Towards a technology- and action-oriented methodology of constructive realism

pp. 3-22

in: Karl Leidlmair, After cognitivism, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

My main thesis is that not only philosophy of science but also general epistemology might profit from interfacing better with technology-oriented methodologies and an action-oriented social "environment" of the concept of "knowledge" particularly regarding what can, in a wider sense, be called "grasping" (cf. my 2003). The concept of "grasping" implies that the active dimension of acquiring knowledge is a genuinely constructive activity and not primarily a representational task of trying to represent external structures. "Grasping" should not only be interpreted in the literal sense of "gripping something"; it should also be understood in the figurative senses of "understanding," "knowing," and "getting inside." Knowledge in this sense is understood to be a kind of activity or even interactivity between partial systems, i.e., it relies upon mutually or strategically acting agents, be they even, amongst others, 'software agents."