John Richards and Ernst von Glasersfeld
Summary
This paper explicates a Constructivist Epistemology which underlies cybernetic models of perceiving and knowing. We focus on the recent work of W. T. Powers (Behavior: The Control of Perception, Chicago: Aldine, 1973). Powers’ model consists of hierarchically arranged negative feedback systems, is based on the claim that living organisms behave to control perceptions, and thus suggests that organisms construct their experiential world. We argue that this provides a basis for a modified scientific scepticism, a scepticism with a positive dimension gained by adding the notion of cognitive construction. From this perspective, knowing and perceiving pertain to the construction of invariances in the living organism’s experience.
