in rem o te
reg ions of sp ace or in an extern ai un iverse but d eep within
hum an bein gs. Their soluti on is n ow expected to be delivere d
by biology . Ge neticists are decoding th e hum an genom e;
ne urobiologists ar e wor kin g on a na tura list expl an ation of
cogni tion and con scio usness. Th erefo re, Roth - direc tor at the
lnstitute ofBr ain Rese arch at the University of Bremen - calls
cogni tive neur obiology, with refere nce to th e Ger man termi-
nologica1 tr ad i tion, a geisteswissenschaft, "of a specia l kind ". It
in ves tiga tes how percep tions and ment al sta tes take pl ace. It
attempts to tackJe the key qu estion of the re lation betwee n res
extensa (ma tter) and res cogitnns(mind ; spirit ; consciousness)
that h as re mained v iru lent since René Descar tes firs t formu -
lated it in the 17th centur y. It descri bes how a h u man br ain
pro du ces the image of an ex tern al wo rld with all its riches of
so u nds, sme lls, colo urs and sh apes. Th e link betw een this
researc h progra mm e as desig ned by Roth and th e cogn.itive
qu est of constru ctivism is im med iately ap p aren t: the purpose
of cog nHive neu robiology is to d iscove r the r ules of rea lity
const ruction as they opera te in an organ.ism's brain .

The unknowability of the absolute

Poerksen : It is comm onl y ass um ed that perce pti on is a repre-
sentation of reality: the know ing mind , it is claimed, mirrors
so methin g that is extern a] to it. You insist, h oweve r, that our
organs of percepti on and our brains are essenti ally incapab le
of app re hending the wor ld in its primord ial, its rea l, gestaJt.
What are the arg ument s supp orting th.is claim ?
Roth : The fir st arg u me nt is that on ly very few eve nt s in th e
world can s timul ate the sense organs an d affect them at all.
What is pe rceive d is, therefo re, neve r a rep resen ta tion of wha t
exists but always a selection. Th e mos t an cient sense orga n s
are pr oba bl y the ch em orecep tors; they are a p arti cul arl y
arc haic eq uipm en t for the p ercep tion of the world. For organ-
isms living in a wa tery envir on ment , it is impor tant to distin -
g ui sh bet w ee n foo d , en emi es, and ma tin g p artn ers, to
rna intain equilibrium and orienta tion, bu t cer tainly unn eces-
 We are constructs ourselves 111

sary to know what the proper ties of the wor ld as such might
be. Neither are th e human sense organs geared towar ds the
exact apprehension of reality; they serve to identify hap pen-
ings in the enviro11ment that are relevan t for ou r su rviva l.
Only when the problems of surviva l are so lved, can we start
the phi losophical discussion as to wh ether any thi ng exis ts at
all, or whether something exists inde pende ntl y from our bio-
logical needs.
Poerk se n: Now we could argue, howeve r, that sense organs
h ave - re lati ve to the intensity an d the dma tion of the sur -
viva l training during th.e course of evo luti on - beco me ever
better adapte d to the externai sh·uctur es of the rea l world. Th e
more successful an organism's ac tivities in its environm ent
are, it is claimed, for ins tance, by the pro ponent s of evo lution-
ary epistemology, the grea ter the precision of its representa-
tion of an ex ternai world will be.
Roth: It is an in teresting fac t that most of th e oldes t organisrns
that have survived and reproduce d successfu lly for a very
long time - bacter ia, unice llu lar and simple m ulticellu lar
organisms - do not possess a11ything resembling a bra in. The
view of evo lutionary epis temolog ists is wrong for one basic
reason: successful survival, in the majority of cases, is simp ly
not dependent on complex sense orga n s an d a complex ner-
vou s system. Often quite pr imitive perce ptu al equip ment is
sufficient. However, as soon as the organisms with simple
structures have occupied ali the niches, brains th at are more
complex develop because, due to the comp etitive strugg le,
anima ls are pushed into cnvironmen ts that are more dif ficult
to cope with : the enenúes camouflage themselves; it is mo re
labor ious to find food and to recogn ise prey; and social and
sexua l relations are proportiona tely more comp!icate d .
Po erk sen: So the bra in was or igina lly an organ of flight and a
mode of dodging in orde r to colonise other niches .
Roth: We mig ht say so, indeed, whe n exam inin g the course of
evolution with all d ue calm and restra in t. The increase in the
complex ity of sense organs and brains does not imp ly, how-
evc r, that orga nisms are ab le to app rehend the wor ld with a
higher degree of ontic adequacy : the perce ption of bats, work-
ing with low-band echo locat ion, is tun ed to f1uttering insec ts.
112 The CerfainhJof UncertainhJ

Th ese animals are not truth seeker s; all th ey want is to ca tch

their prey in complete darkness.

Poerksen : Are you sugg esting that human perception is no

better or worse than a bat' s vision in darkness? Or do our
image s o.freality ind eed come closer to the absolute reality of
what is given?

Roth: That might cer tainl y be the case unJess we are under the
impr ess ion of a gigantic delusion - which cannot be
excluded, of course . The brains of our primate relatives are not
designed to atta in abso lutely valid knowledge of th e wor ld;
we human s, how ever, unJike most other animals, possess the
capabilihJof lookingahead,the fund amen tal ability of presaging
what will happ en next. Such predictive compe tence sets us
apart from bats or macaques and does ind eed imply that our
grasp of th e world is of a more objective kind. The potential
incr ease of objective know ledge wou ld then be no mor e than a
sor t of by-product of the pecu liar evo lution of our brain s.
Poerksen: How would yo u check a gradual approximation of
reality?

Roth: Tbis will have to remain a hypot hesis, a reasonable

assumption, no mor e. However, we can definitely claim
within the confine s of our expe ri enti al rea lity that it would be
an enormou s advantage for macaq ues to be able to di scern
what their tribal companions were planning to do with in the
nextfew hour s. Macaques, however, are notvery interested in
the thou ght s of others (unlike chimpan zees and human s); they
rnay not even possessa theoryofmind: they may not be ab le to
tak e another' s poi ntof view soas to predict their activiti es. Are
the perceptions of rnacaques less object ive? The answer to this
question mu st remain a matter of taste, which is not ame nabl e
to a fina l assessment.

Poerksen: The question of taste, th en: are you in favour of

assumi ng that human perception is increasingly gettingcloser
to ontic reality?
Roth: One of my beliefs is that we are ind eed ab le - within
given con strain ts on cognition - to assess different or even
contradictory theories as more or less valid. An as tronome r's
prediction of the position of a planet is either correct or incor-
 We are constructs ourselves 113

rect; we can, therefore, say with some justification th at the cor-

rect computation is a more adequate representation of the
world of the planets than other mode ls that lead to incorrec t
predictions. Tha t is why Iam nota radical construc tivist view-
ing science and magi cas equally valid concep tions of reality. I
insist on a precise distinction between different leve ls of plau-
sibil ity . Science is on a different plane from magic; its predic-
tions are more s uccessful.
Poerksen: Reviewing the first few moves of our conversa tion,
1 notic e a con stant osci llation be twee n two pos ition s. You
empha sise, on the one hand, that there can be no doubt that we
are cognitively constrained. On the other hand , you appear to
imp ly that certain perceptions are more va lid than others in an
absolute sense. It seems to me that these two pos i.tions
contradict each other.

The brain and its reality

Roth: The contrad iction arises only if one fails to make accu-
rat e di s tinction s, in one's epistemological worldview,
between metaphysical statements about the existe nce of the
objective wor ld , and differ ent ially reasonabl e assu mp tions. I
cannot, in principle, say anything about a world that is inde-
pendent from my mind. Everythi.ng Iam capab le of saying is
d ep endent on my consc iousn ess and my unconscious. An
"o bjectives tatement" in thisco ntex twould indeed bcacon tra-
diction in terms. Nevertheless, it seems po ssib le to increase tl1e
internai consistency of assert ions in our world s of experience
and science by allowing ourse lves to be guided not ju st by
intu itions but by strictly regula ted proced ures of scientific
investiga tion. ln this way, we can reach an extremely practica-
ble sys tem of assumptions, which i.t wou ld be sim ply absurd
and unrea sonab le to call int o question. When someone te lls
me that it is raining, I can easily check that by going outs ide
and observing whether the sun is shining, w he ther there is
on.Jya drizzle, or whether it is pouring. I may ask other people
to corroborate my individual percep tion intersub jective ly in
order to increase its internai consiste ncy and coherence and to
exclude possible sensory delu sions. But thi s p ha se of doubt,
although rea so nable and significant, must terminate at some
point.
114 The Certainty of UncertainhJ

Poerksen: ln yo ur books, you pr esent the thesis that the brain,

w hich construct s its own wor ld, belongs itself to a world inde-
pend ent from the human mind; the brain, yo u claim, is part of
the sphere of absol ute and uncondition al reality. How are we
to und erstand that?
Roth: The thesis is necessary because the world of science does
not admi t logically contra dict ory sta tement s. For n euro-
physio logy, the basic assumpti on is, of cour se, that every thing
I perceive is con stru cted by a brai n th at also consb:ucts me, my
own self. To rend er such an assumption p lausible I mus t
pr esuppo se the real existence of a brain that produces this
experience. Althou gh there can be no final proof, it seems most
reaso nable and pl aus ible to me to posit the existence of an
externai world ind epende nt from the human mind, wh ich
contain s, amongst other thing s, rea l bra ins. Extending radical
d oubt to the bra in and its existence in reality would entangl e
me in contr adictions.
Poerksen: Id o not see why. l can argue with wond erfu l consis-
tency: as a neurobiolo gist I formulate whatever I say with.in
given biologica t a nd cultural cog nit ive con st rai n ts; the
assumption of an externai w orld that is ind epend ent from
these constraint s is unn ecessary . I would in fact pro po se a con-
trary claim: tbe duali st division betwee n a real br ain and a
tenuou s reality construct ed by that brain leads to a contr adic-
tion . My thesis is: this dua lism is essenti ally a clandes tin e rea l-
ism.

Roth: Let us at tack the prob lem as clearly and logically as pos-
sible. The claim in que stion is: Bis produced by A and depend s
on A; it is, however, un certain that A exists. lf l do not know
that A exists, I canno t knôw wh ether B exists. Conseq uentl y,
the existence of both A and Bis un certain. If I take as my point
of departur e my own cons cious experience and tbe feelin g and
thinkin g instance of my self, which it would be a bsurd to
doubt because there is no alterna tive, then there must also be a
bra.in that produced that experience and the perceived phe-
nomenal world, in the fu st place. This reality -pro duci.ng sys-
tem - namely, the brain - cannot , for tog ical rea sons, be par t
of th e constructed exp erien tial wor ld that I perceive: the
autbor of a play cann ot be par t of it, excep t as an actor; th e
 We are con.structsourselves 115

paint er of a pictur e cannot be part of i t, except as one of its com-

ponents .
Poerksen: A consistent fonnu lation from a constr uctivi st p er-
spective might look like this: we are all drifting around in a
dark universe, we draw up cer tain pro jections of reality in
places, we des cribe - condition ed by edu cation and socialisa-
tion - a brain and its reali ty, and atsome stage we stop. There
can be no point at w hich I could poss ibly extricate myse lf from
my wor ld of obse rver-dependent d escr iption s and ma ke
assertions that would factually refe r to an abso lut ely valid
reality and a brain in itself.
Roth: But that is not tbe prob lem at a ll. The problem is mu ch
rath er that even constructi vists are comp elled to make certain
logical assumptions to make their asser tions and pronoun ce-
ment s meaningfu l. Constructivists cannot deny the existence
of an observer and of observations; they mu st pr esuppo se the
existence of their mind s.
Poerksen: Who is th.isobserver? Who is this consciously expe-
riencing self?
Roth: Ultimate ly, of courne, nothing but a cons tru ct, too. There
is no self that is sittin g somew here in the brain wa tchin g the
images of an extern ai world on a screen, and trying hard to
puzzle ou t whe ther these im ages matc h an un intelli gible
world or not. Such scenario s correspond precisely to the ep is-
temology of su bjective idealism held by man y const ructi vists .
The question how such a self constru cts its own wor ld see rns
tota lly abs urd to me; this kind of view mus t be ra dically aba n-
don cd. There is no self that con slTucts the world and wa tches
images in its brain; noth ing exists except constr ucts by brains.
We are constructs ourse lves. I am forced to formul ate: I exist,
but as a state of sensa tion and exper ience, Iam a constru ct, I am
an image, only a virtual actor, a virtua l world of exper ience for
tryin g and tes ting possibilities of actfon, for plann ing a future.
Such a virtual centre we call a self; itis extremely beneficial for
smv ival in compl ex and strongly fluctua ting en vironment s.

I think, therefore I am
Poerksen: Wha t d o you then mean by asserting that the mind
anda self i1evertheless exist? What do es exis tence mean?
116 Th.eCertainty of Uncertaintt;

Roth: To exist simpl y rneans: I exist, think, and sense myself

h ere and now! Apart from that, the conce pt of existencecanno t
be defined with precision from a scie ntifi c poi.nt of view Gust
r emern ber the odditie s of quantum p hysics). To deny the real-
íty of one's thinkín g and , conse qu en tly, of one 's existence
wou ld be bizarre, as was alr eady clear to René Desca rtes. The
cu ltiva tion of total d ou bt would rende r any furth er i.nves tiga -
tion of rnind and brain pointle ss and logica lly incoherent.
Ho we ver, if my own thin king is no lon ger in doubt I can take
the second logica l step an d see k an answer to su ch questio n s
as: where do I come from, who created me and my consc ious
expe rí ence, w ho produced me? If Id o not take the view of th e
so lip sist that I have cr ea ted myself, then I must h ave been pro-
duced by som e thing else . The a nswe r of the const ru ctiv íst and
ne urnbi olog ist Ger hard Roth is: there is a sys tem ca lled the
brain ; it has produced me a.nd caused my exis ten ce; and if I
exist in my world of expe rience then that brain must exist, th e
brain that I can de scr ibe with neurobio logical models. And
th en the next logica l step is: if the neurob iol ogica l assum p tion s
are correc t and intern ally consisten t, if the brain is actually
present in my body, then an env ir onm en t must also be
ass um ed, w íth which I can interne t a:nd by which Iam nour-
ished. So there mu s t be an env ir onment for pure ly logi cal r ea-
so ns.

Poerksen : The int ellec tua l approac h a nd the figure of argu-

m ent you are emp loy in g are, consequen tly, anc hored in th e
Cartesian "J think , th erefore I am", and you then proceed to
genera lise th is primary a.nd indisputabJe exis tent ia l ass ump -
tion step by step and fínally extend it to cover both the bra ín
and the envir onm ent.

Roth: You could pu f it tha t way. The final remai.ning q ues tion
is whe ther th e assump tion of a mind -ind epende nt world is
inconsistent with thi s lin e of reason in g. My answer is: no, it is
not. On the contr ary, it is highly plaus ible to assume that my
self is identica l w ith a s tate of my brain, that thi s bra in is an
integral part o f my body, that my body belongs to an
organism, and that thi s orga :nism is situ ated in an environ-
ment tha t is indepe nd ent from my mind. Such a lin e of reason -
in g carefu 11y evades the qu es tion whether my asse rti ons are
objectivelycorrect. Jt res ts entir ely o n log ical inference, and not
on metaph ys ica l spec ula tion .
 We are constructs ourselves 117

Poerksen: I cannot follow the last argu men tative ste p in the
chain of your generalisation of exis tential assumptio ns. I can-
not see how you finally manage to derive the claim that a
mind-i:ndependent real ity exists .

Roth: Well, in that case yo u fail to understand one of the cen-

Lwl assumptions of both the modera te and the radica! varian ts
of cons tru ctivism: eve n the rad ical cons tru ctiv ist admits that it
would be absurd to cast doubt on the view that there is a world
existíng independent ly from my thi nking and the existence of
my mind.
Poerksen: For me, utterances of this so rt be tra y the hid de n
metaphysics of construc tivism: sornething is claimed about
whic h - acco rdin g to accepted prem ises - nothin g can be
said, and th.en fundamentally un tes table exis tential asse rti ons
are derived . The assumption of a n unquest ionably existe nt
externa i world certai.nly sounds more reaso nab le and more
welcoming and will certainl y boost its pub lic accep tance. A11
the sa me, aga inst the background of th e basic cont en tion s, thc
assumption see ms to me mere spec ulation.

Roth : Your criticism is fallacious. Although I may start with

th e adm ission tha t my claims concer ning a m ind -independ en t
world are in no way absolute ly ce rta in, nobody can pr event
me from specula ting abo ut the potenti al existenc e of tha t
wor ld and to try to deve lop m y ow n ideas abo ut it in as ratio-
nal a way as possible. Let us assume that the re is a mind-inde-
pendent world to which we ascribe speci fic proper ties. J can
then ponder what might follow from tho se assmned prope r -
ties . As a scie nt ist, I can make cer tain predictions; and [ may in
the end - sho uld the pred iction s be con firmed - arr .ive at an
inter subj ective ly p lausible mode l of tha t world, which can
con tinua lly be improved. Let me repeat that the only po ssi bil-
ity t see is the optimisation of this intern ai consisten cy. Scien-
ti.sts, however carefully they may proceed, can do no mor e
than to pe rceive observations and research data and re late
th em to each other. Their observat ions can on ly be checked by
means of other observations; they can never extricate them-
se lves frorn the world of human perceptio n and th inkin g.
Saying this and asserting it explic itly befo rehand, enta ils that
I canno t be classified as an objectiv ist anda met aphys icist.
118 The Certainh;of Uncertainty

Poerksen : Nonetheless, whoever describes an unbr id geable

frontier of cognition and an eterna lly hidd en abso lut e, w ill
un avoidab ly inspire attemp ts to tackle the que stion of what
might lurk behind that frontier. They will aro use cur iosity and
interest and stimula te the explora tion of the unknown. Per-
haps metaphy sics and mysticism w ill rega in a place in the
wa ke of such const ru ctivist inspiration.
Roth: It is indeed my impr ession that some constru ctivists are
mystics straig ht and simpl e. Their glorifica tio n of th e
unknowable is the reason for my reserve and also, of course,
for variou s disputes. 1 approac h these ques tions in a much
more innocent way, and I am amaze d to observe o ver ando ver
again how even sane p eop le can perce ive the so-called oneand
only world in so many di.fferent ways, immune to any enlight-
enment, and how th ey construc t their own realities in their
brains.

The language of the neurons

Poerksen: How d oes thi s take pla ce? Perhaps the bes t
approach wou ld be the demon stra tion of a very simpl e situa-
tion: some externa! stim ulus is registered, and sudd enly we
perce ive some thin g, we hear a melody, feel pain, or see a pic-
tur e. How does our brain cons tru ct such se nsa tions and
impressions?
Roth: Only a tiny frac tion of the totality of extern ai stimuli
reaches us, and only a portio:n of that fraction is transfo rm ed
into electric activity, the uniform code of the nervous sys tem,
and int o chemical messengers, so-called transnútt ers. Toe
brain has produced the reality we exper ience and live in. The
brain, how ever, ha s no direct contac t with the envirornne nt,
and therefore the tran sition from the physical and chenú cal
environment is a radical break. Everything we see, hear, sme ll,
think, and feel is the res ult of a gigantic constructio n
performance of the brain.
Poerksen: ln precise detail: What h appe ns w hen we both see a
picture?
Roth :Seeing a picture has many dimensions. What reaches the
brain from the photoreceptors in the eye, the rods and cones,
via a num ber of int erme diate processo rs, are, however, only
 We are constructs ourselves 119

two kinds of information relating to the wavelength and the

intensity of a point of light. From the different wavelengths,
the brain later computes the colour of the picture; the light
intensity is the source of the distinction between bri ght and
dark areas. The impression of spat ial distribution , gesta lt,
form, and depth is derived from the activities of many differ-
ent receptors by the brain. The consequence is that there is no
colour, no form, no space, no movement, no depth, and defi-
nite ly no meani.ng, at the leve! of the retina.
Poerksen: You say : what excites my sense organs is no t coded
there in its specific physica l or chemica l properties bu t reaches
the brain exclusively in the form of electric impulses and
neurotransmitters. This means, however, that the motley,
multi-coloured, and many-shaded world in which we live
must somehow re-emerge from the indi stinguis hable grey of
the uniform neuronal code.
Roth: It is the highly skilled task of the theory of perce ption to
explain tbis. The first father of modem ph ysiology, Johan nes
Müller, believed that re lating the differen t sensory qua lities
and modalities to various subs tan ces that are tran sm itted
through the nerves might solve the problem of the infin ite
mu ltiversity of perception. He pos tul ated subs tance s of
vision, hearing, smell, and taste, which on externai stimu lation
creep from the eyes, the ears, the nose etc. throug h the neural
tub es to the brain. Toe bra.in then assesses the incoming sub-
stances and decides: aba, a visual impre ssion, a smell, or a
tas te!
Poerksen: This would actually mean that the wor ld's infinite
nuances are already integrated into the receptive apparatus of
human beings.
Roth: This view inspired Joha nnes Müll er to formu late the
famous law of the specific ity of sensory energy. His p up il
Hermann von He lmholtz, who discovered toge ther with his
colleagues that ali sensory slimulatio n was transformed into
relatively uniform nervous impulses, refuted it jus t over a
hundred ycaJs ago. This is the princip ie of the neutra/ih)of the
neuronalcode. Its acceptancerenders the multiplicity of percep-
tual conte nt s very mysterious . Sensory physio logy, the grow-
ing sceptic Hermann von He lmh oltz asserted, would never be
able to explain the differ ent experient ial qualit ies. However,
120 The Certainty of Uncertainti;

this is an errar. Our sensory apparatus, it is true, converts all

the different stimuli - electromagnetic wav es, odorous mole -
cu les, sound wave s, mechanical deformation s - into more or
less identical neuron al excitation s. When I record su ch excita-
tions in my laborator y, I cannot te l1 wh ether the re gistered
nerve impul se is related to smell or taste, feeling or thinking.
But the brain can do that. How do es it manage to create our
infinit ely vari ed exp eriential wor ld from the uniform pulp of
neuronal events? The solution of the puzzle: it essentially
depend s on the location of the imp ulse in th e brain. If there is
an impul se in th e visual corte x, a visual impres sion will arise
indep e nd ently from wh ere th e e xcitation come s from,
whether it orig inat es in a natur al input from the retina or i:nan
electric stimulation . If the sarne impul se, how ever, reaches the
auditory cort ex, an auditory sen sation will arise, if it arriv es in
the somatos ensory cort ex, the brain w ill register an impr es-
sion of tou ch . There are compar able special areas in the brain
for quali ties like colour and form.
Poerksen: The activation of a particular spot causes a specific
impr ession to arise; suddeniy we hear and feel.
Roth: Exactly. The optic nerve terminat es in a particular sec-
tion of the brain , wh ich is different from th e term in al areas of
the auditory nerve s. lf there w ere confu sion, we could hear
lightning and see thund er for a whil e, until th e brain had regis-
tered the mix-up throu gh behaviomal contr a i and rewir ed
itself. The specificity of an impul se res ults, as we know toda y,
from the topology of the brain: different loca tions of activity
define the modality, the qu ality and the int ensity of a stimulu s.
Poerksen: How doe s this explanation fit the observation that
we cann ot perceive stimuli separately, that we cannot experi -
ence colour, form , and movement ind ep end ent ly? There
ou ght to be afurther mechani sm in the brain that integrate s the
div erse excitation s into the fina l compr ehensive impr ession,
whi ch might , for instance, mean: this is a big red ball flying
through the air.
Roth: There is ind eed such a mechani sm but before it can be
activated, the different sensory stimuli mu st first be con sti-
tut ed ind epend ently from each other. This is necessarily so
becau se after the different kind s of information hav e been
pool ed they cannot be recovered again. Wheneve r w e see
 We are constructs ourselves 121

som ethin g we do not only perce ive the total image but we can
always pick out singu lar impr essions and de tails, describ e
partic ulari ties like colour or forro etc. This means that the po s-
sibility of recognising both details of arbitr ary calibre and th e
overall image must be available in par allel. Here, too, the brain
works w ith distribu ted and an atomically clearly distinguish -
able cen tres . Some are res ponsible for de tails, oth ers for the
total view .
Poerksen: ln the pro cess of percepti on an event first becomes a
stimu lus, which is then transla ted int o the language of the
brain and processe d in cer tain places so that it gains furth er
specifici ty. Is th is happening ali the time; is something new
happening every tim e?
Roth : No, at least not w ith ad ult human beings. Many details
of what we see, hear, an d cons tru ct as adult s are not sup plied
to the brain by an actual process of perception but by memory .
Th e ingenio us cognitive skrn of rememb ering is wha t makes
memory effecti vely ou r most important. sense organ: a br ain
with year s of exper ience, if placcd in some arbitr ary situ ation,
can establish within second s w hether it is familiar w ith the
en vironme n t. When after a few millisecond s the un con scious
feed back report s that the situation is familiar, that I am in my
stud y, for instance, memory will at one stroke produ ce the
image of this room. The re-en actment of the ima ge, release d by
onJy a few sign stimu li, is far qui cker than it would be if the eye
had to scan the enviromnent atomi stically every single time .
This is to say : the process of cons tru ction only very rarely run s
tluo ugh all the laborious details that I have described. It does
so w itb babies and smal] chil dren; w ith adu .lts only, when they
find themse lves in a com pletely unf amilia r environ ment. As a
ru le we can, howeve r, beca use of our expe rience, see w ith in
moments wh at the matter is .

The step theory of communication

Poerksen : Up to now, we have been dealing with a pa rticul ar
cons tella tion : there is a clearly discernibl e extern ai. stimulu s
tha t is processed. ln the world of thin king, however, which so
fund amen tally condit ions our reality, such an unambi guous
in put is lackin g; there is no clearly defined externa ! stimulu s
releas ing just one specific thought. H ow far has cognit ive
122 The Certainty of Uncertainty

neurob iology progresse d i:nthe exp lan ation of wh at goes on i:n

th e mind?

Roth: We know today that the wirin g of th e cortex th at is

respo nsible for our conscio us exp erien ces sh ows tha t it is
essenti ally bu sy with itsel.f. An excitation that is kn own to
come from o ut sid e is followed by 100,000 excita tion s ins id e
the bra in; a sing le scrap of inio rm ation is processe d by 100,000
.in stances. Only a sma ll nu m ber of th e pe rcep tions of adult
hum ans are re lated at all to externa i sensory stimul i, they are
increasingly taken fro m memory . Thin king incre ases thi s
constru ctivity of the brain, and th e de tachm en t from extern ai
eve nt s reac h es a new levei: tho ught s and images are clear ly
abstracted percep tions and der ive d m oveme nt s. One of the
sensatio nal researc h res ults of rece nt years is tha t bra:i:ncen -
tres, wh ich are ac tive in the case of moveme n ts, are eq ually
active when we see move men t or even w hen we on ly imag in e
it. So mu ch on the con stru ction of thou ght s in the ind ivid ual
reality of a single bra in .

Poerksen: To wh atex tentare the realities thatwe cons tr uct for

ourse lves, in fact, uni q ue? You keep ernp has ising that hu man
individ uais live in ve ry differe nt perceptu aJ world s. Your
claim is, h owever, ev idently con tr ad icted by observa tions and
expe ri ences that are eas ily access ible: we do not mis und er-
stand each o ther ali the time; we are able to m ee t at agree d
times; we can make appoi ntm ents in th e futu re; we can, w ith in
cer tain lirnits, agree about see i:ng the sarne th ings. Th e prob-
lem ari ses, therefore, ho w our different bra ins and their rea li-
ti es h ave been a ligned w ith eac h ot h er, h ow mut ual
und ersta n ding beco mes poss ible - desp ite ali in dividu al con -
str uction?

Roth: One of the well-ju stified claims of constru ctivism is tha t

mea ning, and inform a tion in the sen se of m eaning, cann o t be
trans mitt ed. Wh a t we are exch ang ing in this conve rsatio n is
so und waves to wh ich we poss ibly ass ign different m ean ings
in our brains. I cann ot gu arantee in an y way that the sound
waves I am prod ucin g will be given the mean in gs I des ir e and
hope for. The rece iver, and n ot the sen der, constitut es these
mean ings. No neth eless, un der norm al circums tances a cer tain
mutu al und ers tand in g will be achi eved. Th e expla nation is
every thin g but trivial: th e sou nd w aves mus t set somethin g in
 We are constructs ourselves 123

motio:n in the inne r ear; the auditory sys tem must be attuned to
the specific frequencies of human speec h . An an t' s brain can-
not construct language from the sarne sound waves; a dog may
learn it, but the capabi lity of speech recogn ition is innate onl y
to human beings. A f urthe r prerequ isite is th at we can inst inc-
tively recognise and comprehen d cer tain speech sounds -
threats, flatte ry, moans, etc. - inde p en den tly from any na tu-
ra l human language . Communication proper, fina lly, rests on
a shared language, whic h does not, however, gu arantee
mutual understanding. The next bui lding block an d the next
step are provided by a simi lar educat ion: it safeguards th e
assignment of at Ieast comparab le mean ings to the sarne
words. The last step of commu nicative ability req uires com-
rnon life experience. Complete understa nding rema ins an illu-
sion, however, although we may expec t a s tepwise increase in
the probability of the sarne words generating the sarne mean-
ings in our minds.
Poe rkse n: Does this step theory of com mun ica tion irnply tha t
we are fundamentally lone ly even when we have reached the
ultima te plane, the last step?
Roth : Yes. We remain locke d into our own cognitive wor lds.
Maximal communicative unde rs ta ndin g probab ly occurs
with peop le living togcther for many years. Eve rybody
knows, however, that even pa rtners of ma ny decades may
have radically different views of the meaning of cer tain
expressions. Every i11dividual, therefore, not on ly deve lops a
pecu liar cogni tive system but also an ind ividua l lingu istic sys-
tem . Pcople decide about their semantic unive rses in ear ly
childhood - in shocking detachment from the meaning uni-
verses of others.
Poerkse n: ln one of his papers, Heinz von Foerster once
offered an enJightening reformulatio n of the questions and
topics we are discussing here. He called brain science the
one-brainproblem.The situatio n of the two-brainproblemis rep-
resented by marr iage and education: here one single bra.in
inf luences another brain. The.rnany-bminproblemis society. My
question is now: how do aJI these ma ny different, ind iv idual ly
constructing brains connect to form th at strange structure
which we cal! society?
124 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Roth: It is not at all difficult to explain because two cen tral

mechanisms are at work here. On the one hand, it is possible ,
through commo n education and socialisat ion , intellectual
training, feedback and mutu al correction in conv ersa tion etc.,
to strengthe n the con sensua l domains temporarily, whenever
necessary. This is the basis and the result of all long-term inter-
action, of ali common planning and collective searchi n g for the
solution of problems. On the other h and, we must be aware
that the brains making upa society do not need to understand
each other totally ali the time, but only partia lly, and only in
certain situ ations - if at ali. When I buy a ticket from a train
conductor, it is irrelevant whe ther he has seen any of my art i-
cles on brain physiology or whether he finds me a nice person.
We must simpl y manage to commun icate on a certain
required leve l, w1perturbed by the indisputable fact of funda-
ment al incomprehension. But the use of language perma-
nent ly suggests, of cou rse, that we basically understand each
other, that we cornprehend the wor lds of others, even when
this hap pens to be untru e. How ever, I claim that the primary
functionof language isnotm utu alund erstanding. The perpet-
ual p ublic and priva te talk, similar to thepennanent twitter ing
of birds, serves mutua l comfor ting, seda tes our nervou s sys-
tem, and signals: we are friends, we do no hack each other to
pieces, eve rytlún g is ali right. The con tents appear to be quite
irrelevant. Minima l societal cohesion is produced particularly
in the forro of cornmo n emotional experiences; it also resu lts
from non-verbal comm unication . We ali yell in the football
arena, we ali get worked up over some scandal, we organ ise
our selves against some thr eat - and sudd enly society arises.

~ The brain in the group

Poerksen: We see, you say, wi th the visua l cenlres in the brain;
perceptions are corre lates of brain activi ty; meaning s are per -
sona l. Another view propo ses, h owever: we do no t see with
the visual centr es of the brain but with the eyes of a gro up, of
the social comrnunity and the lingu istic and cultur al world we
come from. We construc t a world together; meanin gs exist
above the indi vid ual. How could yo ur biological construct-
ivism (U1etheory of the single brain) be connected with social
construct ivism (the theory of many brains)? They definitely
contradict each other.
 We are constructs ourselves 125

Roth : No, not at ali. The first axiom is that everything concem-
ing the construc tion of our wor ld passes through our bra ins.
The second axiom is, however: the individual bra in of a pri- '
mate wou ld never reach full matur ity in the "normal" way
outside a group of primates. For us to becorne humanr eq uire s
the immediate proximity and the sign stimu li of other pr i-
mates from the moment of birth; our brai:n craves in an ele-
mentary and dramatic way the voice and the warmt h of the
mother, the proximity of the fa ther, the provis ion of food . We
rnust see individual and social collective together. The indi-
vidual b1·ainneeds the presence of the group unconditionally
and existentially. An ape on its own is no ape, as Konrad
Lorenz already remarked. And we are apes.
Poerksen: You believe that humans are apes?

Roth: What else? Naturally, construc tivism with is fixation on

rationality prefers to env isage an autonomous self anda glori-
fied linguistic creature that cons tru cts its par ticular rea lity in
an act of conscious decisio11.We are not so very d ifferent from
other anima ls, though. There is empírica ] evide nce now that
humans are also con trolled by smells in lar ge measure. We just
do not notice because our organ of sme ll has no direct access to
our cortex, and therefore we do not become awa re of these
contro l processes. lt is now well k now11that the socially trans-
mitted smel ls, the pheromones, stro ngly influence whe thcr we
find each other appeal ing or un appea ling. ln experiment s,
people were given batteries of armpit sweat to smell and asked
to classify the var ious odours along a sca le. The resul ting,
widely vaJ·yi.ng, appeal values were then used to perform a
highly interesting exper iment: young men and young wome11,
unknown toeachother, w ho had judgedeach other's odour to
be extremely appealing, are brought int o con tact. It is found
that they do indeed fh1d each othe r extre mely appea ling and
that they fall head over heels in !ove because the tni nut e odor-
ous stimuli have reached their bra ins and released the corre-
spo11ding behaviour.
Poerksen : Hear ing tbe exper ience of love described in this
way imm ediately releases a humanities-condit ioned reflex -
and raises tbe reproach of red uctionism. The fundam ental for-
mula of reductionism is given by the statem ent: Falling in love
126 The Certainty of Uncertainh;

is nothing but the mutual stimulation by odours. Are you a

red uctionist?

Roth: If the description that I have ju st given make s me a

reductioni st in the eyes of certain philosophers, then Iam not
at ali impres sed but rea lly rather p leased. All Iam i.nterested i.n
is to establish wheth er a hypoth esis is consistent and coherent
within defined limit s of knowledge, no mor e. Peop le who cast
doubt on the resu lts should check them and not withdraw
from the game by devaluing them . Such behaviour has noth -
ing to do with science. What would you say if I managed to
present such an exper im ent and to demonstra te that it is possi -
ble to calculate precisely whic h of the sub jects w ill fali in love
with each other?
Poerksen: I wou ld object that your experiment and its inter-
pr etation do not adequate ly cover the esse ntia l dimension of
the experience of peop le fallin g in love with each other.
Roth: This is correct but it does not ata i! contrad ict my funda-
mental considerations: we fir st exper ience many things
uncon sciously that only !ater reach our cortex, and thu s enter
our awareness - and then start to screa m for an expla nation.
Obviously our mind cannot simp ly accept the bar e fact of fall-
ing i.n !ove; it demands verba l proce ssing, individual stories,
which can, of cow-se, take place only after the preceding
uncon scious d ecision s .

Poerksen: Does the kind of biological reduction :is m that you

are presenting here i.nclude the activity of the human m.ind?
One of the creators of the DNA -mod el, Franci s Crick, once
said : "The selJ, its joy s a.nd sorrows, memori es a.nd de sires, the
feeli.ng of personaJ ide1.Jtity and free w m, are nothing bu t the
behaviour of a large number of nerve cells." Would you agree
to that?

Roth: No. Francis Crick ha s never - as far as l know - i.nvesti-

gated neuron s in h:is life but dealt with other thing s, as we
know. His pertinent knowledg e is exclusively d eriv ed from
readi.ng and talki.ng to ne urobiologi sts. I have been i.nvestigat -
ing neuronal proce sses for 20 years, and Ido not at ali consider
myself as a protagonist of a reductionist approac h . What we
can say today is that mental phenornena recogn isab ly arise
whenever very many neurons in a.n extremely comp lex net-
 We are constructs ourselves 127

work interact in a highly specific manner. The dose corres pon -

dence between certain brain processes and mental phenomena
does not at all endorse the thesis that mind and consciousness
are nothing but firing neurons. I would never assert anythi.ng
like that. A close corre ia tion between neurons and mind does
not mean identity, even though neurona l activity is undoubt-
edly a necessaryconditionof the phenomena of mind and con-
sciousness .

Worlds of science
Poerksen: The history of modem science can be written as a
story of con tinua ] offence. With the discovery by Nico laus
Copernicus, the earth ceased to be the centr e of the universe.
Following Charles Darwin' s doctrine, humans are naked apes.
According to Sigrnund Freud's teachi.ngs, they are gove rned
by m1conscious drives. Richard Dawkins claims that we are
vehicles of our selfish genes . Some peo ple seem to be worried
that neurobiology may, in the end, add to these offences : the
imminent threat is the decoding of the mind. How do you
come to terms with your own researc h goa ls? Do you experi-
ence them as offensive?
Roth: No, I do not. I think that modem brain research is, at
present, merely conf irm ing what people with adeq ua te
insight into the human mind have known for ages. lt h as been
known aJJalong tha t hum an beings live in their own sma ll and
peculiar worlds and are prone to aggressio n, that the unc on -
scious cont rol of behaviour triumphs over their conscious
motives, that being i.n love is a matter of fate, a sor t of disease.
All this is not new. So why get excited ? Why feel offende d?
Being confron ted, however, with lhe latest fi.ndings of gene tics
tha t humans and ch.impanzees are related mu ch more closely
than chimpa n zees and gor illas, is ind eed extremely disillu-
sioni.ng. One gu lp s - and in ali the nasty dealings among
ch.impanzees one detects an enormous si.milari.ty to certain
human ways of behaving - and vice versa .
Poerksen: One of your books is entit led Tnteiface Brain. The
thesis you elaborate is that the brain is a.n interface be tween
mind and matt er, abso lu te reality and constructed reality,
biology and society. Could there also be, w ith rega rd to a
neurobiology of consciousn.ess, an interface between the na tu-
128 The Certainh; of Uncertainty

ral, and the cultur al sciences? Could the brain initiate and sus-
tain a nov el kind of int erdi sciplin ary coopera tion? Is the age of
division over?
Roth: I have never believed in this d ivision. Brain researc h
must be supp ort ed by psychol ogy and psyclúatry. How can
we possibly inv es ti ga te me mory without the treasures
hoa rd ed by the psycholo gy of memory? How could you ever
work without the knowledge accumu lated by psychiatry and
neurolo gy? Without the research into br ain lesions performed
by these disciplin es, we would know next to nothi ng about the
human brain. The social and cultu ra l sciences also contribute
by investiga ting the influ ence of socia l rul es on the brain. A
coopera tion with Egyp tologists, Germa n or Romance philolo-
gists, is not in sight, howeve r, beca use the subj ect matt er of the
respective disciplines is too disparate. ln addition, there are
fundamental difficulties hind erin g the cooperation between
these disciplines. The reaso n is not that the ex plan ations of
hum an behaviour by the natural and the cultura l sciences
might be incornpatibl e, in prin cipie. That is not the point. My
criticism of many cultur al scienti sts is quit e simp1y that they
do n ot prac tise any kind of science in the proper sense. They
claims they put forward owe their exis tence to purely priv a te
reasoni.ng.
Poerksen: lt ma y be objected, howeve r, th at natur al and cul-
tural scientists are fun dame ntall y differe nt and, therefore,
diverge in their pra ctices of en quiry. Na tura l scientists, it has
been. asser ted since the days of Wilhelm Dilth ey, deal with th e
general, th e law-like, and the immut able. Their goal is the
explan ation of the pro cesses in na tur e. Cultural scienti sts are,
by contr ast, connecte d with their subject matt er in quit e a dif-
ferent way; they <leal with the mut a ble, with ph enome na aris-
ing thr oug h the historica l developm ent of hurn an indi vidu als
and social pr ocesses; they want to under stand cultur al prod-
ucts.
Roth: My view is that thereis only one kind of science, whichis
pr actised with diverse methods. There are no two esse ntially
differing ways of attain ing know ledg e that may both. be called
science. When natu ra l scienti s ts make clairn s, they try hard to
supply evidence to confir m their theses, they quote corro bo-
ra ting witnesses or their ow n inv es tiga tions, adduce sources
 We are constructs ourselves 129

and statis tics that are accessib le for examin ation. Tha t alone is
science. You state some thing and you provide arg umen ts, you
expose yourself to the critica! de bate of qualified experts.
Many cultural and social scienti sts, on the contrary, proceed as
follows: they settle down at their desks and think up some-
thing as excitingly original as pos sible . Purported scientific
know ledge is thus transformed into a pu re emanati.on of intu-
itive claims.
Poerksen : I hav e the impression that you equate science w ith
empiri cal pro cedure.
Roth: That is right. There is no science wit hou t emp ir ical
method. Nobody ha s so far managed to pro ve the contrary
case. Whoever wants to achieve scien tific progr ess must sh·ug-
gle for minimal consent. Without consent, there can be no sci-
ence and no progress of know ledge . Otherw ise, every body is
just shoo ting th.eir mou ths off. We tberefore need procedures
tbat are open to exam ination. ln tod ay's social and cu ltur al sci-
ences, however, wh ich are wi thout empi rical foundatio n, tha t
conse ntis conspicuous ly lacking. The per sisten t proclama tion
of differences and theses with a somehow nove l and excitin g
ring but without a.ny con nective po tentia l ha s, reg rettably
enough, become a career booster. Natura l science proceeds
differently . Nalural scientists today cannot w ith impunity
simply turn curr ent theo ries up side down in ord er to ga in
heightened attention; they mu st produc e knowledge with
connective potent ial.
Poerksen: My worry is that you r concep tion of science will
ultimatel y lead to an unprodu ctive homogenisation of ideas . If
I follow you, the distr ibut ion of conundrums and the genera-
tion of product ive irritations w ill n o longer be ju stified.
Roth: Nobody forbids a philosop her or a cultur al scientist to
dev elop their own ideas and to voice th eir criticism of the
res ults of the natu ral sciences - that is no t the point at all. lrri-
tations, stirn ulating pro posais, and the reve la tion of contradic-
tions and inconsis tencies will always be most welcome, bu t
they must have integra tive poten tial and admit of experimen-
tal or logical testing. Of course, I can ins ist with glee th at the
earth is a disc and th.at braü, and mind have n oth.ing at ali to do
with each other. But I must in suc h circums tances also be pre-
pared to face the strong empirica l evi dence contrad icting such
130 The Certainti;of Uncertainty

claims. You should not join the philosopher Hege l in saying:

too bad for the emp irical facts ! That is all I am sayin g. Who
claims to put forward scientific statements must take account
of ali availab ie research and ai! relevant cou nterarg um en ts.

The third culture

Poerksen: Pushing thi s plea for the orientation towards tradi-
tion and es tablished know ledge to its extreme, yo u might
encourage the founding of an insider club dedicat ed exclu-
sively to the everlasting protection of the mutual affirmation
of conventiona l pract ices. I believe, however, not just for aes-
thetic reason s but for the sake of scientif ic progress, th at we
should keep ali the barriers and frontier s permeab le and also
pennit entry to allege d cran ks, jokers, and bird s of paradise.
They are indi spensable for gettin g thin gs moving.
Roth: Iam also ope n to quirky idea s and crazy experim ents
whenever there is an explanatory gap. To exp lain the fact,
h owever, that a glass w:i.ndowcan be sma shed to splinters by a
stone does n ot requir e new theories, nor do I have to design
new experiment s or revive Aris totelian imp etus theory; the
splin tering of glass can be explain ed excellently by the models
of cont emporary phy sics. However, n obody ye t know s how
cogn ition emerg es from bra in proc esses . Here we face an
explanatory gap that invite s creative impul ses and ideas. But
they mu st be subjected to exper imental examina tion. If peo ple
are not pr epare d to undertake this drudge of experime nt al
testing, the threat of waf fle by char latans ari ses, who boas t
their import ance w ith verbal trickery on the circus stage of sci-
ence and parade their theorie s on the quantum mechani ca1
processes of the rise of consciousn ess, for exampl e, or on other
sparks of their ima gina tion . And at some stage the qu estion
has to be answered h ow to iden tify the most inspiring charla-
tan in that crow d of busybodi es. Whom shou.ld I pur sue, and
for what reasons, sh ould I want to dea l with some hypothes is
in a more precise way? What criteria do I have? Of comse, I
could say: I declare this prob lem one of aesthe tics, and I shal l
rush after Bernhard Poerksen because he is wild in the most
beautiful manner. However, this is not really a satisfac tory
soluti on.
 We are constructs ourselves 131

Poerksen : I suspect that your concept of science will be gener -

ally accepted before long. I can offer circumstanti al evidence.
There is a most successful war cry that is raging throu gh the
acadernic uni verse now, and that clearly and explicitly assigns
those cultura l disciplines that do not emp loy empíri ca! meth-
ods, the footstool in the business of mean ing prod uction. This
warcry stemsfrom a bookby theNewYorklitera ry agent John
Brockmann. He describes -' with reference to C. P. Snow's
thesis that natural and cultura l sciences form two disparate
and hostile cultures - a third culture. The prob lems originally
dealt with by the cultural sciences, he claims, are now articu -
lated within the medi um of empirica l scientific research. Brain
research and constr uctivism endorse Brockmann's thesis: old
philosophica l questions are toda y being answe red by scien-
tists.
Roth: That I would object to: there are no two cultur es, nor is
there a thfrd culture; there is just one and only on e science, just
one single cu ltu re of scientific cooperatio n in thought and
action. Jt is not specific to the natura l or the cultural sciences,
but it is firm ly anchored in an intersubjective form of kn owl-
edge pro du ction. My own field of expert ise - bra in research
- appears to me, with reference to the German termino logical
tradition, as a geisteswissenschajtof a specialkind. As a scientist, l
investiga te the brain, simultan eous ly dealing, however, wi th
the mind, and show ing that the phenomena of the mind are
most closely linked to the physiological phenomena. For cer-
tain ph ilosop hers, such a research programme is sacrilegio us
in itself; the mind as the highest ontic state can, in their view,
have only one function, i.e. to compre hend itself. Nevert he-
less, as a cognitive nemobiologis t, who works in the labora-
tory, Iam interested in understai1d ing how we think, how we
hear melodies, unders tand Janguage, enjoy the smell of a rose,
how memory functions, how my a ttention is directed, how the
brains of a normal human being anda genius wo rk and func-
tion. AJ1d at some stage, I firmly believe, we will be able to
explain whatwas spec ial aboutJohann Sebastian Bach's brain
and enabled him to wri te all tho se incred ible comp ositions.
Such an exp lana tion of what has hither to rema ined myste ri-
ous is most certainly not a threa t to a gen ius like Johann
Sebastian Bach and his music. It does not in any way des troy
its exquisite na ture.
132 The Certainty of Uncertainh;

Poe rksen : Speculating for a mome nt: will there a lways be an

inexp licable res id ue?

Roth : My view is that the fra mework of scien tific enquiry will
always remain limited - and that it canno t be stre tched to
encompass ques tion s that concem, for examp le, why I might
exist on this planet as a single human being, why I am able to
think, wh at the mean ing of my life is, how the universe began.
We are left wit h a long list of mys teries on which we canno t,
however, defin itely pronounce that they w ill re main perplex-
ing forever or per haps be revealed a t the time of dea th or at
some other m oment. The Iimits to our knowledge caru1.ot be
known either; otherwise, they would no longe r be lim its.
Poe rksen: The conseq uence?

Ro th: The imposs ibility of estab lish ing the limits on our
knowle d ge is an empty idea. The consequence? No thing at all.
Not h ing.
 CHAPTER 6

We can never start

from scratch
Siegfried J. Schmid t on Individua is and soc iety, on
the reolity of the media, and on the construc tivist
concep tlon of emp lrico l knowledge

iegfried J. Schm idt (b. 1940)

S s tudi e d philosophy, Ger-

man philology, linguistics,
history, a:nd ar t. His doctoral th e-
sis on th e re lationsh ip between
lan guage and thought, published
1968, already rings in one of the
centra l topics of his intellec tual
life. The quest ion of the different
media of knowledge ha s
rema ined one of Schmid t' s con-
cerns up to the p resent day. It is
th e qu es tion of wh a t relationship
with the world a specific med ium
demands, enforces, and p ermit s.
How can the relationship between language and the percep-
tion of the world be ascertained? What pr incipie s of inquiry
govern science? How does an artist observ e? For Schmid t,
the se are not merely theoretical problems. He began to paint
while still a student, he publi sh ed concre te poetry, and he
simu ltaneous ly wrote - scho oled by an idea l of conceptual
rigo ur - programmatic essays that create d a stir in thc most
diverse di scipline s.
ln 1971 Sclunidt, who had achieved hjs origina l academic
qualifications in philosophy (doc torate and habilitation),was
appointed professor of text theory at the newly fo unded Uni-
versity of Bielefeld. He soon changed to literary theory , and in
1973 mov ed to a cha ir for the "theory of li tera ture". ln the ear l y
1980s, at the late st, he expanded his var ious interests again,
 134 The Certainty of Uncertainty

develop ed - while pro fessor at the Univer sity of Siege n -

research pro jec ts concerning tel evision, and prepared for
an other change of subj ect. Heis now profe ssor of commun ica-
tion th eory and media cult ur e at the University of Mün ster.
ln his book s on construc tivis t them es, Schmid t always pur -
sues a twofold objectiv e: he tests the theory by appJicatio n and
simult ane ous ly work s on its elabora tion. On th e one hand, he
uses constructivist assumption s as an instrum ent to inve sti-
gate the world of advertising or the ir.rita tin g power of art. On
the other hand, he see ks to deve lop the constru ctív ist frame-
work as a whole. As the constru ct ivist a uth ors come fro rn very
diff erent traditions and disciplin es, and either conce ntrat e on
th e individ ual or on the cu ltur e surroundin g indi vidu ais as
th e deci sive produ cer s of reality, th e point s of view are mani-
fold a n d ca nnot eas ily b e r eco ncil e d. Th e integrative
constructivism advoca ted by Sieg fried J. Schmidt unit es the
the sis of the cogn iti ve a utonomy of the indi v idu al with the
ass umpti on of th e socially fashio n ed human being: bra in an d
soc iety comb ine in a new kind of th eor etica l synt h esis.

The starting operations of European philosophy

Poerksen: Doubtingext ernal rea lity is, in the histor y of philos-
ophy, of ten enou gh conn ected with down-to- earth matters.
For centuri es, the qu es tion has been r ep ea ted as to wh e ther the
table r eally exis ts at whi ch on e sits and reflects. Does it con-
tinu e to cxist when I squ eeze my eyes shut ? Is it still there
when I am n ot prese nt ? We are also sittin g a t a table and dis -
cussi ng the weüd-so undin g que stiona s to wh e ther there is an
abso lut e rea lity that is independent from our mind s and that
we can know. What wo uld yo u say? Is there a tab le? Doe s it
exist?

Schmidt: Let me confess: thi s p er pe tua! qu es tion of the exis-

tence of a table, laboure d since George Berkeley, is illegitim ate
and implau sible . For if I want to know wh ether thi s tab le
ex ists, there already ha s to be a table in my experientialr ea lity J
candeal w ith. The qu es tionof whether thi s table exists orno ti s
an assertion tha t neith er add s to, nor subtra cts from, exis ten ce.
Where is the table ju st perceived when l do se my eyes? OnJy a
philo soph er with an ontic bent can as k such a qu es tion; his
clea.ner could give him the r ight answe r imm ed iately .
 We can never stnrt from scratc/1 135

Poerksen: Nonet heless, the question does not seem point less
to me because construc tivis m is repea tedly acc used of deny -
ing an ex terna i r eality, of covertly arg uin g in a rea list mann er,
and of suffering from a disturbed rela tionship with realit y.
And suchque ries ar e unavo idabl y triggered by the hard ontol-
ogy of tab les an d chair s. The solidity of the woo d, th e obvious
r esistance of the real wor ld , whic h may Jead to brui ses when
bumping into it, so mehow seem to contri bute to answering the
quest ion of existence.
Schmidt: This is indeed a centra l poin t beca use some con -
structivists like to distingu ish between the rea lity of exper i-
ence and abso lu te reality. They cla im that abso lut e real ity
exists but that they cam1ot say any thin g about it, that abs olut e
rea lity is unknowable. However, such an assumption will, by
stric t logica l conseq ue nce, lead to a paradox. Peop le who insis t
tha t they can say noth ing abo u t rea lity as such, are alrea dy
sayi n g a vas t amount. How can they know wi th certainty that
it is unknowable and exis ts independently from our mind s?
Concerning the problem of the tab le: w hen I, a hum an being,
whose on ly accessib le worl d is the wor ld of my exp erience,
pos tula te tha t the table display s abso lut e reality tha t 1, how-
ever, can never know, then I am mak ing a ba seless claim.

Poerksen: You, too, once wrote: "The real wo rld is a n ecessary

cognit ive id ea bu t no t a reality to be expe rienced."

Schmidt: ln ou r d iscourses, we can cert ain ly formula te the

assumpt ion that an observer- ind epe nd ent and unkn owab le
r ea lit y exis ts. But such an asser tion rema in s part of our
discourse. lt is hardl y sensible to sp eculate abo u t what is
beyond our discourse beca use we simp ly cann ot expe rie nce it.
Why shou ld we distingui sh betwee n an inaccessi ble rea lit y
and our exper ient ia l wor ld? Of co ur se, we can - spea kin g
with th e philosopher Josef Mitterer, w hose wo r k Iam exp loit -
in g here - inve nt some world beyonddiscourse that is alleged ly
inaccessib le. All] can say about tha t wor ld- beyond-discourse,
however, must be sa id in the discourseof my life herennd now,
wh er e Tspeak and act. Therefore, such distin ctions are practi-
cally devoid of mea ning; they merge, in the end, with duali st
philosophles based on appa rentl y natura l division s betw een
s ubjec t and object, lan gua ge and wor ld, or as ju st indica ted ,
absolute reality and expe ri enti al wor ld .
 136 The Certainty of Uncertainl:rJ

Poerksen: Th e fact is, thou gh, that these duali sms hav e been
cen tral and formative for construc tivi sm. Its ex istence
depends on them, to put it bluntl y . People constantly distin-
guish betw een the real world an d its construc ted perception,
betw een observer and observed, between subject and object.
Schm idt: Th ese duali sms are the momentous and unrecog-
ni sed s tarting operations of European philo sop hy, which
o ught to be und erstood and treated as str ictly po sited distinc-
tion s. Subject and object, observer and observed, were posited
as two ind epend en t starting units wh en philo so phy was bom;
subs equ ently one was forced to relate them in som e way, usu-
ally favouring one side of the distinction above the other. It
was tacitly assum ed that su ch a distinction betwe en subject
and object, language and worl d, min d and being etc. was actu-
ally given. Some author s gave priority to the subjec t, others to
th e object; corres pondin gly, subject philo sop hies an d object
philosophie s were d eve lop ed and the fact th at we produ ced
these di stinction s ourselves wa s conveniently forgott en.
Poerksen: Thi s would mean that the diff erence between
constr uctivism and its main rival - rea lism - has mer ely to
do with the dir ecti on of thinkin g. The con str uctivis t says : the
ob server rul es; the ob serv er constr ucts the objects . The reali s t
claims: th e objects affect th e observer in a direct way; our
ima ges of reality are the con sequ ence and the expre ssion of the
observed. Con str uctivi sm, if I und erstand yo u corr ectly,
m erely reverses the dir ection of thinkin g, but both realism an d
constru ctiv ism are du alist concept ions and dili gently distin-
gui sh betw een subject and objec t. My qu estion is now: What
ar e yo u suggesting? Should we give up di stinctions entir ely?

Cultural programmes
Schmidt : No, that is not the poin t. It wou ld not be feasible,
anyway. According to what we know we can only operate
with distinction s, i.e. we are not in a position to do without
them. Nevertheless , we may very well ask whether these dis-
tinctions and the divi sion s deriv ed from th em are necessa ry
and inevitable. ln a consis tent non -du alist per sp ective, we do
not pr esu me the existe nce of any dis tinction but at tempt to
derive the duali sms fr om what we actually observe. Th e qu es-
tion p osed is: what makes u s accept this or that d istinction as a
 We can never start from scratch 137

start ing operation? ln th is way, ontology d isappears from our

assumptions and presupposi tion s - and the proc ess become s
decisive .
Poerk sen: You separa te distinctions and di vision s. Why?
Schmidt: I owe this suggest ion to Rodrigo Jokisch. He do es
no t pu t divisions at th e beginnin g because divi.s ions - he
argues - always show a preference for one side as oppose d to
the other. For Jokisch, a divis ion is funda rnen tally a derived
operation; he therefore beg,ins with th e levei of neuh·al an d
gen eral distinctions both sides of which are eq uiva lent, and
from there proceeds to divisions, where one side is div id ed up
in to a relevant and an irrelevant division. In the phi losop hy of
stories and discourses Ia m now work ing on, I make u se of this
suggestion and set out from neutral dis tin ctions which are
transformed into divisions in act ual situation s, i.e. whenever
there is talk and action. Then one sid e of the distinction is
favoured and preferred . This means: on a very general level,
we ha ve a neutra l syste m of distinctions, which I call a mode l
of reali ty. It includes the ent ire sys tem of dist inctions we op er-
a te w ith as observers, distinctions like light and dark, poorand
rich, powerful and powerless,young and old, man an d woman.
They fixa te po ten tial posi tion s in the fiel d of societal m ode ls of
rea lity. However: it is not yet laid do\.vn w hat they mean; they
mu st be int erp reted. The inte rp reta tion of the hu ge ne twork of
dist inctions is provided by a sema nti c programme - which I
call cu lture . Cul ture , in this und ersta nd ing, is not restricted to
art an d beautifu l things but is meant to interp re t the rea lity
model of a society semant ica lly. The kno wledge of how to
apply thi s cultural programme according to exp ectation and
h ow to relate the differen t distinctions is acq uir ed in the pro-
cess of socialisa tion.
Poerksen: Could yo u elucid ate this cu ltur e-related mode l of
reali ty consb·uc tion by means of an examp le?
Schmidt: Letus take the distinction betwee n ma n and woman.
Processing the division fur ther on the levei of practical ac tion
Jeads to the question: Which is favoure d? Man or woman?
And when this is decided, then I can obse rve men or wo men
by rneans of oth er division s - descr ibin g them accordin .gly,
for in stan ce, as beautiful or ugly, strong or weak, dependentar
independent,reliablear capricious,moralor immora/. They are the
138 The Certainty of Uncertainh;

speciiic semantic attribut ions of these divi sions, whi ch are

expres sed in particu lar stories and discours es: in fash ion and
in novel s, in pictur es an d dress code s, in etiqu ette and legal
titles .
Poerksen: ln many of your book s, yo u hav e strongly relied on
the work of construct ivist biologi sts, who tend to consi d er
individuais, in an abso luti st way, as the more or less au tono-
mou s construc tors of their own reali ties. N ow you say tha t cul-
tur e is decisive, i.e. you assum e a certain permeabi lity and
receptivity of human ind ividuai s to externai social influences.
How has this chang e of view come about?
Schmidt: I am certainly not intending to crea te a new battle
front line by now describin g culture as the only decisive deter-
minant of knowl edge. This would be a misund erstanding and
a renewed polarisa tion thatwou ldinn oway help us rnovefor-
ward. The capital tha t can be draw n from cultivati.ng bias has
been exhaus ted down to the dr egs. The qu es tion of wha t influ-
ences condition th e constru ction of rea lities simp ly canno t be
answered from the isolated terrains of either biology or the
sociology of knowl edge. A comp rehensive view is required,
whic h relates ind ividua l and society in a conception with total
processua l or ien tation; I p lead therefore, as it were, for an inte-
g rative constructivism that unit es the three compon ents (brain
and body, history and discour se, model of reality and cuJture).
Th ey are al i inv olved in the cons tru ction of reality and
together forma set of force s tha t, for ana lytical reasons, may be
divided into a micro -, a meso-, and a macro-lev el. This divi-
sion allows for the cleru:specification of the chosen perspective
of observa tion and the particul ar research int eres t when
describin g mod els of reality an d cultur al programmes, stories
and discour ses, or even body and brain. O n the m acro-leve!,
the focus is on the dynamic relations between mod els of reality
and cultural programme s. On the meso-level, the macro- leve i
manife sts itself in the form of stories and discour ses - repre-
sentin g the relation s of sense arising from the wor ld of living
experienc e. The micro-leve! houses the ind ividua l actors, who
- in the und erstanding of genera l sys tems theory - are con-
sidered as dynami c pro cess-sys tems cons istin g of bodies and
brains. These th.ree sets of forces can onJy fun ction together:
they are a ll necessary for reality to arise.
 We can never start from scratch 139

Poerksen: From you and othe r constructivist theor ists I have

learned that the one and only realit-ydoes not exist but only an
infin ite variety of realities . At every garden fence, so to speak,
a new world begins. My quest ion is: can there still be, in this
day and age, one and only one culture attributing common
meaning to our divisions? Has it no t split up into the mos t
diverse perc eptual styles?
Schmidt: There is no doubt that it has; and it already star ted
arou nd the end of the 18th century. lf the thesis of functional
differen tiation make s any sense at aJl, then we mu st assume
that every social system dev elops its own cultural pro g:ramme.
And tha t is why - according to my reconstruction - the
ur gent question arose around the end of the 18th century as to
bow the cultu ral programmes of the econ omy, of education,
ar t etc. that were beginning to drift apa rt becoming p artially
antago nistic, could still be conn ected with each oth er. The
solu tion of the problem was - to pu t it quite briefly and with a
functi onalist ben t - to rep licate a mechanism ava ilable in the
econo my . There money had been inh·oduced in the course of
the 18th century as a semanti cally empty mode of exchan ge.
Money simpJy has no semantics, so human perfo rman ce, tal-
ent s, and goods could be calcu lated accordin gly for th eir
exchange val ues. This is the fundamental principle of cap ital-
ism: sema ntics out, numeric s in! The cos t determin es the
value. Society, consequently, implem en ted precisely this
mechanism in the doma in of cu Itur e - nam ely, the calcu la tion
of the value of all societal ly relevant goods by means of a neu-
tral measuring uni t. Cultur e carne to be co.nceptualised in the
semant ically neu tral terms of Jaw, which were no longe r
fou nded on trans cendcn ce (by a divine ar der), on history (by
recourse to tradit ion), and natural law (by invocation of the
natur e of human beings). Statute law is ai1chored, as Niklas
Luhm ann ha s sh own with great prec ision, in the guarant ee of
correct judicial procedure. A Jaw may be changed thr ee times
in the course of one week, bu t all that ma tters for judicial pr ac-
tice is that the law is app lied correc tly at the moment of judg-
ment. So there is now a semantically neutra l rate of exchange
that permit s the libera lisat ion of ali cultur al progra mm es with
regard to thefr cont ent as long as they do n ot viola te official
law - that is the only restr iction . You may pr actise whatever
you like in you r subc ultu res but yo u mus t neither kill your
neighbou rs nor set fire to their hou scs .
140 The Certainty of Uncertainty

The limits of tolerance

Poerksen : The law thu s appears to be - in this view - theJa st
genera l found ation of a socie ty that is split up into ni ches and
subcultur es.
Schmidt: Exactly. Jt crea tes coherence, ties diverging cultur al
progra mm es to un foldin g individu al demand s. The law is the
las t regu lative removed from discussion; its execution is not
condition ed by another cree d, anoth er contex t of tradition , or
another conception of the natur e of hum an beings, but it is,
due to its de-semanticisation, equ ally app licable for every-
body. Historically speak in g, this is an ingeniou s achieve ment
- the outcome of social self-organ isatio n, not the work of an
individual.
Poerksen: Still, this common foundation of law is obvious ly
not sufficien t to guaran tee, or at leas t to promot e, mutual
und erstanding. Every s ubcultur e lives in its own and perhaps
very pecu liar w orld ; ther e is no interaction, no mutua l und er-
standin g. Only very few peop le see m to be ab le to mov e
between these differe nt rea lities and evento enjoy the perma-
nen t confront ation with new an d different forms of life and
thought.
Schmidt: This does not co ntr adict the d eve lop ment 1 have ju st
described, not at ali. The proper consegu ence to be d erived
from what I dep icted is precisely that societal cohesion is no
lon ger based on under s tandin g. As longas we observe the
Jaw, we may dev elop our own cultur al prog ramm es without
und ers tandin g each other . The twofold strategy of mon ey and
law guara ntees tha t socie ties do not fall apa rt eve n though
their ind ividua l m embers ~re n o lon ger capab le of doin g
thln gs with eac h other. The rest is pr ivate. One seeks o ut the
par tners and the parties with whom one belicves to shar e
und ers tandin g desp ite ali improbab ility . The res ult is that the
differentiation of society increases constantly and that the
extent of indiffer ence keeps growing: a world that ap pears
incomp rehensible is, and can be, met with indifference.
Poerksen: You describe in ne utr al terms a process of relentl ess
individualisation , whi ch cultural critics see as the destruction
of publi c space. Society is sa id to crumbl c, and the pu blic
domain, in the sense of a comm on base of reference accessible
 We can never start f ro,11sc/'Cl
td, '" 1

to ali its members, is said to be in jeopardy. Wh11lí4 y11 111 , l,·w ,'
Do yo u see this threat?
Schmidt: Firstly: the emph atic notion of a pub lic do111,li11, , 1:1
for exa mpl e represented by Jürge n Habennas, h,1s .,l w,,y'I
appeared fictitiou s to me. There have onJy ever bccn pnrth1I
publi c domains of diffe ring relevance, which became increas
ingly differenti ated . Additi onally, even the so-called ma ss me-
dia only reac h speci fic scg ment s. Nobo d y should shed
crocodilc tears over a threat to t/1eone and only publicdomain.lt
ha s never existed as such. Secondl y: thc fact that socie tal dif-
feren tiation is now subject to merely formal contr ol obviou sly
creates specific problems. We h ave to cons ider ser iously, for
instance, how to deal with a li sorts of fundamentalism.
Poerksen: Toe activiti es of the Scient ology sect are, l think,
quite a goo d exampl e of the particular risks run by a society
under purely formal contra i. To put it in your terminology:
Sciento logy exploits the de-semanticised reg ula tive of the Jaw
as a defensive arg um ent. The memb ers of the sect de man d
respect and toleran cc - and sim ultaneo us ly erect a tota litar-
ian subc ultu re.
Schmidt: Scientolo gy is a busi ness ente rpr ise, camouflage d as
a moral institut ion. lt insists on ethical neutr ality - and mas-
sively uses ethics for cconomic purposes. The probl em - a lso
affcct ing constru ctivism - is: how are we to cope with the
observable abuse of pluralism and tolcrance? Constru ctivist
aut hors have repeatedly been accused of Jegitimating pr acti-
cally everythin g, Scientology, and Ausc hwitz, and the priva te
happiness of thc garde n bower.
Poerksen: How do yo u count er the accusation that yo u pro -
mote a dangerous kind of tolerance and libertarianism? ls the
constru ctivist, wh o wants to remain tru e to his princip ies,
bound to profess moral relativism?
Schmidt : No, he is no relativi st in thesc matters, and he cann ot
afford to be. Heis also part of a tradition and lives in a particu-
lar ph ase of bistory, is inílu enced by stories and discourses.
Ccrtain norms, mor al stand ard s, and maxims are the resul t of
a compl ex historical develo pm ent, wh ich h as shaped the
constru ctivist, too. Whenever so methin g happens - peo ple
stumbl e, fall to the ground - we do not beg in to worry and to
 142 The Certaini1Jof Uncertainti;

reflect extens ively on the right kind of reaction and its justifica-
tion, but w e either help or we do not. It all d epends on the
moral principi es we have acquired.
Poerksen: Where do con structivists find the hold that enables
them to distinguish betw een good and evil?
Schmidt : They find their hold - as ali oth er human being s -
in religiou s or moral beliefs. We have to di stinguis h here
betwe en different leveis of observation. At the levei of every-
day life, con stru ctivists are simply not in any danger of falling
prey to relativi sm; here they decide like alJ other people on the
basis of their unqu estion ed beliefs. However, construc tivists
can (on the epistemo logical levei of th e second order) reflec t
why certain norm s hav e succeeded - and not others. That is
the prop er construc tivist per spective: we observe how people
observe; observing has become the object of obse rvati ons.
Poerksen: We do not need abso lute valu es and prin cipies for
moral action?
Schmidt: No. Ali you n eed in concrete situation s is princip ies
that have prov ed their mettle in yo ur history and in the light of
your conscience. We act in con tinuity of a ll pr ev ious decisions.
If you find this kind of moral tie insu.fficient, you are either an
illusionist or a fundamentali st; you run away from respon si-
bility.
Poerksen: If you fi.nd,however, that on every occasion you are
free to act an.d decide in differen t ways, a nd conclude tha t yo ur
moral ity is contin gen.t, then you lose something: you deprive
yourself of the pow er that arises .from lucidity a:nd un.condi-
tional validity.
Schmidt: 1 cann ot agr ee there . The insight that some behav-
iour is contingent do es not lead to relat ivism. I can estabfü;h,
ona levei of thesec ond order, that ther e are alternative way s of
deciding mora l que stions. ln concre te situation.s, however, as
an actor in stories and discourses, I act on the level of observa-
tion of the first order - and the contin.gency commandm ent
doe s not app ly. Moreov er, contingency at this levei cannot be
used as an excuse to evade a decision. ln this, I am acting as a
reali st. As soon as you confuse these different leveis of ob ser-
vation, however, you are faced with all those chie philo sophi -
 We can never start from scratch 143

cal problems - and you must torme nt yourself with qu estio ns

of whether to practise a philo sop hy of any thing goes, or
whether the table ceases to exist when you squeeze your eyes
sh ut and can.not see it any more .
Poerksen: But I would still maintain that construct ivism keeps
stirrin g thin gs up prec isely because different au thor s often
link tho se levels in ways that prove to be most enlivening and
naturally aJso provok ing. They connec t theory and pr actice,
every day life and epistemology - and then procla im: there is
no ultimate truth, so nothing is secur e; we invent rcality, so
every thin gis possible; absolu teva lues donot exist, sowe mu st
stomac h total capric iousness. And so on.
Schmidt: As I see it, this is one of the centr al weak spots in the
const ru ctivist argumen t. Ludwig Wittgenstein alrea dy saw
that it sim ply does not make any se nse to exp ect the world ou t-
sid e to be gone when you walk ou t the door every morni.ng. As
first-order observers - as hum an beings moving in their envi-
ronments - we are ali ordin ary rea lists; we are not handling
constru ctions but life-wor ld routines sup porte d by good rea-
sons. A position that constant ly doubts th e rea lity of our per-
ceptions would be utter coun terprod uctive nonsense at th e
levei of ordinary rea lity.

Arbitrariness and construction

Poerksen: A quote from Woody A llen: "Cloqu et hat ed reality
but admitted that it was still the on ly place where you could
get a real steak."
Schmidt: Ind eed . Steaks are plainly part of rea lity. And Iam
indescribab ly unconcerned by the qu estion of whether steaks
are constructed. People who con front first o.rder observers
with the thesis that thcir steaks are notr eal but only constru cts,
must serio usly face the question of wh ether they are still quite
sane. That is not the levei at which constructivism is properly
band led beca use it is sb:ictly a theory of second -orde r obse rva-
tion, the observation of observers.
Poerksen: How arbitra ry and capriciou s are - in your view -
the concep tions of reality that we produce? The concep t of con-
struct ion seems to suggest that individu als can r ig up their
worldviews in a well thought-out and goal-directe d way. ln
 144 The Certainty of Uncertainty

the sarne way, sorne constructivis ts have been speak ing of

rea lities being invented by observers.

Schmidt: This is an extremely reckless kind of rhetoric culti -

vated wi th glee by some of the old master s of construc tivism.
Among meticulously and serious ly arg uin g scholars such
exaggerated phraseology will produce at best no thin g but an
incr edulou s wagging of heads. And th e legitimate ques tion is
raised: if indiv iduals do and construct everything on their
own, why do we need societies and environme nts? Natura lly,
even the constructivist has to po int out that the enviro nm ent
cannot be simply eliminated; otherwise, in Niklas Lulunann' s
nice-sou nd ing German ph.rase, the jellyfish (German Qualle)
will collapse (German platt) for Jack of water. And it is obvi-
ously most embarrassing and ridiculou s when those con-
struc tivists who have not really come to terms with th eir own
postulates and assumptions, hav e to face the legitima te ques-
tion: How do yo u actually come by all that knowledge? This is
the probJem of self-appl ication or self-decapitation: if there
were unconditiona lly valid ev iden ce for their theses, it wou ld
have to be precisely the abso lute truths the realists hav e been
looking for. So what is the point of claiming wi th such uncon-
ditional emphasis that everything is invented? I have had
enough of such extrernely irr itating guff.
Poerksen: You mu st exp lain all the time that one cannot sim-
ply construc t a beer whe n dying of thirs t in the desert.
Schmidt: Precisely. These are the costs of a popular isa tion by
extreme red uction of complex ity, which must now be man-
aged by second -genera tion construct ivists. And when I attend
a conference l can guarantee yo u that someon e will come
along and say: "Is it really you? Oram I constructing you ju st
now?"

Poerksen: What do you suggest? How should the debat e be

changed?

Schmidt: I can n on longer continu e unruffled w ith the popular

rhetoric of exciteme n t and irritatio n . It has accomp lished its
function by moving the observer into the centre. Those w ho
a.Ie still speaking of an invented reality suggest that it is some-
thin g arbi trary or intentional. I firmly believe, however, that
there are practically no chances of arb itrari ness; we can never
 We can never start Jrom scratch 145

start frorn scratch, and we are always too late. Whatever

reaches our consciousness presupposes neuronal activities
tha t are independent from consciousness; every thing that is
said presupposes the comma11d of a language. The construc-
tion of realities is dependent on num erou s biological, cogni-
ti ve, social, and cultural conditions, w hich we a.Ienot at ali free
to control; it happens to us more than that we conscious ly
enact it. We are permanently invo lved in a breath.less process
of construction, which is empir ically conditioned to a high
degree . What is, for examp le, arb itrary about our conversa-
tion? 1 can only utter what I happen to have in store in my
given intellectua l situation . You can only understand what
your history and biography enables you to understand. Where
is there arbitrariness?
Poerksen: I suspect that it is the hope for salva tion, the hope to
be able to construct the best poss ible world according to one' s
own wishes and without any restriction, which has made
cons tru ctivism so popular . Now every thin g depends on what
subs tance is given to the key concept of constructio n. What
would you say?
Schmidt: Sometimes l think thatwe migh t perhaps do better to
refrain frorn using the concept of consh·uction, a nd that we
shou ldmu ch ratherspeakofreality asso mething e merg ing, as
something gradually forming itself on the basis of stories and
traditions. Of course, tl1econcep t of emergence is of compara-
ble vagueness but it lacks - and that is essenti al - both the
intentio nalist and the volu ntar ist aspec t.

A constructivist media theory

Poerksen: ln a meanwhile well-known introduc tion - to
move to another topic - you celebrated constr uctivism with
noticeable euphor ia as a "new paradigm" that was going to
transform the basic tenets of var iou s discip lines and lead to
new ways of observation. You have now been working pri -
marily as a media and commu nication scientist for a num ber
of years. Cou ld you illustrate your thesis of the innova tive
effect of constructivist thinking using these disciplin es as
examples?
Schmidt: The h·ansformation is particu larly consp icuou s in
the invest igation of media effects . Here the recip ient has been
146 The Certainty of Uncertaintt;

gaining centraJ importance. In a constructivist perspectivc,

recipi ent s play an importan t rol e in the processing of thc
media offerings. For suc h a user-oriented approach, which
ha s, of course, been discuss e d for quite some time,
constructivism could really prove helpfu l because it keeps
directing us to pose the following que stion: What are the fea-
tures of a ttraction in the materiali ty of media prod ucts tha tare
actually effective in a specific situation and are also actua lly
used?

Poerksen: This radical orientation toward s the recipien t must

entail a corresponding definition of communication.
Schmidt: CertainJy. Ali concep tion s of communication as a
simple transfer of information must be exclud ed from this per -
spec tive. Communication is understood as a proc ess of the
construct ion of social meaning in the individual. The commu-
nicatum becomes an offerinvitingoperations of exploitation.
Poerksen: What is, for you, the central thesis of a const:ructivist
media theory?

Schmidt: It is of fun damental importance that the relationship

between the concepts of media reality and realihJshould be
r e-defined. From a constructi vist persp ective we can say noth-
ing but: the rea lity constructed by the med ia is th e reality con-
structed by the media - that is all! The quest ion how this
media reality relates to the factual reality or to the one and only
realittJ,is now no mor e than a top ic for journali sts dabb ling in
philosop hy, who still believe that it is possib le to compare
tho se realities and then excitedly assert: journali sm do es not
represent reality at all!
Poerksen: The kind .of media criticism that is based on a realist
foundation therefore Iases its ontological hold. How does
media criticism appear from a constructivist point of view?
What is its frame of referen ce if not the comparison of media
reality with tl1eperception s of reality "as such"?
Schmidt: Constructivist media critics will examin e the make-
up of a contribution. Their topics would be: selection, staging,
forms of presentation. They would - to quote an example -
compare the reporting of the begilming of the intifada by the
first and the second German television stations. The one Ger-
 We can never start from scratch 147

man television cha.nnel showed police throwing the stones

children had thrown at them back at the children. ln the news-
cast of another channe l only stone throwing childr en were
shown . The different variants of event se lection, staging, and
presentation, may thus be compared; one may suspec t
motives: why do two different stations construc t these differ-
ent realities out of the sarne even t? Why is an event shown i.J.1
one particular way and not in anot her?
Poerksen: The well-known journalist Klaus Bresser once said :
"The job of the journalist is to convey truth." This view,
epistemo logically identical with the po sition of naive realism,
is - according to surveys - shared by the majority of journal-
ists. How is one to comment this kind of professional se lf-con-
ception?
Schmidt: I think we must distinguish here between this
expression of a professional ethos and what can actually be
realised in practice. 1t is perfectly accep table that the stated
professional ethic should exclude purposeful decept ion,
shoddy research, and that it shou ld include the best effort to
convey "truth" and to make event and report correspo nd
properly; these are ethica l standards and norms derivingfrom
the estab lished practice of journalism, whose utility has been
proved in the course of hi story. Every honest news editor must
adrnit, however, that there are iron-hard rules of selection.
And if journalists are aware of that then they can no longer
claim with a clear conscience that they are telling peop le the
truth.
Poerksen: There can be no question, however, that such an
epistemological posit ion, implying as it does constan t doubt,
is completely unworkable in ord inary journalistic practice.
Journalists need clarity; they need the fiction of on tology.
Schmidt: Much wo uld have been gained if journali sts real-
ised, in the first place, that they req uire this fiction of ontology.
They would then ha ve to climb down from the high horse of
true world representation.

The production of facts

Poerksen: To corrobora te this central tenet that a true repre-
sentation of the world is impossible, constr uctivists frequently
 148 The Certainty of Uncertainty

adduce empirical research resu lts. They have therefore bccn

accused of being na'ive s1aves to empiri cal data and of belicv-
in g with unc onditional devo tion in the res ult s of brain
resea rch, a1beit not in the truth. The question is now: what is
empiric a1know1edge for construct ivists?
Schmid t: ln my book , Die Ziihmung des Blicks [The Taming of
Vision],I a ttempt to answer this question and to develop a con-
cept ion of emp irica1knowledge from a constructivist poin t of
view. Emp irica1 research, for me, consists in the con trol1ed
produ ction of facts; it ha s nothing to do with rea lity or truth; il
essentiall y involves the strict observa tion of specific proc e-
dural steps. This means that emp irical know ledge can only be
knowledge of the wor ld as we exper ience it and as we thenfor-
nmlate th.is knowledge accordin gly. Th e facts thus prepared
can in no way be interpreted accordin g to an emp hatic notion
of truth. For this reason, I no long er speak of the collection of
data but of the production of facts, and not of data but of facts:
these facts are, from the perspective of a sociology of know l-
edge, something that has been made and produced.
Poerksen: So you only add the constr uctivist premi se of the
impossibility of absolut e truth to the given arm oury of empir i-
cal research ? That seems somewhat un spectacu lar .
Schmidt: You may have a p oint there. There is no total differ-
ence between a con str uctivist and a conv ent ional methodo lo-
gy. The i:nitia l assumptions and the evaluation of th e results
are, h owever, decidedly different. This approac h has irr itated
some of my critics who h ave asked me b ow I cou ld at all
emp loy the procedures of empi rica1 social researc h on a
constr uctivist basis. My reply: I transfer only the procedu res
- and not their justificarion a.nd eva lua tion. lf [ want to ride a
bicycle, I must do it in th e proper way. Bu t this does not ju stify
the concl usion that cycling exh aus ts the meaning of life for me.
Poerksen: Let me repeat the question: yo u are con tinuin g to
use the classica l me thods of empiri cal social science?
Schmidt: Yes. I bave developed the concep t of an emp irica1
science of litera tur e, whkh has a stron g social science orienta-
tion. However, th ese methods tbat often originated in a posi-
tiv ist or empirici st co nt ex t must be int egrat ed into a
constr uctivi st framework; and we mu st be very carefu l to
 We can never sta.rtfrom scratch 149

make quite clear that all observations will only be made w ith
reference to this particu lar presupposed methodology. All the
facts, h oweve r carefully produced, are - from a second-orde r
perspec tive - eviden tly contingent. That however cannot in
any way prevent me from applying me thods on the first-orde r
1evel as meticulously and correctly as is prescribed, and from
strict ly following the r egu lar steps of th e procedures
emp loyed.
Poerksen: The approximation of an abso lute reality can, if I
follow yo u, no longer be a cri terion for the evaluation of
research res u1ts. Wha t then?
Schmidt: Iti s the qua lity of the procedure that supplie s thecr i-
terion. It is the controUable care in the produ ction and inter-
preta tion of facts . Facts are only as good as the methods of their
fabrication, and as significant as the proced ure of th eir inter-
preta tion. And we mus t remember tha t the hardest empirical
results turn soft at the mo ment of interpre tation, at the Ja test:
their contingen cy then appea r s ineluc table because, for any
collection of facts, I can - as is well know n from the interpre-
tation of statisti cal data - generate differing int erpr etative
stories . Nevertheless, there is no alternative to emp irical pro-
cedure: it tam es the roaming vision; it is a sor t of dressage; it
obviously produces subsequen t cognitive costs but also cer-
tain profits; and it therefore has its jus tificat ion. Dressage and
d iscipline guarantee the product ion of a kind of know ledge
that cannot be attained in any other way .

The need for another kind of language

Poerksen: The question is now whe ther this different and
novel understa nding of empirical know ledge and scie nce
does notrequire another anda new kind of language. Reading
scientific prose, it is easy to see tbat it is governed by rules of
presen tation tbat consis tently exclude the.observer: one mu st
not say 'I', one must notnarrate, one must not use poetical me t-
aphors . The linguist Heinz Kretzenbac her once maintained
that scicntific writing is governed by a n I-taboo, a narra-
tion-taboo, anda metaphor-taboo. Taking your premises seri-
ous1y, one sho uld be fundamenta1ly in tent on vio la ting these
taboos.
 150 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Schmidt: Tak in g the obse rver ser iously obviously exclud es

submittin g to th e I-taboo; the metap hor -taboo seems equa lly
n onsen sical beca u se metap hor s constitut e essen tial elem ents
of scienti fic speech. Metap hors ar e bid s for or ientation a.nd ca.n
be exploited for creat ive p ur poses, once the id ea of objective
wo r ld desc rip tion has been discar ded . It is of cour se also p os-
sible to un dersta.n d an y in terp r etation of fac ts, in a gen era l per-
spective, as a p iece of narr ation. Wit h full cons is tency and in
strict observa.nce of con str uc tivist pr inc ip les, every utt erance
oug ht rea lly to be in tro du ced wi th genera l prov isos like " I
be lieve, ass um e, think, asser t..." . Such a mode of wri ting is,
however, mos t laborious an d prod uces s tylistic mo nsters; tha t
is to say, it has its limit s . Peo ple who - like some construc t-
ivists - clam our for a new language, w hich de mo tes the h.id-
de n stru ct ure of Ind o-Euro pean lang uages, are evi den tly as k-
ing for the im poss ible ._

Poerks en: ln your profess ional work, yo u use a dec ided ly

abs tr act s tyle but you do no t h ammer abs traction in to a static,
fi na l sys tem; you keep break ing the pos tur e of sternn ess by
images, aph ori sms, and poe ms. None the less, I h ave bee n
ask :iJ,g myse lf: d oes no t abstractio n a lso ma ke tl1e o bserve r
invis ible? Abstrac tion does, after all, de tach a th esis fro m the
concre te experience to w hich it per haps owes its existence .

Schmidt : Scien tific d iscourse is characte r ise d by a tendency

towards abs trac tion; thi s is w here it differs spec ifica lly from
o ther disco ur ses. Th e questio n is, th erefore, wh ether to give
up science. Do we want to abo lish th e differe nce be tween
lit erat ure an d the scie n ce of lit erat u re - li ke m a n y
deco nstru ctiv ists? Do we want to declare - like th e misu nde r-
stoo d Pa ul Feyera ben d - tha t the r e is rea lly no diffe r ence
between science and myt hology, be twee n acade mic pr actice
and tri bal rites? With rega r d to these qu es tion s I re main, i f yo u
like, a tra di tionalis t. As longas the differe nce betwee n scie nce
and n on-science offer s rewards and makes a difference, I see
no reaso n to r eject tlús oppo rtun ity of ga ini ng ins ight a nd pro-
duc ing kn ow led ge . Wh enever I wan t to cha nge the leve ls of
observa tion in order to ach ieve the res p ectiv e insig ht s, I mu st
a lso cha nge th e leve ls of a bs trac ti on. There for e, a sec-
on d-or der observa tion req uir es termi no logical an d ca tegori -
cal abstract.io n.
 We can never start from scratch 151

Poerksen : Alfred Korzybski, the founder of Genera l Seman -

tics, once attempted to develop a new forro of language in
order to demonstrate to his readers: th e word is n ot the th:ing;
nobody can say everyth ing about an event; eve r y th in g
changes. Out of this very honourab le projec t of a search for a
new form grew, we could say witl, a tinge of malice, a bureau-
cracy for relativ ist th inkers . Korzybski proposed to ad d to
every name the calendar year in small print in order to com-
municate constantly tha t persons an d thin gs change over time
(e.g. Korzybski 1933). He furthe r recom mended a ttaching
numbers to every ambiguous wo r d in orde r to exp r ess wh ich
particu lar meaning (1, 2, or 3, etc .) was being used at the
moment. This proposa l is evidently absurd because it implies
a kind of exact itude that is unatta inable. Are we not obliged,
however, to indi cate in some way or other that eve ry thing can
always be viewed another way?
Schmidt: What is definite ly necessary is a differe n t kind of
leve l-headed n ess when positions and conceptio ns change.
One should - and Tam n ot saying tl1is wit h a h.igh mora l tone
- firm ly insist that one's modes of express ion, one's needs,
beliefs, and experiences may ch ange: I h ave often bee n
accused of perpetually changing p ositions, of aba n doning
them, or of becom ing entangled in contradic tions. Man y con-
sider this irresponsible. I would co unter by say ing: Wh oever
keeps saying and writing the sarne tlú ng should ser ious ly
begin to worry. On the contra ry, ch ange is an indica tor of
responsibi lity; it is nota sign of weak ness b ut may be seen as
th e living mater ialisation of the theoretical project thinking in
terms of process systems and effect r ela tions . ln this way, l can
myself experience the thesis tha t every syste m is in constan t
motion and that every reality Jeads to a recond itio n.ing of sys-
tems . Thus the thesis - ironically spoken - turns into a living
truth.

Science and art

Poerkse n: For many years now, you have been cr ossing disci-
plinary borders although this is cons idered stra nge i:n Ger-
many and not much appreciated. You have been appo inted to
chairs for different subjects severa ] times; you h ave been pro-
fessor of text theory and the scie nce of litera ture, and yo u are
today - having changed subjects again - professor of com-
152 The Certainty of Uncertainty

munica tion science. Moreove r, you hav e aJwa ys been acti ve as

an artist: you paint, and you publish experimental literature.
How do these different forms of life and thoughtfit together?
Schmidt : They stand in a productiv e re lation ship of mutual
irritation. lt is naturally somew hat stressfu l from time to tim e
to familiarise oneself with new terminolo gies, discourses, and
expec tations, but the life of a crossover professional provides
recurring opportunities of viewing apparently familiar things
with the eyes of a stranger and functioning as a kind of irritati-
onagentin different discipli nes. My art oftenis really a kind of
headwagging about my work as a philosopher or scientist. It
has the character of concurrent observat ion and flows back
into my scientific themes in qu ite different forms; it also allows
me to take my scien tific work not so infinit ely seriously that I
would be unabl e to l_çi.u
gh at it; and it perm its of testing alterna-
tive paths to know ledg-e.
Poerksen: You said earlier in our conv ersatio n: "there are
pract ically no ch an ces of arbitrariness; we can never start from
scratch ." It seems to me tha t the very purpose of art is to refute
suc h a claim: art is the attempt to realise an act of arbitrariness
and freedo m - knowing fui) well that it is essen tially impo ssi-
ble.

Schmidt: This is also a central motive behind my own crea tive

work, I would indeed say. One attempt s the impossible with
some chu tzpah eve n thou gh one knows Ltto be impo ssible.
Neverthe]ess, this ha s a special charm of its own. Here is a
modestexamp le: a few years ago I pubJi shed a small book en ti-
tled : Alles was sie schon imrnerüber Poesiewissen wollten [Every-
thingyou wantedtoknowaboutpoetry].ln 31 chap ters, I pretend
to give the ultimate information about what poetry really is.
Today, I no long er know myself whether the texts in this book
are quotations, paraphrases, commentari es, or pure inven -
tions. 1 am fascinated by this kind of hybrid text because it
entangles in the form of a cool game what Iam trying to disen-
ta.ngle day and nigh t in my exis tence as a scientist. At some
p ointwhat ever seems self-evident and whatever is believed to
be valid is se t in rnotion. Moreover, que stions emer ge: Does
poetry rea lly exist? Does language? Is there silence? Does this
author hav e a style? Does he still exist?
 CHAPTER 7

Thefreedom to venture
into the unknown
Helm Stierlin on guilt and respo nsibility in systemic
and constructivist though t, on the d ia lectical nature
of human relat ions. and on the e thos of the therap \st

e lm St ier lin (b . 1926)

H studied philosophy a.nd

med icine, obtained doc-
torates in both subjec ts, and went
to the USA in 1955. There he first
worked as a psychoanalyst in the
Mecca of analy ticall y orien ted
>,
psychos is therapy, the hospital of
1
~ .. ~r.;:::-.
Ches tnut Lodge near Washing-
s: ton, 1956-1961. He soon felt him-
e
(<) se lf in dLsagreement wi th
,::;

~
o. fundamen tal doctrines of psycho-
(J)
ana lysis. He carne to conside r the
(5
@ fixation on the individua l patien t
and the exclusion of family mem-
bers, as decreed by Sigmund Freud himse lf, was mistaken
because, in his medical practice, he was constan tly confron ted
with the power of family ties.
ln the 1960s, Stierlin became attract ed to the ear ly develop-
ments within the slowly growi.ng movement towards family
therapy. He designed projec ts of his own, conceiving of a fam-
Llyas a network of relations involving loyalties and delega-
tions, and began to comprehend families as sys tems governed
by their own specific mies of reality construction. Inspired by
Hegel' s central figure of though t - dia lectics - Stierlin devel-
oped a particular sensitivity for the dia lectics of relations, th e
perpetuai int erp lay without clear begi.tmings, the en tan gle-
ment of oppression and obedience, power and helplessness.
The title of one of his books, Das Tun des Einen ist das Tun des
 154 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Anderen [The Doing of the One is the Doing of the Otherj,

expresses, for him , both a research qu estion anda programrne :
what peop le do seems to him comp rehensible essentiall y
thrnugh their fields of relations; it remains incomprehe nsible
without taking the other int o account: it would not even exist
without the other.
Being trained in thi s kind of dia lectical observation, one can
recognise how the desire for closeness and the sometim es
escape-like search for distance determin e each other, how the
power of one ind ivid ual preserve s the weakness of anot hcr,
and how - converse ly - the weak.ness of one person e1úorces
the power of another.
Dialectical and sys temic thinking finally brought Helm
Stierlin back from the USA to the scene ofEuropean therapy.
ln 1974 he was appointed medica l director of the Abteilungfiir
PsychoanalytischeGrandlagenforschungund Familientherapieat
the University of Heidelberg. Since the early 1980s, Helm
Stierlin has been working on integrating the syste mic view,
which <leais with the ties of individuais, with constr uctivism,
which postulates the aut onorny of individuais. Hi s principa l
interest is not th e high.lightin g of oppos ites but the integration
of diversity; it is syn thesis, the goal of any dialectical effort.

The view of the systemicist

Poerksen: Our every day notions of a reliabJe and calculable
wor ld includ e the assumption that reaJity is govern ed by
recognisable and deciph erable Jaws, that a cause leads to an
effect in a linear way, and that we can refer any effect to its spe -
cific cause. The cen tra l assumptions of syste mic-con stru ctivist
theory and therapy that yo u represe nt are, how ever, th at there
is little sense in tlúnkin g in a linear-ca usal way because every -
thin g is circularly coru1ected; whatever hap pens rnanlf ests
itself in utt erly ent ang led chains of effect.
Stierlin: Well, I would not formul ate my views in suc h an
extreme and global rnann er. When a sur geon treats and cures a
leg, then a certain linearity of thinking and acting is defuútely
required. The sarne applie s to a rupture in the tyre of my bicy-
cle and many other occurr ences of ord inar y life; we know very
well there what has to be dane step by step. With regard to th e
domain of relations, how ever, linear-causal tlúnkin g becomes
questionable. There we realise very qu ickly, how profo undl y
 The freedom to venture into the unknown 155

cybernetics and other systems sciences have been revo luti on-
ising our understand ing of living syste rns, and we begin to
pay attention to feed back effects and processes of self-organi-
sation. We can see what enormou s effects a sing le impulse in
the domain of relation s may release: they spread within an
internaJ field of forces, pro paga te itself, and genera te an enor-
mous spectrum of possible reaction s.
Poerksen: One of the imp licalions is that the c011sequences of
one's actions become largely unpred ictable: we mu st always
reckon with surp rises. What are the advantages of such a n
essentially uncomfortable view for th e therap ist?
Stierlin: Aconsequenceand an advantage of th is pointof view
is then ewmodestyrequired on thepa rt of therapists. Theycan
never know precisely what their intervention s wi ll release in
other persons because tho se persons will proce ss any inter-
vention within their own syste ms according to their expecta-
tions. Doctors naturally use their experiences, which may help
them to envisage eventual results. Ali the sarne, we can n ever
be certain. Th.e circu lar-causa l view relativises the presump-
tion of therape utic and curative omnipo tence; and we begin to
acknowledge the autonomy of the patien ts.
Poerksen: But even as a therap ist, I mu st keep thinking in a lin-
ear-causal way. My thesis is: you need a trivial conception of
causality, raw mechanistic thinkiJ1g, in fact, o therwi se your
actions become meaningless and comp letely unpr edic table
activities.
Stierlin: Such a conception of causa lity is less in volved in
curat ive and therapeu tic activities than in the exercise of
powe r and control. The questions here are: Who is going to
win? Who has power? Who w ill prevail and with what mean s?
The point is to imp ose behaviour on othcr persons that they
must follow - unless they decide to rebel. Therapy and con-
trol are, in my view, not very closely related alth.ough both
forrns of interventio n tend to min gle in psychiatry due to Ii.n-
guistic standardisation : a psychiatric ho spita l is by defin ition
not only int ended to cure patients, it also provides contro lled
protection against people whorn society has defined as pot en-
tially dangerous.
 156 Tlie CertainhJof Uncert-a
inty

Poerksen: Wheneveryou enjoy a feeling of pri de after suc1.'!''li,

fui therapy, do you not refer your succe ss to the linear !'Ili
ciency of your intervention s?
Stierlin: Prid e is not the right kind of express ion; it go1'"
against my sys temic w1derstanding, which makes me aw.n1•
of the limits of my influence. It is rather a feeling of satisfactio11
that one ha s not committed too big mistakes and that 01w 11 1

intervention wa s usefuJ. I am ind eed sur pri sed sometinw1-1

what clients can achieve in a short time .
Poerksen: ln yo ur own pra ctice, you often work with compk 1 h'
families; you do not only treat ailing indi viduai s, but you a11k
parent s and children and per haps grandparents or peers to
attend a meeting. Cou ld you give an examp le from your thcrn
peutic practice that might illumin ate the particular charact1.•r
of sys temic procedur e?

The dynamics of self-destruction

Stierlin: Let u s look at the case of a:n anorexic girl. It is onc of
the d ile1nmas of anorexia that the required detachment is
fraught wiU, difficulty because such families are often domi
nat ed by strong fears of sepa ration an d rigid e ither/ or think -
ing. This is to say: eith er Iam part of the family sys tem, loved ,
and appreciated - or 1 am actua lly ou tsid e. With a girl thal
turn s anorexic eventually, the individuation is often retarded ;
she is loving and we ll adjusted. Jn a society obsessed by diel -
ing, and ido lising skin:nü,ess, she may mor eove r be taunt ed,
begins to redu ce weight and develops a fana ticism of control
leading to anore xia and an ultimat ely destructiv e triumph of
will. Anorexic girls stru gg le to detach them selves, reject ali
food, and gravely hurt their parents, who are increasingly
up set by the child starvin g herse lf to death. Anorexic person s
become aware of these reac tions, of course, suffer from a bad
conscience but desp ite ali carry on thinning. The entangling
attachment grows even stron ger .
Poerksen: Just to mak e the contr as t to other var iant s of ther-
apy quite clear: psychoanalysts probably would, when con-
fronted with an anorexic gir l, start with the game "Let 's biam e
the moth er !" They claim that it is, i.n most cases, an un satisfac-
tory ear ly relations hip betwee n mother and child , which
causes anorexia, in the end.
 T'1e Jreedom to venture into the unknown 157

Stierlin : Quite so. Psychoana lytical pa tterns of exp lanation

always presume an assor tment of conflicts an d traumas origi-
nating at a very early develo pm ental stage, consis ting, fot
instance, of a rejection of femaleness and a strong attachm ent
to the mother. Early childhood traumatisation, therefo re,
requires, in the view of analysts, the extensive actualisation of
the conflicts through a process of transfe rence and coun -
ter-transference.
Poerksen: What, by contras t, does the approach of the sys-
temic therapist revea l?
Stierlin: It uncovers the entang lement; it revea ls the effects the
anorexic gir l has on the family and vice versa. The anorexic
person has t.wo concerns: she wan ts to disengage herself from
the parents and control her own body. These needs are sa tis-
fied in the course of the illness in such a way as to produce fur-
ther effects wi thin the system of the fam ily. The anxiety and
the angs t of the paren ts give the sick girl an en ormous powe r
that may, in addition, release feelings of guilt; and the active
control of the individual body leads event ually to an increased
dependence on the medical establishment, wh ich intervenes
at some stage, treats the starva tio n damage, may even order
force-feeding, and thu s intr od uces to tal control. The girls in
question often react with coun ter-contro l, hoodwink the doc-
tors, and just drink a few litres of juice shortl y before weigh-
ing. ln br ief: wha t we recog nise are circula r pa ttern s of
interaction, enmeshed vicious circles, wh ich may, in the
extr eme case, lead to the girl's dea th. Anorexia, in this kind of
family, appears to be the ingenious soluti on of an insoluble sit-
uation . The anorexic individuais radically disconnect them-
selves; simultaneously, however, all fami ly members rema in
entangled with each othe r in dose e motio nal relat ionships.
Poerks en: Viktor von Weizsac ker often retorted brus qu ely,
when asked about mental and bod ilyi llnesses: "Yes, but notin
this way !" With regard to anorexia, this mea115:th e de tach-
ment is imminent but bo th the form and the strategy chosen
are wrong. They create a new forro of dependence and int en-
sify therelations, whichshou ld h ave beenseveredu, a positive
way.
Stierlin : You may see it this way, butl do not like this interpre-
tation. It reflects the perilous either / or thu,kin g that we must
158 The Certainty of Uncertainh;

definit ely overco me. The issue is neither comp lete disconne c-
tion nor total attachm en t. Both states are unendurab le. Thc
goa l is to develop, by trial and errar, a healthy interme diatc
form, which I have calle d relatedindividuation: the ability to
disengage onese lf, to pursue one' s ideas and idea is, and none-
theless to remain related to th e paren ts and the fami ly, and to
keep re-ad just ing this re lationship on new leveis all the time.
Poerksen: So how do yo u manage to ch ange rigid thin.king in
opposi tions an d - if you like - the patt erns and playing rules
of the interacting systems?
Stierlin: Put quite generally: the willingn ess of the girl to
change is decisive. Th e decision to starve must be corr ected by
the messag e that this kind of starva tion is not good for the
body. How to form ulate thi s message in su ch a way as to make
it work cann ot be sta ted in gen era l terms. lt depends on the
indi vidu a l case. Some gir ls are very amenab le to the paradoxi-
cal ch arac ter an d th e absurdity of the situa tion - and can
make this kind of thinking their ow n. Others display stub -
bo rnn ess a.nd p lay with the anxiety of the parents. Still others
can be caugh t wi th hurn our. From the therap ist's point of
view, it is esse nti al to start out from the girl' s notions of aut on-
orny and to aim at her leve i of compre hension.

Toe question of guilt in circular conditions

Poerksen: If we transfer circu lar thin king to the questions of
g uilt and innocence, then we will inevitab ly start to feel
slightl y uncomfortable. We are forced to state: ali pa rticip an ts
are gu ilty some how; each one is respo nsible - beca use all th e
effec ts are reciproca i. And if we want to be consistent, we will
necessar ily end up w ith the idea th at, in rea lity, nobody is
responsible any more. The question of guil t van ishes in the
vicious circle of interactions. "Systemic thinking thu s leaves
behind" - a we ll-kn ow n therap ist formulates quite con sis-
tently - "the categor ies of ca use and effect (and, th erefore, of
g uilt) in favo ur of a circu lar view." Would you agree?
Stierlin: No t at ali. Hearing some thin g like tha t imrned iate ly
stirs up my opposit ion and a strong anta gon ism towards s uch
a n aive and dangerous g lobal claim of cir cul ar understanding,
whi ch is allege d to ring in the last h ours of the resp ons ible
indi vidual. The sys temic and circu lar view is also, qu ite
 Tlw freedom to venture into the unknown 159

clearly, nothing but a model that has its limits. It is only onc
part of the approach; th e constructivis t perspect ive, which
emphasises personal initiative, personaJ responsibi lity, and
therefore personal guilt, must su pplement it. The more we
recognise ourselves as the constructo rs of our relational rea li-
ties, the better we comprehend oursel vesas responsib le for the
realities we have constructed. We should ask ourse lves, par -
ticularly when confro nt ed by an image of circular entang le-
ment: what is it that makes a difference? We are, after all,
observing a game that is being played. The answer is: it make s
a difference that one of the participants dr op s out of the game,
stops observing the rules, will not rise to provoc ation any
more, and thus vio lates the laws of a we ll worn manner of con-
flict management. Perhaps the entir e quarrelling game is
destroyed in this way . Natu ra lly, there is no telling how such a
step will affect the system of relations. But withou t this risk of
essentially unpredictable reactions, without perso n al initia -
tive and wit lwut persona l responsibi lity there can be no pro g-
ress, none at ali.
Poerksen : M y claim is, however, tha t syste mic thinking forces
you to abandon the idea of the au tonornous individual and,
conseq uently, the id ea of personal respon sibilit y . The ind iv.id-
ual appearn in the relevant literature - I quo te aga in - as a
mere "element in a contrai circuit."
Stierlin: Iam aware of these pronouncements, but the posit ion
I take here is decidedly different; it conn ects autonomy and
dependence, not forcing them into an oppos ition bu t relati n g
them dialectically. [ think that you cannot be so lely autono-
mous or dependent, sole ly victim or perpctrator, solely pow-
erless or in tota l possession of powe r. Au tonomy is possib le
only when hmnan beings are able to reflect, at the sarne time,
their dependence on other people, hea lth y food, fresh air, and
a state under the rule of Iaw that g uar antees a11dsafeg uard s a
life of freedom within limits, in the first place. Autonomous
action includes, conse qu ent ly, th e ac kn ow ledgme nt and
acceptance of v ital dependences . Perhaps this sounds a bit dif-
ficult. However, rny claim is that autonomy becomcs possible
precisely when people gain an awareness of their depende nce
upon others and begin to reflect the co nsequen ces of thei r loy-
alty to a grou por to an ideo logy. Moreover, wena turally come
to appreciate our dependence whencver we strugg le to asser t
 160 The Certainty of Uncertainty

our aut onom y and try to qu estion the condi tion s of our affilia-
tion s and our p rin cipal dis tinctions.

Poerksen: Those wh o become a ware of their suppr ession gain

free dom ?

Stierl in: I believe so. It is a reflective distance that enables u s to

obser ve the causes of supp ressi on as th ou gh from out sid e.
And this distan ce rend ers the possibiliti es of freedom even
m ore real for u s; the opti on s increase; we ass um e res p onsibil -
ity for ou r decision s, for expl oitin g or di sregar din g oppo rtw1i-
ties . We beg in to see th e reaso n s for our obdura cy, w e
recognise the dou ble bind s and the imp asses - an d di scover
new d omains of pl ay and the prac tically infinite possibiliti es
of int erpre ting th e pr ocesses of eve nt s, of es tablishin g causal
chains, of creatin g sen se, and of designin g and re designin g the
multi verse exis ting insid e and between human beings .
Poerksen: You are trying to reco ncile, if I und ers tand cor-
rectly, the idea of the aut onomou s indi vidu al with the n otion
of the hum an bein g that is shaped by particul ar circums tances
and remain s cnt an gled in them .
Stierlin: I think that we nee d to see both toge ther in ord er to
recognise how a utonom y and depend ence de termin e each
oth er. My ow n respon sibility and my aut on omy w ill becom e
clear to me only if I become aware of how dependent I am
u pon ot hers. Perh ap s the image of the flying bird is helpful
here, the prima! im age of the wo nd erful feelin g of free dom,
illu stratin g the concurre nce of opp osites . Its freedom in flight
is both express ion and con sequ en ce of its being bom e by the
air.

Poerksen: 1t migh t be-objec ted here that the u nderstandin g of

th e co nditi ons of on e's d epend e nce ca n, co nv ersely, be
exploit ed for the p ur pose of denying and renoun cing indi vid -
ua l freedo m and person al respo nsibilit y . Rud olf Hõss, the
conunandant of Au schwit z, for inst an ce, asserts in bis bio-
graph ica l not es: "I had unconsciously becom e a w heel in the
big machine of destru ction of the 'Third Reich '. The m achin e
has been dem olished, th e mo tor h as gone un der, and I mu st
with it." Rud olf H õss is thinking sys temica11y here, to put it
ma liciously, to be abl e to pr esent h:imself as a victim af ter the
War .
 T'1efreedom to venture into the unknown 161

Stierlin: This is a very good example to sh ow a way of argu ing

tha t is widespread not only amo n g Naz is. Therc are exact ly
these two con trary possibilities of using sys tem ic thinking.
One can - an d it does indeed freque nt ly happe n - use a sys-
temic view as a legitima ting argume n t in order to fen d off
one's responsib ility and personal gu ilt: one declares onese lf a
small wheel in a big mach ine that cannot be contro lled . H ow-
ever, the reflection of one's depe nd ence is also - in my view
- a way of making oneself be tter aware of the optio ns that are
always ava ilable and of one'i; own a uton omy soas to take on
responsibi lity for one' s actions w ithin the lim its of a fini te life.

The par adox of freedom

Poerksen: I sympa this~ with such a view but I just cannot help
find in g it con tradictory. If I da im that a hum an bein g is
enmeshed iJ, a certain system of relations, then I am thinkin g
deterministica lly and negating the p ossibility of perso nal
au tonomy. If 1 claim, however, that ind ivid uais éll·efree and
responsib le, then I mus t, at th e sarne time, be negating ali pos-
sibililies of externa i determ inat ion. Otherwise, there is a logi-
cal contradic tion .
Stierlin : Systemic and cons tructiv is t thinki n g im p lics bid din g
farewell to the grand designs, the ideo logics, and the appar-
en tly final solutions, and to face up to tbe risks and uncer tain-
ties of Jife in fu ll personal responsi bility. Jn thi s process we
must also, at some stage, accept the lim its of wes tem binary
logic an d fami liarise our se lves, as in d ivid ua is actin g in
self-awareness, with the perpetua i paradoxes of ou r existence
where huma n reason founders . Tota l logical consistency is
simp ly not to be had in the process of life. Lenin already
abused logic as " the grea test whore": it is ava ilable for every-
thing.
Poerksen: Perhaps an ti-logic is a w hore, too, and freely ava il-
a ble.
Stierlin: Logic and an ti-logic are two extreme forms of view-
ing reality. We mus t act as med ia tors betwee n th em and other
views tha t ar e no t rational. My med ical colleag ue Ronald
Grossar th-Maticek once asked 5000 academics to na me th eir
cri teria of sense, validity, and truth . Scienti sts and scient ifi-
cally min ded psyc holog ists decla red that, for them, only th e
162 The Certainty of Uncertainti;

logical, the idiot-proof rational, had any validity. A small

group of only about 15 percent said that, for them, sen se and
truth lay only in what they found intuitiv ely and emo tionally
evide nt. Their motto wa s: I tru st nothing but my affect logic! A
further group, also rather small, took a middle stru,ce betw een
the se two extrem es ru1d attempted to conn ect a logi cally
found ed view wi th an intuitiv e and emotion- gu ided construc-
tion of reality. Thi s is difficult and complicat ed because such
attempt s un avo idabl y meet with p ara dox es, contradictions,
and inconsiste ncie s. As for myself, I would cer tainly like to
join the group that mut es logic and emotion. Iam troubled by
Hrumah Arendt' s question how it was possibl e th at so m any
Germans succu mbed to the allw-e of power during the period
of Nat ional Socialism, and wh y there were so relatively few
that respond ed with purely humru1 feelin g. Wher e was the
spontaneou s reaction of compa ssion for the p ersecu ted? The
majority yielded to the omnipot ence of a p seud o-rationa lity
deriving from th e ideologi cal sys tem. In thl s id eologica l
sys tem Jew ish fellow citizens were a d isease that had to be
elirninated - without sop py sentim entality and with the pro-
fessionalism of a surgeo n. Here, too, rationality had become a
whore du e to the lack of the counte r balancing fee ling of com -
passion.
Poerksen: Review ing our conv ersa tion so far, I run struck by a
way of thlnk ing that is con stantly s tru ggling for a dialectical
balance: you link th e 11eeds of individu als and familie s, sys-
tems theory and constructivi s m, autonomy and dependence,
freed om and suppr ession, reason and em otion. One se11ses -
as one of your source s of in spira tion, the philo sopher Hege l,
would put it - a d esire for synthesi s, for the elimination of
opposition and di.yersity in a n ew, sup erordinat e unit.
Stierlin: Your observati on is quite corr ec t. The concep t of d ia-
lectics is, for me, a sort of magica i word that has fascinated and
inspi red m e sin ce th e days of my univ ersity studie s. And yo u
are quite right: the goa l of my thinking and my therape uti c
work is not th e immo va bl e front , th e ind issoluble and
unbrid geable oppos ition , but a kind of inspection th at focus-
ses on the individual case and primarily airns at reconc iliation.
This does not at all impl y, how eve r, th at difference s are to be
blurred and contradict ion s argued out of sigh t, that every-
thing is to be plastered up by a grand syn thesis, that tensions
 The freedom to venture into the unknown 163

are to be remo ved , and tha t a to talisi.ng no tion of dialec tics is to

be em ployed to bring abo ut fin al harmon y. What is, in fact,
mean t is the inten tion to wor k on the concrete case and to seek '
to discover new answers every time, to exp lore the relationa l
dia lectics of a togeth ern ess th at is as alive as po ssible, and
where new contr asts and new balances ke ep arising ali the
time. Once more : to ac hieve an ad equ a te interven tionas a th er-
apist, one do es not n eed the gra nd concept s or the univ ersa l
direc tive for any ima ginab le occasion; wh at you ne ed is the
sen sitivity for th e indi vidu al case. Th en yo u must ac t quit e
pragma tically.
Poerksen: You cha nge yo ur way of thinking according to the
situa tion?
Stierlin: Definitely. Linear and cir cular ca usality, the models
of cause and effect, the notio n s of iodi v idu al and sys tem,
au tonomy an d depen d ence etc. are ali lenses of cognit ion,
whlch l apply or exchan ge accordin g to the given situ ation.
The reaso n for the necessity of such prà gmat ic choic e is tha t
these lenses open up a particu lar v iew of the wo rld and
exclude anot her. One mu st we igh up whlc h perspec tive is
most u seful in the give n situa tion.
Poerksen: Karl Pop per an d the disciples of hi s philo soph y of
science mainta in that such a pr ocedur e does not sa tisfy the
requ irem en ts of science. Karl Pop pe r insis ts on th e exp licit
sta tement of the condit ions th at mi.g ht refute and falsify one's
assumptions. Now you are working wit h theses and theories
th at fuo da men tally conlTadi ct each other; yo u asse rt th e
a u ton omy of indi viduai s and, a t the sarne tim e, their capti vity
in sys tems. The con sequ eoce is tha t p roceed ing in this wa y
prevents failure tlU'ough a clash with facts beca use any kind of
behav iour can be int egrated as poss ible evid ence.
Stierlin: My reply to the Popp eri ans would be: let us take a
s pecific case - e.g . a p sychosis - a11d ap ply o ur different cog-
ni.tive lenses ! What will we gain - my qu es tio n wou ld be -
by observing the illness thro ugh the lens that revea ls the inter-
na! confli ct dynamics of the pa tient ? What do we see when
using th e family lens and the sys temic lens? The fact that s uch
an approach is not based on eterna lly va lid p rin cip ies and the-
or ies seems to be a moral probl em for cert ain peopl e; they
accuse one of cap ri ciousness . My view is the exac t reve rse. Th e
164 The Certainty of Uncertaínry

lack of compl ete recipes is, for me, both express ion and conse-
quence of moral sens itivity: one allows oneself to be gu id ed by
the req uirements releva nt to the given situat ion and by one's
own experience. ln d ealin g with the concre te case, the arbi-
trariness of a pragmatic approach with multiple lens adjust-
rnents, which is deplore d by some, quickly evaporates.
Poerksen: Is there really no sup erord ina te point of view when
yo u are choos ing your tenses according to gi ven need s and
momentary efficiency?
Stierlin: It derives from the genera l perspective of systems
theory and the med ical situ ation: one is always confro nted
with a problem that is experienced as painful. Th erefore, the
centra l ques tions ,md maxims are : what can be dane to reduce
pain? Might the restored we ll-being of the indi viduals and
their successful self-regu lation bringnew pain to the other suf-
fering member s of the fami ly? Does the avoidance of pain sui-
focate crea tive tendencies? The goa l should always be to
reflect the conseque n ces for as many most wid ely differing
sys tems domain s as possible in arde r to uncover a maximum
of subseq uent effects.
Poerksen: Are such mobility and this sensitivity to effects
learn able, or is one not bound to fail as a resu lt of the comp lex-
ity of the circumstance s and the nec essarily restri cted capacity
of compre hension? Even the grand old lady of family therapy,
Maria Selvini Palazzoli, once ad mitt ed that systemic thinkin g
is feasible only for moments ata ti.me.
Stierlin: Systemic thinking can only be learned thr ough one' s
work; it canno t be instilled i.nto others; it needs time to ga ther
exper ience and to rnake mistakes. Natura lly, such a way of
thinkin g is no t wit hou t its risks because it introdu ces new
complexity th at in tum req uires cornp lexity reduction, w hich
may then become the sou rce of new ha.ng-ups, new claims to
salva tion, and new ideologies.

The fundamental systemic maxim

Poerksen: Is syste mic thinking not, in fact, boun d to remain
the business of an élite, w hich interferes with people's com-
pletely legitim ate desire for simpl e orientation? Systems the-
ory is, after all, on ly of interest to a relatively sma ll circle of
 The freedom to venture into t/1eunk11ow11 165

initia tes equ ipped with a certain i.ntellectual hun ger for mobi l-
ity.
Stierlin: What is the alternative? Shou ld we abaridon theori es
and the know ledge we m ight derive from them simp ly
because they frush·ate the craving for complexity reduction?
Are poss.ible difficulties of comp rehension really valid argu-
ments against the theor ies tbemselves ?
Poerkse n: My point is this : the sys ternic models of thinking,
which expressly claim to offer univer sal or ientation, require
years of intellectual training and in due course undermine
securities and destroy aspirations towards trut h. Perhap s only
a sma ll number of peop le can stoma ch these consequences.
Stierlin: I canno t agree. A systemic attitudc to oneself and oth-
ers and the pra ctice of self-reg ulation in daily Jife, which lead
to grea ter well-being, are nota questio n of i:ntelligence. They
do not have to be connected with the unders tand ing of a com-
plex intellectual system. ln my practice of fami ly therapy, Iam
constantly surprised by ho w rapidly evenre lative ly unsop his-
ticated persons are won over to the sys temic view and put it
into operat ion for themselves with the effect of posit ive
chan ge. Difficulties arise, by contra st, w ith the intellectually
refined, therapy exper ienced, and academ ically educa ted,
Heidelberg pop ulation .
Poerksen: Is it really the other way round? Is it intuition and
not so much the intellect that is needed for sys temic und er-
standing?
Stierlin: What one needs, wha t one should take to heart,
apply, and defend against others, is above all a fundamental
systemic maxim tha t sounds terr ibly simplistic: one should do
more of what is good for one in the long run. There are so
incredibly many peop le who cling to internalised fundamen-
tal beliefs and di.rective distinctions th at force thern to actrigh t
against their own well-being. They give up sexuality, they
deform and twist themselves in arder to win someone's lave,
and they strug gle i.nte rminably to satisfy fore ign demands.
Poerksen: Do you think that yo ur special situation of inqu iry,
as practising ther apist and theorist, combining theory and
 166 The CertainhJof Uncertainty

practice, intuition and abstraction, is particul arly produ ctive

intellectually?
Stierlin: It definitely has enormous advantages because it
keeps me away from the interminable and somet imes totally
super fluou s conceptual pettifogging of some of the systems
theorists, sociologists, and psychologists. ln my situation as
doctor, Iam permanently compe lled to test the practical value
of a theory. I am infinit ely gra teful for this constan t test
through daily practice; it prevents the detached and alienated
playing around with ideas that I found so terribly painfu] as a
beginner st ud ent of philosophy. When I eventua lly star ted
studying medicine, it felt like some sort of deliverance; the
concre te questions, the criticai examinati on of disease and
pain, and th e work on corpses made me find my feet again.
Poerksen: What do you as a practising therapist and theorist
und erstand by a syste m? Is it a free creation of th e hum an
mind ? Or do systems exist?
Stierlin: A system is a totality , which possesses a quality that is
more than the sum total of its elements. What observers accep t
as a system , depends on them and on the answer to the ques-
tion of where the boundary between system and environment
is drawn. Is a bacterium, a rat, a hum an bei.ng, ar a family a sys-
tem? Systems are, in my v.iew, more or less meaningful
observer constr ucts. This becomes quite clear when we con-
sider the con cept of a problemsystem: the therapist as observer
reflects which elemen ts make up the pain-causing sys tem and
w hich do not. The married partners? Mustthe whole family be
present? Is it necessary to observe several generations?
Poerksen: Quite genera lly: what therapeu tic methods result
from sys tem ic and constructiv ist insights?
Stierlin: Techniques and methods will be alJotted a place in
syste mic-constructiv ist therapy if they are helpful in effec-
tively creating differences that make a difference. They rnust
be adjusted to the levei of expec tations and perceptions of the
clients, a nd they shou ld be jud ged as health improvin g by ali
the mernbers involved in the system in question. Naturally,
classical psychoanalysis also introduces differences but it
remains fixated upon the narrow contex t of a dyadic relation;
the cogni tive lens is restricted to interna! mental conflicts. Sys-
 The freedom to ventu re into the unknown 167

temic therap ists, howev er, embe d the conflict in the relevant
relationa l system. Their horizon for thera py and diagnosis is
wider.
Poerksen: How does one proceed as a therapist in practice?
Could you give a few examples ?
Stierlin: One of my guiding lines is that it is imposs ible to for-
mula te ways of proceeding that are ind ependent frorn situ a-
tions and contex ts; I therefore find it difficul t to give an
answer. Qui te genera lly, h oweve r: one of the most imp ortant
instruments is quite definite ly the technique of circular ques-
tioning. One asks, for instan ce, a family member in an undi-
rected way that equall y permits the search for distance or
closeness, about the conflicts, expectations, and needs of
another member. A ll the persons pre sent are thu s given a prac-
tical demonstration of the relat ivity and mutual condit ioni.ng
of their perceptions. The goal is to stimulate mental search pro-
cesses and keep someth ing in mo tion, to open up new perspec-
ti ves, and to increase the au tonomy of every individual.
Concisely: the analyst interpre ts, the syste micist que stions.

Hard and soft realities

Poerksen: What role does language play in this proce ss? Is it
an instrument of sedu ction, of communication, a vehicle of
reciprocai understanding?
Stierlin: All tha t. Whenever we seek a hold and an orientation
and even a safe footing iJ1a bottomless void, we are dep endent
upon language; language is, to quot e Martin Heidegger, the
house of being that guarantees stability. lt is used to harden
distinctions, it marks a su ppos edly sta tic reality that is beyond
doub t; it declares something prov en and un shakable and
serv es in formulatingnon-negotiable positions; butit also per-
mits us to liqu efy fundamenta list claims to truthand rigidified
realit y constructions for therapeutic purposes. We can poin t to
the cons equences of such certaint ies, question them directly ar
indir ectly, bring the count er concep t into play, in ard er to
show and present the relativ isation of the original concept.
Poerksen: It might appea r now that sys temic therapis ts in
their basic enthu siasm for new possib ilities are primarily
 168 The Certainty of Uncertainty

responsible for th e Jiquefaction of reality constructions. ls that

corr ect?

Stierlin: No. If irreconcilably phra sed view s clash, then th e

goal must ind eed be to soften them. Question s and provo ca-
tion s, humour and impertin ence then serve to cre ate a new
dyn amic s. Such an approach is often apposite when the suffer-
ing in qu estion ha s p sycho somatic cau ses. How ever, one can
also imagine schiz ophr enic scenario s, wh ere everything
seems vagu e and fluid, un stable and undifferent iat ed. Here a
hardening may be called for that wou ld open upa first possi-
bility of seeing a difference that mak es a difference.
Poerksen: How do you actually do that? How doe s one
barden a reality by means of language without marking off
boundari es in a direct and linear-cau sal way?
Stierlin: One of the key prob lems of schizophr enic communi-
cation are notions of conflict that are characterised by an
impl acable, rigid either -or logic: there is eith er total detach-
ment and compl e te separation, or absolute union. Given con-
flicts are not addre ssed beca use that would be too much of a
threat. Schizophreni cs tend to develop a sort of communica -
tion that keeps everything vague, shun s all determination, and
my stifies everythin g. ln such a situation, the prim e target is to
reach the conflict, to hav e it articulat ed. If one attempt ed to do
this in too dir ect a way, on e would fright en these per son s and
heighten their fears. Therefore, an indir ect way is chosen,
whi ch might, for exampl e, counter the schizophrenic and
all-diffu sing babbl e by an even mor e confu sed communica-
tion from the sid e of the therapi st. Som ewher e in the pro cess a
moment arrive s when the client says: "Do ctor, stop it now! Let
us have som e clarity at last!And let us get down to brass tacks,
at last!"
Poerksen : Preparing this conversation, I carne across th ese
and oth er tricks in books by variou s author s, and from tim e to
time the que stion aros e as to whether th ese author s wer e actu-
ally good people. 1 was struck by a style oscillating be tween
coldn ess and excitement, by a strang e distance betwe en the
therapi sts and th e peopl e whos e difficu lties they analys ed.
Wh at might be the reason, do you think, for being mov ed to
askin g this qu estion of goodne ss wh en readin g systemic liter-
atur e?
 The freedom to venture into the u11k ,w11111 1(19

Stierlin: I sirnply cam1ot tell you; it is yo ur qu es tion. lt i'l 1'1•1

tainly possib le that a kin d of prose that stru ggles inlcntiivd y
for scientifi c legitimation an d bar ely tou ches the h carl w lll
occasionally strike one as repu lsive . But the other extreme
woul d be a kind of emoti onal p layacting as used to bc
extremely pop ular once in the scene of American family ther-
apy; the style of some auth ors is also a reaction aga inst such an
exagge rated emph asis on feelings . When I stud y this kind of
litera tur e, I am in terested to see wheth er the prese nt ation is
successfu l, w hether the author has manage d to tran slate
abs tract ideas int o vivi.d descr iptions and make them fluid
again . And what are good perso n s supp osed to be like, any-
way? H ow d oes one iden tify goo dn ess? What are the recogni s-
able signs of goodness?
Poerksen: One feature might be that good people lave hum an
beings.
St ierlin: But what is love? These gu estion s of goodn ess and
love seem to me to be a ttempts at redu cing comp lexity: they
simplify, they sup ply n eat for mul as for exb:emely comp lex
affair s.
Poerksen: The ques tion arises then why you find compl ex
tbinkin g more at tractive and desir able in an y event. Is there a
systemic key expe rience that yo u might pe rhap s like to
describe?
Stierlin: Yes, this key experience occurr ed as far back as 1957. I
had just started work as an ana ly tically orient ed psychiatrist in
the American clinic Chestnut Lodge. My first pati ent in this
clinic was a girl stude nt w ho was admitt ed in a catatonic state .
Sbe did not speak and was compl etely r igid. The rigidit y
began slowly to recede, howeve r, a good contact developed,
a nd she ope nly talked abo ut her confü cts. Thcn somethin g
vcry stra nge hap pened : sud denly her fath er appeared, took
the pat ien t away, litera lly overn.ight, and left me there in qu ite
a daze; it had, after all, been my firs t case in the clinic of Chest-
nut Lodge.My su pervisor, at the time, consoled me wi tb the
wor ds that the first sign of recovery often was pr ecise ly that
the parents came to take their child home from the hosp ital. l
forme d the imp ress ion then that the loyalti es that keep per-
sons tied int o thesys tem of afa mily are mu ch stron ger than th e
 170 The Certainty of UncertainttJ

forces manifesting them selves in the dyadic relation of a thcr-

apy.
Poerksen: You had discovered the p ower of the un consciom,
in the domain of relat ion s.
Stierlin: Exactly. It was this power of family loyalties and
bonds, which was obviously active in relation s, that occupied
my mind after that experience and that I intended to use in
therapy. That expe rien ce in Chestnut Lodgenev er left me and
finally led me to family therapy. Some tim e later, I describcd
the forces involved as tran sgeneratio nal loyalties and delega-
tions. Observing th ese forces from outsid e make s one realise
that they are powerful enoug h to keep a patient in a state of
schizop lu enia.

The era of the textbooks

Poerksen: Today sys temic and constructiv ist thinking, which
was then in its beginning stages, has become incr easing ly pop-
ular. My question is now: might it not be dangerous both for
syste ms theory and constru ctivism to gain in dominance in
public and academic discourse? Fo r me, system ic and
constructivist thinkin g is really meaningful only as a sort of
antagonistic epistemology that functions as an antidote
against the arrogance of dogmatically harden ed claims to
objectivity. The moment it becomes domin ant i t loses its func-
tion . Such a way of th.inking sho uld always - put somew hat
pompously - remain a philosophy of the underdog.
Stierlin: That will hardly be possible, but I personally do
indeed regret very much that the era of the textbook s, the times
of popularisation and politicisation hav e set in. This mean s
that a pha se of crea tive anarchy is inevitably ending. And one
now risks becoming the victim of one' s own success. The his-
tory of psycho analy sis is a cautionary tale. There is an enor-
mous difference between the revo lutionary types of the
founding generation, who stood up - most of them outside
the w1iversities - against the psychiatric establishment, and
the meanwhile established analytica l main strea m philosophy,
which now domina tes the univ ersi ties. I certainly do not wish
this to be the fate of constructivists and systemicists. I arn not
unduly worried, how ever, as a commi ttee of experts, consist-
ing rnainly of aut hor s of an analytical persuasio n, has ju st sei-
 The freedom to venture into t/1e unkll(>W11 17 1

entifica lly certified once again that the systemic approach is

unscientific. Therapists working in thi s way are, thereforc,
excluded from the remuneration by the genera l health insur -
ance companies. This is not merely a bad t:hing; it leaves one
free to think in a non -conformis t way, to venture int:o new
thing s and try them out.
Poerksen: To conclude: do you think that syste mic thinking
might also be useful outside the therapy room? It is after a li
pleading more or 1ess clearly for new ways of meeting and
treating our fellow human be.ings and our whole environ-
ment.
Stierlin: To put it as a matt er of pr incip ie: then ew under stand-
ing of complex relation s is accompanied, in my view, by a new
kind of humility and reverence, which is changing our re la-
tionship with the world and all other human beings, and
which is therefOTeundoubt ed ly helpful. I always like pr esent-
ing the exampl e of a sing le huma n finger. ln this one finger
alone ther e are 1,5 thou san d million cells. Each cell contains all
the genet ic informati on, i.e. about 100,000 genes. ln add ition ,
each cell is a sor t of power plant in which 2000 chemical pro-
cesses take place simultan eous 1y. ln this finger alone, there is
unfathomabl e complexity: it necessari ly ma kes us marvel, and
i.t cannot bu t inspire humility before the enormous power of
the self-regula tion of life. Such marvelling humility is, of
cour se, notmeant to manifest itself in a passive attitud e of ado-
ration and veneration that migh t eventua lly even lead to a sort
of systemic fata1ism. l am much rather concerned with a kind
of awareness of comp lexity that meets the challenge of a
red uction of complexity tha t preserve s comp lexity . We must,
ther efore, tackle the question of what is essential with a maxi-
mum of system ic imagination and percep tual power. On the
other hand , we should - in the awareness of our own limit a-
tions and with the never-flagging reverence before the
enigmatic aspects of our existence - act in a respon sible and
decisive man11er.
 CHAPTER 8

Reality: we can only

know what it is not
Paul Watzlawic k on the axio m s of co mmun icatio n,
o n the hidde n real ism o f psychiatrlc dlagnoses, a nd
o n the co nstructivist vision of hum an existence

au l Wa tz lawick (b. 192 1)

P s tudi e d p h ilosop h y a n d
fore ig:n Iang uages in Ven-
ice . Af ter obta inin g h.is Ph .D. in
1949 he spent the nex t few years a t
th e C.G. Jung -In stit ute in Ztir ich
tr ain .ing as th erap ist and psyc h o-
analyst. H e th en ran a pract ice of
his own for some tim e. 1957-196 0
he was pro fessor of psyc h oth er -
~
·;;;
apy at the Uni ver sity of El Sa lva -
a. dor. O n th e way back to Euro p e h e
2
(1) beca m e acqua in ted w ith t he
a.
@) sch.izo phr e1úa spec ialist Don D.
Jac kson an d was persua ded to
m ove to Pa lo Alto in Ca liforn ia. There Watzlawick carne into
cont act with the anth ro polog ist Gr egory Ba teson and lús col-
laborators, whose w oik wi th schi zophr enics was gu ided by
gu es tion s like: ln wh a t sense mu st th e app aren t p a tholog ica l
be hav iour of indiv iduals be cons ide r ed adeq uate? Wh at is its
match.i ng sys tem of re latio ns? ln oth er words : Un de r wha t
con ditions does n onse n se tum int o sense and appare nt sense
int o no nsense?
Th e pri mary conseq u ence of an ap proac h of this kind is a
broa denin g of vision; th e sick ind ividua l is n o longer viewe d
in iso lation. An in d ividu al th at see m s to be behaving in an
a ut onom ous ly in sa ne way and ina sup posed ly self-gove rn ed,
ex trem ely weir d m anner, is seen, from this pers pecti ve, as
enm eshed in an encompass in g sys te m, a famil y, a gro up, a cul -
174 The Certainty of UncertainhJ

ture. Whatever ind ividuals do can be m ade to appear m ean -

ingfu l and consistent again wi thin such a large r-scale frame of
refe rence. By broaden:i.ng one's vision in tlú s way, one m ay
recognise the pattern causing an illn ess, the causal circuit s,
and the meshes of re lations, w hich genera te conflic ts and
mai nt ain them i.nan icy grip. Thus, th e p syc hot herapist' s roo m
is transformed into an epistemo logical labora tory: the thera-
p ist seeks to uncover the hidden ru les of reality construc ti on
and subsequently to right them.
Shortly after his arr ival in the USA, Watz law ick starte d to
work as a research associa te of ilie Me nt al Research Institute in
Palo Alto - an Institute whose members had imp lernented,
both in their therapeutic work and in its sys tematic investiga -
tion, tl1e genera l ins ights of Gregory Ba teso n and Don D. Jack-
son concerning the essentia l char ac ter of insane and
pathological behaviour . ln 1967 Wa tzlaw ick began to teach a t
Stanford University, was ac tive as th era pi st and com m un ica-
tion scient ist, advised compan ies and concerns, and in his
books described paradoxes and snares in conun unication..
These publications demonstrate, in particular, th e prac tica l
consequences of cons tructivist and sys temic th i11kin.g : one
realises how conceptions arise tha t lead to sufferi.ng, how they
become rigid, and how they may be - owing to successfu l
intervention - liquefied and disso lved again.

Theory determines observation

Poerkse n: Professor Watz lawick, your book How Real [s Real?
presents a thesis that seems to me centra l to a li you r wo r k. ln
the first sentence of the book it is claimed "tha t the so-ca lled
reality is th e resu lt of communicatio n ."

Watzlaw ick: It has to be said, thoug h, tha t th is sta temen t is no t

at all new but was already made by various ancien t phil oso -
phers. They were quite clear abou t the fact tha t w ha t we cal]
r eality is sometlúng fundamenta lly p resumed, someth in g cr e-
a ted, and not some thing app rehended uncond itio n ally. ln th e
history of philosophy we can find n umerous prono unceme nt s
- I only mention Immanuel Ka nt and Ar thur Sch open h auer
- that support such epistemologica l scep ticism . Kant and
Schopenhauer never tired of asserting fuat rea lity is the res ult
of attribu ting mea.n.ing to unknow n thi.ngs. Even in th eore tica 1
physics - a field that lay peop le tend to consider th e m os t
 Realiti;: we can only know what it is not 175

objective scie ntiiic di scipl ine - simi lar s tatem ent s can be
fo un d . Alber t Ein stein is rep or ted to have sai d to Wern er Hei-
se nb er g in Cope nh agen in 1927 th a t it was wrong to believe a
th eory to be built on obse rva tions; it was quit e th e reverse: it is
al ways a th eor y th a t deter mines w hat we can obser ve. Thi s is
to say th a t th e above th esis has been known for ages .

Poerksen : None theless, yo u give th is an cien t phil oso phi ca l

sce pti cism w ith r egar d to th e poss ibiliti es of und erstandin g
th e give n wo rld a new twis t. You sp ecify wha t we call r eafü y
thr o ugh th e con cep t of comm un ication. You reve rt th e rela-
tionship betwee n rea lity an d comm uni cat ion in an am az in g
way, which beco m es p artic ul ar ly clea r whe n it is r efor mul ated
in th e langu age of ca usa lit y. The eve r yday noti on obviously is:
communi cat ion represen ts r ealit y. ln th e language of ca usal-
ity : reali ty is th e cau se, comm uni ca tion is th e conse qu ence.
Thi s ca usal relatio n is turn ed round in yo ur books: comm un i-
ca tion is the ca use, r ea lity is the conse que nce.
Watzlawick: You can p u t itth is way, cer tainl y. Howeve r, Jean
Piage t a lrea dy po in ted out in hi s book La constructiondu rée/
chezl'enfant, whi ch ap p eare d in th e 1930s, tha t th e or ienta tion
of th e sma ll chi ld, for examp le, was du e to com mu nica tion s.
Piage t an alysed in a very care ful an d clear-c u t way h ow th e
chil d creates an im age of rea lity - and wh a t ro le the commu -
ni cati on of th e en viro nm ent p lays in thi s pr ocess . The child is
told, in any case: we are tellin g yo u wh o yo u ar e! We te l1yo u
h ow to view th e wo rl d ! Mor eover, if you see it an y o th er way
yo u ar e either m ad or wicked! ln th is way, all rea lity constr uc-
tion s are d eve lop ed w heth er th ey pur ely p er sonal or encorn-
p ass wh ole cu ltures.

Poe rks en:I th ink iti s im p or tan t to sh ar pen the conce p t of com-
m u nica tion in or der to und erstand in p r ecise d etail how the
process of know led ge acqu isiti on takes place and h ow th at
ense m ble of ass ump tions is for m ed, w h ich we so m ew h a t
cru de ly call the oneand only reality. So: coul d yo u specify wh at
commu nica tion is an d how it colo ur s and inf lue nces our exp e-
ri ences of rea lity?

Watzlaw ick: Of esse nti al r eleva nce to th e spec ifica tion of the
con cep t of comm un ic ati on is a dis tinc tion by the an thr opo lo-
gist Grego r y Ba teson. With r egar d to a com m un ica tion ,
Ba teso n d istin g uishes be twee n the cont en t leve l and th e re la-
176 Tf1eCertainhJof UncertainhJ

tionship level. The content leve i is the leve i of the apparen tly
objective message; the r elationshi p level, however, unavoid -
ably adds itself to eve ry uttera n ce, and qui te differen t things '
may happen there . This leve l m irrors the interpretation of the
rela tionship, w bich the author of th e message wa nt s to con-
vey, or expresses unconscious ly, to th e rece iver. These in ter-
pretations and signals on th e re lationsbi p leve i often cannot be
spe lled out in a congruent manner and may become the cause
of intense confüc ts. Let us take an examp le. Im ag in e a nuclear
physicist telling another nuclear physic ist: "The uranium
a tom has 92 electrons." Wha t, do you think, w ill the add r essee
rep ly?
Poerkse n: The nuclear scientis t rece iving thi s message mig ht
feel hurt and taunted - and mig ht answe r back: I rea lly do not
need to be told that that a tom has 92 electrons.

Watzlawi ck: Exactly. The exam p le shows how the re lation -

ship leve l contours an d reg ulates th e conten t leve i. Th e
n uclear physicist will no dou bt po int o ut th at he is not an id iot
w bo needs to be to ld things like tha t: lús answer has not hin g to
do with a toms and e lectro n s; the reac tion concerns the rela-
tionship leve i of the commu n icat ion . It mus t be n oted that this
phenomenon is certainly not restricted to ora l com munication;
it equally applies to written messages . We fee l addressed dif-
fer en tly by an authority un known to us w h en reading on a
door "Entry proh ibited!" or "Please do not ent er here !" The
identica I ite m of information on the cont en t Jeve l is ar ticu la ted
in different ways on the relatio n ship leve i.

Poerkse n: We have now explained and illustra ted two funda-

menta l aspects of communicatio n . A few decades ago, h ow-
ever, you wrote a book - toge th er with Don D. Jackso n and
Janet H. Beav in - that has beco me extremely we ll known
(Pragmaticsof Human Communication),in w lú ch yo u demon-
strated that commun icative in terac tion is m ore comp lica ted
still, and tha t it is anc hored in a set of irre du cible char acteris-
tics. You called them axioms of comm unicat ion.

Watzlaw ic k: lndeed we did. Ano the r impor tant ax iom,

beyond the dis tinction between the leve is of con tent and rela-
tions hip, is tha t we cannot not comm unicate in the prese nce of
another person. Even the ref usal to com m un icate is, in fact,
communica tion . Let me give an exa mp le again. Imagine a p sy-
 Realitt;:we can only know what it is not 177

chiatric clinic w here you see peop le stand ing wi th their faces
to the wall, silent and immob ile for h ours . Q uite obvio usly,
theydo not wan tt o communi cate, but it is equally ob viou s that
their behaviour is actually communica tion. A furt her axiom,
pr esent ed in our book, focusses on the pun ctuation of commu -
n icative processes - or, synony mously, of behaviour. It has to
do with the po ten tial stru cture of these proce sses, wi th the
prob lem of causality, the question of whe ther my behav iour is
a cause or a consequ ence of anoth er behav iour . How diverse
and personal pun ctua tions m ay be, can be illustrated nicely by
a case from my therap eut ic pr actice. ln the therapy session s
with a married couple, the hu sband comp lains that his wife
criticises him all the time - and that, d ue to this constan t criti-
cism, he habitu ally w ithd raws. The wife is annoyed and says
that she only criticises him w hen he behav es in a cold and
heart less way toward s her and w ithdraw s.

Symmetric al escalation s
Poe rksen: Thi s means: the differences .i:nthe p unctu ation of
behaviour reveal th at the notion of linear causality and the
un am biguou s a ttribut ion of cause-effect re la tions do no t
app ly to the realities of comm un icative proc esses.
Watzlawick: P recisely. Observi ng the int eraction of these
marr ied par b1ers from ou tside w ill make you realise tha t no t
linear but cir cular ca usality is at work ther e, i.e. one of those
vicious circles with w hich we are confro nt ed in therapy over
and over again : the cau se prod uces an effect, and th e effect in
turn influences the cause. A.nd so on.
Poerks en: Are ther e fur ther comm unica tive axioms yo u might
wa nt to men tion ? ~
Watzla wi ck: The difference be tween a compleme nt ary anda
symme trical re lations hip is wor th men tioni.ng. ln a symm etri-
cal relationship , similar or identi cal beh aviour is exchange d.
Whenever one pa rtner assum es a posit ion of strength the other
par bler does the sarne (and vice versa). ln this sense, both
forms of behaviou r or comm unication are symmetrica l. The
other kind of re lationship is comp lementary: here one pa rtn er
is in a sup erior, the other one in an inferior, pos ition. Examp les
are the relationship be tween mother and child or between doc-
tor and pa tient.
178 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Poerksen: What is the sign ificance of this d istinction betw ecn

forms or figur es of relati onship s for communic ation?
Watzlaw ick: Whenever pro blems arise in a symme trical re la-
tion sh ip, for instance, one ca.n observe a ph eno menon that
Grego ry Bateson called symm etrical esca lat ion : an cxchang e
of increasingly impe tuou s and aggre ssive form s of beha viour.
ln a compleme ntary rela tion ship, how ever, rigid ity - the
oth er extreme - will in creasi ngly manifest itself.
Poerk se n: The dy namics of the arm s race , w hich contro lled
the interaction of the superpowe rs thro ughou t many year s,
wou ld proba bly be an exam ple of such a symm etrical escala-
tion.
Watzlaw ick: Cer tainly . The Cold War is an cxcrnp lary case.
One can show h ow the fund amenta l differe nce betw een the
con tent aspe ct and the rel ationship aspect of a behaviour
shap es such form s of re latio nship. ln term s of ideal types,
there are four po ssibili ties. The ideal case is, of cou rse, tha t the
two par tners see eye to eye on both the content level and the
relationsh ip levei. Tbe wors t case is, howe ver, tha t they d is-
agree on both leveis, which may res ult in frightful clashes .
Fi.nally, there ar e the two interm ediate poss ibilities. There is,
first, an un dersta nd in g rel ationship bu t discord as to content.
This is the most matur e fonn of a differen ce of op inion: the
par tners in com mu nication hav e different v iews but this does
not affect the relat ionship in any negative way . Or the other
way roun d: they agree about con tent, bu t not as to th eir rela-
tionship . After the two Big Powe rs had defeatcd Cerm any and
Japan, a ll that had unit ed th em - the comm on enemy and the
need to win - was gone. They bot h looked a t each other, as it
were, and realised that there was nothi.ng to un ite them any
mor e. And the Cold War broke ou t.
Poerkse n: The d ifferent axioms and var ian ts of in teraction,
which you have described, enable us to draw a very compl ex
p ictur e of com municative processes. Al1 the theories describ-
ing commu nication as a simpl e inp ut-output process and as a
linear tran smiss ion of information from a se.nder to a receiver
are thereby dismissed. Our conve rsation star ted wit h the fun-
d amenta l thesis tha t reality rnay be viewed as a res ult of com-
muni ca tion . Co uld yo u now - after the mor e de tailed
description of commU11ica tive practice - elucida te how these
 Realitt;:we can only know what it is not 179

elements and axioms of communica tion influence the con-

stru ction of reality?

First-order reality and second-order reality

Watzlawick: As members of a family, group or cu lture we
grow up living in and w ith a reality that we then adama ntly
view as being foreve r one way and not another. Quite gener-
ally spoken: we punctuate in different ways, we attr ibut e dif-
feren t meanings to beha viour, and the kind of rela tionship and
the relationship aspec t influence the entir e course of an inter-
action. The kind of relationship - symmetr ical or comp le-
mentary - an d the relationship aspec t influence what is said
an d how it is unders tood and taken in. Different attrib uti ons of
meanin g produce wha t I call second-orde r reality. Tius is the
leve i of sense attribution and var iab le views of the wo rld ,
which cannot be described and clearly defined objective ly for
all time. It canno t be decided who is right or wrong . By con-
trast, I call the teve l of actua l even ts and indubitable facts
first-order reality.
Poerksen: From a cons tru ctivist per spective, this distinction is
anythin g but convincing . As you negate the possib ility of
objective and abso lute knowledge, a distinction be tween a
reality that is commu nica tively negot iated, and an ontic reality,
is meaningle ss becaus e, according to you r premises, I can
never reach w hat is supposed to be objective ly given.
Watzlawick: Sure ly, yo u can see the trees outsid e the wind ow
moving in the wind , you can see the tab le standin g in my
room, the flower s wi th theircolours on this table. And so can I.
The fact that we perceive the sarne objects and plant s cannot be
denied.
Poerksen: None theless, if we take serio usly the the ses of
con struct ivists who base their arguments on neurobiology, it
may very well be objected that this first-order reality is itself
the outcome of a n immensely comp lex process of construc-
tion, for examp le, the process that is requir ed to gene rate the
conscious image of a red flower.
Watzlawick: Thls is perfectly correc t but does n ot contradict
the distinction I have drawn. I am speaking abou t a reality con-
veyed by our sense organs that is seen in the sarne way by all
180 The CertainhJof Uncertainty

the people possessing a central nervous system that functions

no rmally, and that is first-orde r real ity. The attribu tion of
sense, meaning, and value is, however, a pur ely per sona l and '
possibly even cultural affair, tho ugh it may be shar ed by mil-
lions of people. To stay with the examp le of the perception of
colour and light: even a small child will perceive a red Jigh t bu t
it will probably not yet know that such a red light may in cer-
tain circumstances signify that a road must not be crossed.
This is a pure attribut ion of sense and meaning, and this is
what I refer to w hen using the co ncept of a second-orderrealihJ-
Poerksen : I think this is of central impor tance. You do no t
intend, following Imman uel Kant, to re-introduc e a somewhat
mean ingless distinction between a wortd·oJappearancesanda
thing-in- itself,or to dist inguish between a world that is a mere
construct, and an actua lly exis ti.ng rea lity. Wha t yo u mean to
say is, if I understand correct ly, that we are always and in any
case dealing wi th construc tion s of what is real, although th eir
degree of achievab le intersubjec tivity is variable.
Watzlawick: Qu ite so . l wou ld conside r a thing-in-itself as
nothing bu t one of my phantasies. How could I possibly know
that this thi.ng-in-itself exists? I hear some thin g, see some-
thin g, smell something; no more can be sai.d, that is all. I
should like to add that all we cank now of thatactua lly existing
reality is, in my opinion, what it is not. On ly the cotlapse of our
reality cons tructions enables us to realise that the wor ld is not
as we had designed it. However, the failure of a rea lity con-
struction does not at all justify the view that we might some-
how be able to approximate that thing-in-it sel f steadily and
step by step.
Poerksen: Now one might, of course, object that the successfu l
functioning of reality construc tion s (and no t the ir failure) is
evidence of their tru th. We drive cars, we telephone , and
aeroplanes weighing tons rise up in to the air. Surely, this can
only mean that there is a systematic conn ection betwee n our
conceptions of the wor ld and its true essence. ln other words,
and in the form of a question: Is the obviou s functioning of our
hypotheses not an ind ication that we have successfu lly whee-
dled out some of the working secre ts of nature?
Watzlawick: We see an aerop lane in rea l fligh t; that is
first-order reality about which we are able to reach agree ment.
 Realiti;:we can only know what it is not 181

We possib ly at tach variable and culturaJ ly specific m eaning to

our perception ; that wou ld be, accordin g to my distinction,
second-ord er rea lity. The assumption, however, that the
apparen t funct ioning of a hypothesis is ev idence for its truth
seems untenab le to me. Let me pr esen t an analogy here to
make this clear. Imagine a ship's captain w ho is forced togo
throu gh a precariou s strait durin g a dark and stormy night
without any na viga tionaJ aid. H e does not know this strait; he
has no nautical chart to help him get bis bearin gs. There are
onJy two poss ibilities for tbis captain. H e may naviga te the
strait successfu lly and safely reach the open sea at the other
end. Ali he know s afterwards is th at his chosen course fitted
the unkn own reality of the strait . H e was able to finda man-
ageable passage but he does not know whe ther there might
hav e been shor ter or less dan gerous lines of p assage. If he,
how ever, steers bis ship into a rock and loses both the ship and
his life, then ali h e can be sure of in his last mom ent s is that bis
chosen cour se did not fit the reality of the sh·ait and that it was
no t adapt ed to it in a way that wou ld hav e secur ed his sur-
vival. What the strait is really like in an abso lut e sense - that
he cannot ascertain in either case. And my claim is that we are
all cap tains of this sor t on our journ ey through Ufe.
Poerksen: The conclusion is then, to finish th e arg um ent
derivin g from this an aJogy, that nobod y can advance claim s to
truth in an abso lute sense; we are a ll sailing in the dark.
Watzlawick: Qui te right. Such claims to truth are non sensical
in point of theory; in point of fact, there are, of course, coun t-
less p eop le who actu ally ra ise such clairns. Just think of polí ti-
ca] ideo logies, Naz ism, Fascism and Marxism. Their followers
h ave caused terrib le havoc in the narne of a suppo sed ly ulti-
ma te and univ ersally va1id truth .
Poerksen: Do you want to say that terror is necessar ily p art of
a belief in abso lute truth?
Watzlawick: Certai nly not; such an assertion wou ld be non-
sense . Ther e are obviously re ligiou s claims to tru th that have
no terrorist or violen t consequ ences at ali. I am, however,
referrin g to those ideologues who clai.m to hav e established
how humankind mu st be organised to reach the final sta te of
happin ess and to rea lise e ternal truth. The consequ ences can
b e dreadfu l if people of this persu asion manage to occupy
182 The Certainty of Uncertainty

positions of powe r that enab le them to impose theiI tru th in ar1

a uth ori tari an way and to bu lly otheI peop le on the grounds of
the accusation that they are sabo taging the true view of the
worl d. Early stages of such a way of thinking may be discov-
ered in Pla to's Republic,where on e may rea d abo ut the wise
ru ler's, the philosopher king's, alleged etbical right to impose
his wis dom on humankind, if necessary by means of force.

The therapy of the as-if

Poerksen : Deal in g with th e man y-vo iced d isco Uise of
cons tru ctivism, one comes across d iverse construc tivi st
authors who do not take their own assu mpti ons seriously
enough and, by way of an objectivist use of Jan guage,
rumotmce clandestine claims to truth. ln this way, strange and
often unnoticed log ical and rhetorical self-contrad ictions
arise, and constructiv ism is somet imes pre sented as an ulti-
mate truth concerned - paradox ically enou gh - with th e
impossibility of attaining absol ute h·uth.
Watzlawick: Such paradoxes may undoubtedly be enco un -
tered - but they have nothing to do with what I undeistand
by radicalconstructivism. Radical constructiv ism conceives of
itself as a construction and notas a final truth; it is a pos sibility
of viewing the wOild. For me, and I say this deliberately with
reference to my therapeutic work, the onJy qu estion of deci-
sive relevance is which construct ion proves to be the most use-
ful and the m ost human e. Fr om a n ep i ste m ologica l
perspect ive, we must give u p the idea tha t science wor ks
towards the reve lat ion of tru th; the task of science is, muc h
ra ther, to develop methods that serve a part icular purp ose and
that may be - after even only a shor t while - replaced by
methods that are more effective. This has nothing to do with
conque rin g the absolute truth.
Poerksen: This means that constr uctivi st pro no uncement s are
bound to retain this paradoxical make up and a vacilla ting
structure forever. ln addition, I th in k that it is only consis tent
that they shou ld be made in a flexible, ope n, and light-h ear ted
manner. This is probably th e on ly way of pr even tin g
constructivism from becoming a kin d of meta-dogmatis m.
Watzlawick: Perfectly conect. Today's view of thin gs may
prove useless and impracticab le by tomorrow. It is simp ly
 Realiti;:we can only know what it is not 183

absurd that some of the constructivists argue in a dogmatic

way.
Poerksen: You have been active in family therapy yo urself
and have published several books that illuminat e the question
how change and tran sforma tion may be encourag ed in a case
of conflict. Could we discuss this practical utilit y of constru cti-
vist ideas and theor ies, which yo u keep emp has ising, wit h
regard to your ov.rn work?
Watzlawick: I have developed a technique, which I ha ve
named the therapyof the as-if. The concept refers to the famous
book by the Kantian scholar Hans Vaihinger, D'iePhilosophydes
Als-Ob [ThePhilosophyof"As lf"J, published in 1911.On a good
800 pages, Vaihinger presents a multitude of examp les to
prove that we have always operated with as-if assumptio ns,
which ma y be u seful or detrimental. The central thin g is that
I always assum e that a person coming to see me lives in a
second-ord er reality, which has, for some reason or other,
become a source of suffer ing. Ali of a sud den, the world has
lost its meaning, the perso nal constr uction s have collapsed or
are no longer fun ctioning . I h·y to chan ge these distressing con-
struc ti011s by interventions and to replace them by less painfu l
or perhaps even pleasant or joyful ones.
Poerksen: How does this therapy of the as-if work in practice,
if its target is merely the correct ion of meaning attributions
that do not admit of objectification?
Watzlawick: Some company boss comes to see me and wants
advice as to how he could impro ve the interaction with his
emp loyees, who show extreme ly imp olite and aggress ive
behaviour. The way ~ presen ts himse lf and describe s the
behaviour of his employ ees, clearly shows to me that he him-
self behaves i:n a cold, aggress ive, and impolit e way towards
h.is emp loyees. Ih.is is another examp le of circular causality : a
cause produces an effect; the effect becomes a cause and pro-
duces an effect again . I managed to persuade th.is man to carry
out an exper iment.
Poerksen : How was it po ssible to break up that fatefu l interac-
tion with its incompatible punct uat ions?
184 The Certainty of Uncertain.ty

Watzlawick: I suggested to h:im that the next time he had to

deal with one of his unpleasant emp loyees, he shou ld behave
as if the other person were terrified and had come to ask for
consolation. The result of this experiment was exceptiona lly
positive: the man acted in a less in timi dating way and , conse-
quently, his employees reacted wi th less aggression and
greater friendliness, which in tum made him act in a friendlier
manner, too . This is a simp le examp le of an intervention that
was in no way intend ed to reveal the ultimate trnth abou t the
universe but only to achieve the transformatio n of that man's
reality.
Poerksen: Could you present other techniques and methods
of systemic-constructivist therapeutic practi ce?
Watzlawick: The fundamental principle is always the sarne:
one begins by trying to understand th e functioning of the sys-
tem of human relations encompass ing the suffering individ-
ual. Through conversation and the obse r vat ion of the
participa nts, who are invited, too, if at all poss ible, one finally
manages to understand the phenomeno.n that the cyberneti-
cians of the early fifties had already called the comp lexity
reducer: in cybernetics, the complexit y red ucer is a.nincursion
tha t does not destroy high complexity but only reduce s it to
useful and manageab le proportions. From a psychothera-
peu tic point of view, one may consider the complexity reduce r
as the soluti on attempted so far: wha t people had been tryi:ng
out to solve the problem that led them to see me, was usually
precisely what kept the problem alive and made it more com-
plicated . More drastically: in many cases, the attempted solu-
tion is the very problem. Often peop le think tb at app lying
more of the sarne solution would remove the problem, but
such a strategy, in fact, only contribut es to its progress ive
intens ification. ln my view, it is now ne cessary to find a
h.igher-order solu tion, which can break through the vicious
circle of interaction . The goal is a change in the here and now.
This means: I reject the largely unchall eng ed agreement
und erlying classical pseudo-scien tific school s of therapy,
wh.ich rests on the assumption that any chang e .in the presen t
can onJy be accompl ished through an understa ndi:ng of causes
located in the past. One must, the assumption is, search for
these causes in the un consc ious and in the past; one m ust then
slowly and gradually interpr et them for the so-called pati ents
 Reality: we can only know what it is not 185

until they reach - this is the magica ] word - insight, and

change. ln my prof ess ional caree r and in my own personal life,
1 have never even once succeeded in experiencing ar even pro-
ducing thjs magica i mome nt of insight .
Poerksen: You have been hlnting at the various schools and
dir ections of psychoanalysis. Is it the fixation upon a n intellec-
tual discussion and the idea of the present bein g determin ed
by the past, which provok es your criticism of classica l psycho-
ana lysis?
Watzlawick: Yes; and I want to add at once that I received a
complete training in Jungi an analysis myself . One mu st state it
quite clear ly: the assump tion that a change in the present can
only be indu ced by und ers tandin g the past is - using the con-
cept introdu ced by Kar l Popp er - a self-immunising proposi-
tion. It is an assumption the validity and trut h of which is
"proved" both by its success and its failure, an ass umption,
therefore, that is immune to refutation. If tbe conditi on of th e
pati ent impro ves, this is a clear proof of the correc tness of the
assumption. How ever, if the cond ition of the pa tient does not
improv e, desp i te int ensive searching of th e past, then thi s can
only mean that the searc h for past causes has not been pushed
far and deep enoug h; the propo sition alw ays wins, and its
defend ers ar e apparent ly always right.
Poerksen: If we do not assign primary status to insight , as yo u
sugges t, but attempt to change a destru ctive int eraction by
means of insufficien tly tran spar ent int erven tion s, th en
another kind of objection may be at hand: one might say that
you practise manip ul ation.

Watzlawick: To this I can,.only rep ly: can you, please, presen t a

single example of an act of care tbat is not manipula tive? Every
s urg eon that removes an inflam ed appendix is a manipulator.
Rescuing drowning persons means manipul a ting them.
Poerksen: But the degree of insight into what is act ually hap-
pening is sur ely differe nt whether my appendix is remov ed ar
whether I am thrown a lifeline. The persons coming to see a
thera pist are given new rul es for living with other peop le,
which are incompr ehens ible to thern.
186 The Certainty of Uncertainty

Watzlawick: When m y doctor prescrib es a med icine whose

precise effect Ido not unde rstan d, I shall swa llow it neverthe-
less beca use I know that the doctor want s to help me. I can on ly
repeat: there is, in my opinion, no difference betw een caring
and manipulation.

The woman who was never schizophrenic

Poerksen: Perhaps this is the righ t moment, afte r our d iscus-
sion of the methods of syste mic-constructivist psy chotherapy,
to move on to another topic, whic h also touche s your profes-
sional domain. The question is w hat the notion of ment al
health might mean in your episte mo logical per spective . Or the
other way round: whe never psyc hi.a trists say that hallucinat-
ing patients have lost their "connec tion with real ity '', they
indicate that their diagn ostic concep ts are ontologica lly con-
tami na ted. Implkitly, they believe in a rea li.ty that can be
known and can therefore serve as the founda tion of their di.ag-
noses .
Watzlawick: Quite right. Such diag noses rest on the perfect ly
fictiti.ous belief that objective rea lity is accessible to the men-
tally healthy person - primarily, of comse, to the therapist. ln
th is way, the adaptation to reality becomes the prime criterion
of human cognitive and mental normality. It sta nd s to reason
that this criteri on is, from an ep istemological poin t of view, an
abs urd dogma.
Poerksen: This impli es that you have to u se anoth er kind of
languag e to talk about pat ients and their symp toms.
Watzlawick: 1 do not speak abo ut pat ients any more; the peo-
ple coming to see me are clients. ln ad dition, my colleagues
and I no longer use diagnostic tenns, no longe r talk abo ut
symp toms, and use all the clinicai termi.:no logy - neurosis,
psychosis, etc. - only on the forros of the insurance compa-
nies. The founder of General Semant ics, Alfred Korzybski,
kept reiterating: the name is n ot the thin g; the map is not the
terri.tory. It is a popular and naive errar to believe that simply
beca use there is a name for a menta l illness, this illne ss actua lly
exists.
 Reality: we can only know what it is not 187

Poerksen: But is not the multit ude of empiri cal obser vations
carry ing p athologising labels ev idence for the actu al existence
of "rea l thin gs," rea l d iseases?
Watzlawick: No. It is com plete non sen se to believe that, in the
area of th e p sychology, we are dealin g with pa tholog ies that
are una mbiguous in the sarne w ay as, for ins tance, appe ndi ci-
tis. ln the USA, there is an incre dibly compli cated d iagno stic
hand book entitl ed DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual),
whi ch lists h undr eds of cogni tive an d men tal disor ders. Thi s
handbook is ada pt ed fro m one editi on to th e next. Wh en the
third edition was p ubli shed, general socie tal pr essure had
achieve d th at homosex uality was no lon ger ca tegori sed as a
pa thol ogy. Thi s decision was the grea test therapeut ic su ccess
eve r accomplis hed in hi story. By one stro ke of the p en, m il-
lion s of peop le were fr eed of their pres um ed di sease. On e
mu st be aware, an d I wa nt to emp has ise thi s again, that dia g-
noses constru ct rea lities. It should be qu ite dear, for examp le,
that th e mere statemen t th at a p erson is schizo phr eni c crea tes a
rea lity that can be most h erm etic.
Poerksen: Could yo u elucid a te as to wh at extent eve n th e
di agnos is of schizo phr enia crea tes a reality, although there
are, as it were, hard clinica i cri ter ia to supp ort it?
Watzlawick: Let me try to illu stra te th is by means of an exa rn-
p le th at was brou ght to my at tenti on a few years ago by the
n ews pape r La Nazione. The rep ort concern ed a wo m an w ho
h ad trave lled to Grosse to from Nap les, an d wh o had to be
take n to the ho spit al th ere in the state of an acute schizo-
p hre ni c attack. As the small town of Grosse to did not have th e
adequ ate facilities for trea tment, it was d ecided to se nd her
back to N ap les. The am'bulance arrived, th e nur ses asked for
the p atient - and were d irected to a roo m in which th ey found
the wo m an comp letely d resse d, w ith h er hand bag, sittin g on
the bed. They asked h er po litely to accomp any them to Na ples.
And at thi s mom ent she ap parently und erwe nt an oth er attack
of m adness, bega n to screa m, and star ted to d ep ersona lise -
som ethin g that was parti cularly striking; d epe rsonalisa tion is
a typ ical sy mpt om of ac ute schizo phre nia.
Poerksen : Th e wo man ins iste d tha t she was not th e want ed
pa tient a t ali?
188 The Certainty of UncertainhJ

Watzlawick: Yes - she had to be injected a sedative, was car-

ried into the ambulance, which then drove off in the direction
of Naples. Near Rome, the am bu lance was stop p ed by th e
po lice and sent back to Grosseto. Wh y? The unfo rtuna te
woman was not the patient; she was an inhab itant of Grosseto,
who had come to the hospital thatmorn:ing to visit a rela tive.
Po erksen: Now th is diagnost ic rea lity obv iously had no abso-
lu te validity . At some stage it was discovered tha t the wo man
was not really schizoplu-enic; at some stage - to speak w ith
Lu dwig Wittgenste in - "the facts begin to kick back".
Watzl awic k: Toe essentia l point here is, however, that the con -
fusion had crea ted a second-orderreality, in which everything
the woman did was perce ived as add itiona l ev iden ce of her
madness : she resisted and defended he rself, sh e screamed, she
claimed to be someone else . Wh at more d o you need to arrive
ata scien tific diagnosis?
Poe rksen: It seems nonetheless necessa ry to me to deve lop a
language to dist inguish between a person th at is schizo-
phrenic or hallucina ting, anda pe rson that is not liv ing in such
a cognitive world. Even though J share your ep is temo logica l
position and agree wi th you in tha t the oneand only realiti;can-
not be the criterion, this un do u bted ly given othe rn ess mu st be
amenable to artic ulation .
Watzlawick : The articu lation of this othe rness is no t effec-
tively required in any event; the only thing that has to be found
is an interven tion that helps; this the crucial po in t. When the
an thropologist Gregory Bateson first carne in to con tact wit h
so-called men tally ili patients in a predominan tly psychiatr ic
clinica few decades ago, he made an observa tion tha t prove d
to be of enormous sign ificance for my own work. He did not
ask himse lf - as a psychiatr ic pers pective woul d suggest - in
wha t ways the behavio ur of a perso n corresponded with what
we knew about schizophre nia . Bateson's ques tion der ived
from an an thropologica l po in t ofv iew: w ithin wh ich sys tem of
human relat ions is this beh aviour mean ingfu l? Where does it
fit? And he began to invit e families and re latives in order to
talk to the m as well as to the so-ca lled patients. ln this way, he
was ab le to work out a representa tion of th e syste m with :in
which the apparent ly insa ne beh avio ur cou ld be seen as per-
fectly appropriate and consistent. The behav iour in ques tion
 Realiti;:we can only know what it is not 189

could only be given up if the whole system was transformed in

its inter action. This insight was the hour of birth of fam ily ther-
apy.

The loss of the Archimedean point

Poerksen: ln the view of a co'nstructivism informed by the
sociology of kn ow ledge, it cannot appear wholly convincing
to restrict therape utic procedure to families only. lt has been
shown that larger en tities - groups, na tions, and cultur es -
m ay effectively participate in the creation of p oten tially dis-
tress ing constr ucti ons . My question is, therefore : how far
should the systemic view be exten ded?
Watzlawick: There is n o general answer to this question . lf
there is no progress in a therapeut ic situati on, one tries to
enlarge the relevan t system anyway, to invit e oth er people
and to make other influences visible. There are, however, prac-
tical limit s.

Poerksen: Among the cen tral pr emises of this form of thera py

is the assumption that there is no ultima.te Arch.imedean point
that we can cling to. Perhaps a modest provocation: we might
say - following Kar l Kra us - that sys tem ic-con stru ctivis t
thera py is th e ve ry disease the el imination of w hich it claims to
be. Num erous ailment s arise only beca use peop le do no lon ger
feel sheltere d in the safe hav en of something abso lut e, unq ues-
tionab le, and indubitabl e.
Watzlawick: My only comm ent here is that Id o not give con-
stru ctivist lectur es to the peop le who come to see me or visit
my practice, nor do I enga ge them in profound epistemo-
logicaJ discourses; and I wo uld never atte mpt to rob anyo ne of
their positive reality constr uction. That would be arrogant and
dictatorial. Ali that is axiom atic for me is the degree of suffer -
ing.
Poerksen: However, radica l scept icism with regard to the pos-
sibilities of true knowl ed ge can - quite apa rt from therap eu-
tic situ ation s - defin.itely cause a sort of episte mol ogical
di zziness compa rable to feeling the carpe t being pulled from
und er one' s fee t. It is thou ght that Heinrich von Kleist took his
own life as a result of th e impa ct of Kant' s criticism of kn ow l-
edg e.
190 The Certainl:lJof Uncertainl:lJ

Watzlawick: I was not aware of that. Never thele ss, Ido not
believe that a conclusive ly ar gued constructivist view of ,
things will, in effect, encourage despa ir, as it were: all those
who have learned to understand themselves as the architec ts
of their own realities in a profound sense, will - in my view -
also have acquired qualities that are in no way causes of suffer-
ing . All those who manage the breakthrough to understand-
ing themse lves as the constructors of their realities w ill - I
believe - be deeply respon sible hum an beings because the
customary excuses - the material constraints are to biame;
other people are responsible - are no longer availab le. Tbey
will be free; if you know that you can always change your real-
ities you are cleru:ly free . Furthe rmore, these person s w ill be
conciliatory and tolerant; as they are awa re of consc iously cre-
ating and constr ucting their own realities, they mu st in due
cour se grant others the righ t to do the sarne in their ow n indi-
vidual ways .
Poerksen : So the conse qu ence is: someone who impl ements
constr uctivist theory as a kind of forro of life, mu st assu me
self-respons ibility, endure insecur ity, cons ider cha nge as
some thing natural, and say farewe ll to the idea that the true
essence of the world can be known unconditionally. Do you
believe that human beings are capabl e of living in the constant
awareness of the irr evocab le imperfection and insu fficiency of
their existence?

Watzlawick: It would be incredibly difficult, no doub t. ln my

whole life, l have encountered only two people who had really
progressed very faTon the road to these insights. One of them
was the Zen-teacher Karlfried Graf Dürk heim, who comes
ve ry dose to wha t we call cons trnctivi st insights today in his
book Die grofle Befreiung[The Great Liberation].And the other
one was Krishnamurti, whom I met pcr sonally in India.
Krishnamurti was far too w ise to ascend the thro ne erec ted for
h im by the theosop hical society.

Poerksen: Both men reported exper ien ces that we could cal!
mystical.
Watzlawick: The question is wha t we mean by the word mys-
ticism . The so-ca lled mystical exper ience is something entire ly
indescribable. Even the labe l rnysticism doe s n ot do justice to
this dimension of experience . One steps who lly outs ide of
 Realih;: we can only know what it is not 191

wh at is given and avai lable and experiences a kind of calm -

ness, tran qui 1lity, fulfilm ent, and harm ony, whi ch one can try
to tran slate into the lan guage of a re ligio n or an ideology only
af ter the even t. As soon as one starts to describe th e exp erience,
to classify and rationalise it, one has destroyed it.
Poerksen: Whereof one cann ot speak, th ereof one mu st be
silent?
Watzlawick: Yes.
About the Author

Bem hard Poer ksen (b. 1969) studied Germ an, journa lism an d
biology, worked as a journ alist, and is now jw1ior professor of
journali sm and commun ication science at the Univer sity of
Ham bur g . He was awarded a Ph .D. for a thesis on the lan -
guage of neo-N azis (Die Konstruktion von Feindbildern), and
wrote books together with Heinz von Foerster (Understrmding
Syste ms: Conversations on Episte111 ology and Ethics) an d
Humb erto R. Matu ran a (Fro,n Being to Doing: The Origins of the
Biology of Cognition).
Classlflcatlon: Philosaphy

Noth ing that can be sa id is indepe ndent of us. What ever can be said
is coloured by our dreams and aspl rat ions, by the wai,, our brain
works, by human nat ure and human cult ure. Whoever claims to know
or to observe is - according to th e cen tral constructiv ist assumpt ion -
inescapab ly biased.

This book presents the v iews of the founders of construct ivism and
modem syste ms theory, who are st ill providing st lmulat ing cues for
interna tiona l scientific deb ate. The conversat ions of He inz von Foerste r.
Ernst von G lasersfeld , Humberto R. Ma turana, Francisco J. Varela ,
Gerhard Roth, Siegfr ied J. Schmid t, He lm St ierlin, and Paul Watzlaw ick
w ith Bernhard Poe rksen, d ispla y a kind of thinking that stee rs clear of
rigid fixat ion and revea ls the idea l o f obje ct ivity to be a myth. The
conversations tum on the results of bra in resea rch, the brea ks through
of cybernet ics. the lingu ist ic determination of thought, and the intrinsic
connection bet ween ep istemology and e thicol practice.

Throughout, the central figure of the observer is exam ined wit h

sophi stica ted wi t and just enough irritat ing grit to crea te the pearl in
the oyste r. Constructi vism th us eme rges as a p hi losop hy of
possib ilit ies that keeps ge nera t ing new po ints o f v iew, insists on
fundamental scep tic ism wi th regard to certa int les and dogmas, and
provides the foundat ion fo r an ethlcs of pe rcept ion: Each and every
one of us is respons ible for the lr view of t hings.

Bernhord Poerksen is j unior professor o f j o urna lism and

communication science at the Universi ty of Hamburg. He wa s awa rded
a Ph.D. for a thes is o n the la nguage of neo-Nazis and wrote books
toge ther w it h Heinz von Foerster and Humberto R. Matu rana .

Front cover illustrot lon: M .C. Esche r's 'Dro w ing Han ds'
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