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Nothing that can be said is independent of us. Whatever can be said is coloured by our dreams and aspirations, by the way our brain works, by human nature and human culture. Whoever claims to know or to observe is - according to the central constructivist assumption - inescapably biased. This book presents the views of the founders of constructivism and modern systems theory, who are still providing stimulating cues for international scientific debate. The conversations of Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Humberto R. Maturana, Francisco J. Varela, Gerhard Roth, Siegfried J. Schmidt, Helm Stierlin, and Paul Watzlawick with Bernhard Poerksen, display a kind of thinking that steers cl...
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Constructivism has been traded as a new paradigm by its advocates, and criticised by its opponents as legitimating deceit and lies, as justifying a trendy post-modern "Anything goes". In this book, Bernhard Poerksen draws up a new rationale for constructivist thinking and charts out directions for the imaginative examination of personal certainties and the certainties of others, of ideologies great and small. The focus of the debate is on the author's thesis that our understanding of journalism and, in particular, the education and training of journalists, would profit substantially from constructivist insights. These insights instigate, the claim is, an original kind of scepticism; they provide the underpinnings of a modern type of didactics oriented by the autonomy of learners; and they supply the sustaining arguments for a radical ethic of responsibility in journalism.
In an age of ubiquitous digital media and permanent mutual observation scandals are omnipresent. Everybody can release them, everybody can become their victim. Videos on mobile phones terminate careers, Twitter messages generate outrage, and SMS messages turn into evidence. Documents of embarrassment and public disgrace today display a novel kind of lightness and agility. They can be copied in no time, spread very quickly, resist all censorship - and in the extreme case stir up worldwide indignation. The consequence: the reputation of the powerful and the powerless, of enterprises and states, can be destroyed in record time. In order to illustrate these considerations the books describes recent case-(hi)stories, discussing public figures such as Tiger Woods and Anthony Weiner, the powerful and the helpless that suddenly find themselves in a worldwide pillory.
Terror warnings, fake news, spectacles and scandals in real time – the networked world has wound itself up into a nervous frenzy, where everything has become visible: the banal and the terrible, the uninhibited abuse and the anonymous attack. Translated for the first time into English, Digital Fever analyses the patterns of outrage and agitation that have come to define social media and the Internet, exposing their devastating impact on our notions of truth, debate, authority and power. In this endless cycle of outrage, Poerksen argues that the intelligent use of information must become part of the general education provided by schools: the digital society must be transformed into an editorial one. In order for democracy to survive, we must as a society achieve media maturity. A blazing tour of the contemporary landscape of fake-news, echo chambers, disinformation, manipulation, and the turbulence that democracy is undergoing, this book not only analyses this digital economy of outrage, but serves as a guiding light to overcome it.
How real is reality? Are our images of the world mere inventions, or does an external reality correspond to them? Is it possible to know the truth? These are questions that physicist and philosopher Heinz von Foerster and journalist Bernhard Poerksen debate about in their conversations. Together, they explore the borders of our capacity for knowledge. They discuss the seeming objectivity of our sensual perception, the consequences of "truth terrorism" and the connections between knowledge and ethics, sight and insight.
Dedicated to the life and work of Heinz Von Foerster, this is a double issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".
DIVA new and more concrete understanding of the inseparability of colonialism and modernity that also explores how the rhetoric of modernity disguises the logic of coloniality and how this rhetoric has been instrumental in establishing capitalism as the econ/div
The violence and destruction hiding behind the obsession with immunity Our contemporary political condition is obsessed with immunity. The immunity of bodies and the body politic; personal immunity and herd immunity; how to immunize the social system against breakdown. The obsession intensifies with every new crisis and the mobilization of yet more powers of war and police, from quarantine to border closures and from vaccination certificates to immunological surveillance. Engaging four key concepts with enormous cultural weight – Cell, Self, System and Sovereignty – Politics of Immunity moves from philosophical biology to intellectual history and from critical theory to psychoanalysis to...
"This book is so rich with insights, sparkling dialogue, and wisdom that one would love to distribute it like a leaflet around town." Südwestrundfunk (German radio station) "The intellectual dance that the two dare to dance is intelligent, light, humorous, and enchanting." Süddeutsche Zeitung (German daily) "I recommend this book not only to the cybernetics and systems community, but to anyone." Ranulph Glanville, Cybernetics and Human Knowing "Easy and enjoyable to read, without loss of scientific and philosophical depth and rigor. ... The reader will find the book difficult to put down." Bernd R. Hornung, Journal of Sociocybernetics Conversations for skeptics How real is reality? Are our...