KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA31 (vanFraassen / Feyerabend)

Commentary 18 (to C14, John McCaffrey)

( ON FUNCTIONAL FIT )
by Ernst von Glasersfeld
3 October 2003, posted 7 October 2003

<1>
Quotation from McC <3>: The criterion itself - functional fit - assumes to know the nature of reality.... namely, that 'it' is 'unknowable' and any descriptions of 'it' must consist solely in terms of utility and expediency.

<2>
Comment: "Functional fit" or "viability", as these terms are used in radical constructivism, do not refer to ontological reality but to the world we ourselves have constructed on the basis of abstractions from our experience. There is no assumption "to know the nature of an reality (MIR)" because the only "it" we can try to describe is what we have constructed as our experiential reality.

<3>
McC’s paragraph <3> continues: The defence that RC type thought views itself not as claiming 'the truth', but as exemplifying the functional fit criterion shows only that it, and it alone, conforms to the standards it has set for every other world view. This is not dissimilar to Christians who counter the theory of evolution by saying that 'mankind can't have appeared on Earth in that manner because that's not what is said in the Bible'.

<4>
Comment: Christians cannot be blamed for justifying their dismissal of the theory of evolution by saying that it is not confirmed by the bible. But they also claim that the bible tells THE Truth, and this is a claim that may rest on faith but cannot be justified rationally.

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Ernst von Glasersfeld