Ernst von Glasersfeld (March 8, 1917,

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

– November 12, 2010, Leverett,

Franklin County, Massachusetts Franklin County is a nongovernmental county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 71,029, which makes it the least-populous county on the Massachusetts mainland, and the ...

) was a

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

, and

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

, research associate at the

Scientific Reasoning Research Institute Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence fo ...

, and adjunct professor in the Department of Psychology at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

. He was a member of the board of trustees of the

American Society for Cybernetics The American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) is an American non-profit scholastic organization for the advancement of cybernetics as a science , a discipline, a meta-discipline and the promotion of cybernetics as basis for an interdisciplinary disc ...

, from which he received the McCulloch Memorial Award in 1991. He was a member of the scientific board of the

Instituto Piaget Instituto Piaget is a Portuguese private institution of higher education. It provides both university and polytechnic higher education in a number of fields. Instituto Piaget was named after the Swiss philosopher and developmental psychologist Jea ...

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

. Glasersfeld is known for the development of

radical constructivism Radical constructivism is an approach to epistemology that situates knowledge in terms of knowers' experience. It looks to break with the conception of knowledge as a correspondence between a knower's understanding of their experience and the world ...

Biography

Glasersfeld was born in

, where his father, Leopold, worked as a

cultural attaché A cultural attaché is a diplomat with varying responsibilities, depending on the sending state of the attaché. Historically, such posts were filled by writers and artists, giving them a steady income, and allowing them to develop their own creat ...

in Vienna before going into photography after World War I. He was a student of mathematics at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

before having to move out because of the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

threat, considering that his

Pan-European Pan-European can refer to: * Pan-European identity * Pan-European corridors ** Pan-European Corridor X ** Pan-European Corridor Xa * Pan European Game Information * Pan-European Institute * Pan-European nationalism * Pan-European Oil Pipeline ...

family (they subscribed to the ideology of

Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi Richard Nikolaus Eijiro, Count of Coudenhove-Kalergi (16 November 1894 – 27 July 1972) was an Austrian-Japanese politician, philosopher and Count of Coudenhove-Kalergi. A pioneer of European integration, he served as the founding president of ...

) was known to be "enemies of any form of nationalism" and his grandfather was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

(a convert to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

). He thus spent large parts of his life in Ireland (1940s), in Italy (1950s) where he worked with

Silvio Ceccato Silvio Ceccato (Montecchio Maggiore, Italy 25 January 1914 – Milan, 2 December 1997) was an Italian philosopher and linguist. Born in Montecchio Maggiore, he studied law and music. In 1949 he founded the international magazine ''Methodos'', whic ...

, and in the United States. He studied and elaborated upon the work of

Giambattista Vico Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico ; ; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationali ...

Jean Piaget Jean William Fritz Piaget (, , ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called " genetic epistemolog ...

genetic epistemology Genetic epistemology or 'developmental theory of knowledge' is a study of the origins (genesis) of knowledge (epistemology) established by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. This theory opposes traditional epistemology and unites constructivism and ...

Bishop Berkeley George Berkeley (; 12 March 168514 January 1753) – known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immateri ...

's theory of perception,

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction whi ...

'', and other important texts. Von Glasersfeld developed his model of

, which is an

ethos Ethos ( or ) is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution, and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to ...

shared by all of these writers to one degree or another. The Ernst von Glasersfeld Archive, part of the Research Institute Brenner-Archiv at the University of Innsbruck, maintains the literary estate and also organizes the Ernst von Glasersfeld Lectures. The literary executors are Theo Hug and Josef Mitterer. On the occasion of Ernst von Glasersfeld's 100th birthday in 2017, the international conference "Radical Constructivism – Past, Present and Future" took place at the University of Innsbruck.

Honors and awards

* 1991: Warren McCulloch Memorial Award of the

* 1997:

Honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

of the

University of Klagenfurt The University of Klagenfurt (german: Universität Klagenfurt or ''Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt'', AAU) is a federal Austrian research university and the largest research and higher education institution in the state of Carinthia. It has it ...

* 2002: Reconnaissance du Mérite scientifique of the

University of Quebec A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which rou ...

* 2005: The Wiener Gold Medal of the American Society for Cybernetics * 2005: Gregory Bateson-award of the Heidelberg Institute for Systemic Research e.V. * 2007: Journal of

Constructivist Foundations ''Constructivist Foundations'' is an international triannual peer-reviewed academic journal that focuses on constructivist approaches to science and philosophy, including radical constructivism, enactive cognitive science, second-order cyberneti ...

honoured him on his 90th birthday with a

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

Glasersfeld * 2007:

Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian D ...

, 1st class * 2008: Honorary doctorate of the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

* 2009: Honorary Medal of the City of Vienna in gold

Selected publications

*Glasersfeld, E. von, (2001
The radical constructivist view of science
In: A. Riegler (Ed.), Foundations of Science, special issue on "The Impact of Radical Constructivism on Science", vol.6, no. 1–3: 31–43. *Glasersfeld, E. von (1989). �
Cognition, Construction of Knowledge and Teaching
” Synthese, 80(1),121-140. *Glasersfeld, E. von (1990). “Environment and Communication.” In L.P. Steffe & T. Wood (eds.), Transforming Children’s Mathematics Education: International Perspectives, (pp. 30–38). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. *Glasersfeld, E. von (1992). �
Questions and Answers About Radical Constructivism
” In M.K. Pearsall (ed.), Scope, Sequence, and Coordination of Secondary Schools Science, Vol. 11, Relevant Research, (pp. 169–182). Washington DC: NSTA.

References

External links

Ernst-von-Glasersfeld-Archive

Ernst von Glasersfeld

Biography of Ernst von Glasersfeld

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glasersfeld, Ernst von 1927 births 2010 deaths Educational psychologists Epistemologists German people of Austrian-Jewish descent German philosophers Writers from Munich Giambattista Vico scholars James Joyce scholars Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Recipients of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class University of Georgia faculty

Biography

Honors and awards

Selected publications

See also

References

Further reading

External links