KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA73 (vGlasersfeld)

Commentary 24

THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION
by Cornelius Holtorf
17 September 2004, 25 September 2004

<1>
The theory of Radical Constructivism as proposed, in many works, by Ernst von Glasersfeld and others has long been my favourite theory of knowledge. That may be a strange statement given that I work as an archaeologist, but archaeological research too depends on theories of knowledge, in particular concerning the tasks of gaining knowledge about ancient sites or finds and of representing the past (Holtorf 1995; 1998; 2000-4: 3.8; forthcoming).

<2>
I am attracted to Glasersfeld’s thinking because it is not only extremely well presented and clear but at the same time it is also bold and radical. Radical Constuctivism, as a theory of knowledge, allows an application of its own claims to itself. Moreover, unlike some other forms of constructivism, it is not seeking the middle ground and is not afraid of taking its own suppositions to their final logical conclusions. All this combined is not something I have encountered very often in the academic literature I read, and I find it irresistibly beautiful and very worth celebrating. (In other words, Radical Constructivism appeals to me partly because it fits to some of my own aesthetic preferences for theories.)

<3>
I read Glasersfeld target article with interest. Although the theory of representation he proposes is too far removed from my own sphere of interest to be able to comment on it in detail, I wish to add one significant aspect to the debate that Glasersfeld chose not to discuss here, although he and others have discussed it in other contexts in the past (e.g. Glasersfeld 1991: 20-1; Frindte 1995).

<4>
Representations of the world are not solely matters of individual bodies and their brains but they also rely on particular social circumstances. There is a politics of representation.

<5>
Radical Constructivism argues that human knowledge about the world corresponds to – and is constrained by – reality as we experience and make sense of it. In other words it does not correspond to reality ’as it really is’, independent from experiencing and making sense of it.

<6>
Representing the world in knowledge is said to be a construction process governed by the principle of fitness (or viability) within the mind of the knowing subject. It is, however, not arbitrary what individual subjects may or may not find fitting or viable in how they know the world.

<7>
Instead, what does or does not make sense in any given situation to an individual is partly, though of course not exclusively, dependent on particular social circumstances within which that person finds himself/herself.

<8>
For example, how we know an archaeological site like Stonehenge in Wiltshire (England), depends on many social factors including our level of education in fields like archaeology, engineering or astronomy; our openness towards non-conventional theories; our felt affinity to alternative ways of life represented by so-called hippies and travellers; our previous exposure to esoteric experiences at special sites in the landscape; our religious beliefs in as far as they inform how we react towards new religions represented by pagans and druids; and our emotional response towards ’heritage’ sites, in particular maybe ’English heritage’ sites. None of these factors have anything specific to do with the site itself, and if you were not already primed before your visit you would not be able to learn anything about them from simply studying the site (provided you keep your eyes firmly on the archaeological site itself).

<9>
The role of social factors in informing human knowledge is by no means a new discovery, but an essential part of many theories in a range of different disciplines (see e.g. Berger and Luckmann 1966; Halbwachs 1980; Moscovici 1984; Hodder 1993).

<10>
None of what I said here ultimately contradicts what Glasersfeld has been arguing either in his target article or elsewhere, but it is an important issue that I find worthwhile to consider more often. After all, we all live in social situations all the time, and there is a significant social and political dimension to all representations and to all theories of knowledge.

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REFERENCES

Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann (1966) The Social Construction of Reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Garden City: Doubleday.

Frindte, Wolfgang (1995) Radikaler Konstruktivismus und Social constructionism—sozialpsychologische Folgen und die empirische Rekonstruktion eines Gespenstes. In: H. R. Fischer (ed.), Die Wirklichkeit des Konstruktivismus: zur Auseinandersetzung um ein neues Paradigma, pp. 103-129. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme.

Glasersfeld, Ernst von (1991) Knowing without Metaphysics: Aspects of the Radical Constructivist Position. In: F.Steier (ed.) Research and Reflexivity, pp. 12-29. London: Sage.

Halbwachs, Maurice (1980) The Collective Memory [1951]. New York and London: Harper and Row.

Hodder, Ian (1993) Social Cognition. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3 (2), 253-257.

Holtorf, Cornelius (1995) »Object-orientated« and »problem-orientated« approaches of archaeological research—reconsidered. Hephaistos 13, 7-18. Temporarily available online at http://members.chello.se/cornelius/hephaistos.html.

Holtorf, Cornelius (1998) "Knowing without Metaphysics and Pretension. A Radical Constructivist Proposal." In: The Kaleidoscopic Past. Proceedings of the 5th Nordic TAG Conference, Göteborg, 2-5 April 1997. Edited by A.-C. Andersson, Å. Gillberg, O. Jensen, H. Karlsson, and M. Rolöf, pp. 91-8. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, Arkeologiska institutionen. An earlier version has been published at the Radical Constructivism Homepage (http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/papers/holtorf/97-knowing.htm).

Holtorf, Cornelius (forthcoming) "Über archäologisches Wissen." In: Konstruktivismus, Geschichte, Archäologie (DELFIN 2002). Edited by G. Rusch. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Moscovici, Serge (1984) The phenomenon of social representations. In: R. Farr and S. Moscovici (eds) Social representations, pp. 3-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Dr Cornelius Holtorf

Swedish National Heritage Board

Box 5405

SE – 114 84 Stockholm

Sweden