conceptual non-dualizing philosophy EDITORIAL Non-dualizing from Now On? Editorial to the Special Issue on the Non-dualizing Philosophy of Josef Mitterer Alexander Riegler A Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven <[email protected]> Stefan Weber A University of Applied Arts, Vienna <[email protected]> “With the first edition of Kant’s Critique of Pure truth. The last volume, Die Richtung des Den- scriptions in debate do not fail when confront- Reason (1781) the seeds for the ouster of kens [The Direction of Thinking] is in prepara- ed with objects, but rather fail against new de- metaphysics were sown, tion and will deal with a critique of the object- scriptions. Constructivists felt addressed. But an ouster that was vigorously pushed along by orientation of epistemological thought. Mitterer irritated them when he included in logical positivism in the last century. Josef Mitterer was born in 1948 in the small his 1992 book a sharp criticism of the neuro- Josef Mitterer is the proponent of a third Tyrolean village of Westendorf, Austria, which biological foundations of constructivism, es- conceptual revision that, if carried out, is better known for skiing and tourism. He pecially of Humberto Maturana, Francisco would thoroughly change the method studied psychology, sociology and philosophy Varela and Gerhard Roth. Since then, the sci- and the goals of philosophical investigation.” in Innsbruck, Linz, and Graz, and spent some entific community has seemed to be uncertain Ernst von Glasersfeld, this issue, p. 123 time at the London School of Economics, as to whether Mitterer should be labelled a Heidelberg University and the Inter-university constructivist or a critic of constructivism. In Centre Dubrovnik. In 1976 he went to study this special issue we would like to clarify this The philosopher with Paul Feyerabend at the University of Cal- point, among others. ifornia at Berkeley where he continued to de- According to Mitterer’s own philosophy, When the Austrian philosopher Josef Mitterer velop his philosophical ideas. In 1978 he ob- we, the editors, did not exert any pressure on handed out his dissertation Sprache und tained a doctoral degree from the University of the authors to streamline their contributions Wirklichkeit. Eine erkenntnistheoretische Ab- Graz with a dissertation he wrote with Rudolf and terminology to a single “true” translation. handlung [Language and Reality: An Epistemo- Haller, entitled Sprache und Wirklichkeit [Lan- Therefore the reader should not be surprised logical Treatise] to some colleagues for feed- guage and Reality]. After his studies – and due to find a variety of terms referring to Mitterer’s back in the late 1970s, the reactions varied be- to the reasons mentioned above – Mitterer philosophy. Should “nicht-dualisierende Re- tween incomprehension, friendly rejection turned to an entirely different domain, namely deweise” be translated as “non-dualizing and a straight “he must be joking.” Disap- tourism, and worked as a professional tour mode of speaking,” “non-dualistic way of talk- pointed by some rather hostile receptions guide in Europe and Asia and later as a man- ing,” or simply as “non-dualism”? We left it to (some even called it a “danger to academic phi- agement consultant for tour operators in the the authors to find the terminology that fits losophy”) he turned his back on academia. United States and Canada. He condensed his their intentions best, the intention being to Mitterer followed the suggestion of Ludwig experiences in the travel world into the essay honor but also critically evaluate Mitterer’s Wittgenstein, who wrote in Vermischte Be- Der König von Frankreich lebt oder die Wirkli- philosophy across the disciplines. merkungen, “The greeting among philoso- chkeit auf Reisen [The King of France is Alive or phers should be ‘Take your time’,” and did not the Reality of Travel], which was republished as publish the book version of his dissertation The Reality of Travel (cf. the contribution of The contributions until 1992, under the title Das Jenseits der Phi- Matthias Kross in this issue). Since 1990, Mit- losophie. Wider das dualistische Erkennt- terer has been teaching philosophy at the Uni- Is Josef Mitterer’s non-dualizing philosophy nisprinzip [The Beyond of Philosophy: Against versity of Klagenfurt in southern Austria. yet another philosophical flavor, of which the dualistic Principle of Cognition]. In 100 the- In 1988 Mitterer published the article Ab- there are so many in the academic world? Yet ses he developed a non-dualizing epistemolo- schied von der Wahrheit [Farewell to Truth] in another philosophical trinket that arouses the gy, which forgoes the categorical distinction the German philosophical journal DELFIN, short-lived attention of some people and dis- between language and reality beyond lan- which was mainly a platform for constructiv- appears quickly thereafter? Yet another dalli- guage. This book was to become the first in a ist thinking at that time. This publication ance without implications either for philoso- series of three. The second volume, Die Flucht brought Mitterer into contact with Ernst von phy or for science? We are convinced of the aus der Beliebigkeit [The Escape from Arbitrari- Glasersfeld and slowly introduced non-dualis- contrary. For many years Mitterer has steadily ness], published in 2001, is a critical assess- tic philosophy to constructivists. Mitterer’s built up a reputation as an innovative but at ment of the traditional goal of philosophy, i.e., main thesis in the paper was the idea that de- the same time also very careful thinker. His 120 Constructivist Foundations 2008, vol. 3, no. 3 http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/ conceptual non-dualizing philosophy EDITORIAL claims have been discussed in various circles, is the description of the object so far. The claim With the help of cognitive maps Karl H. but, unfortunately, this has so far happened in of a priority of an object compared to the in- Müller charts various flavors of the (radical) German- and Polish-speaking countries only. dication of the object is only possible after the constructivist approach and how they relate Meanwhile “take your time” has taken time indication of the object. This means that we to each other, and shows the importance of and Mitterer celebrated his 60th birthday in cannot claim that there are objects beyond Mitterer’s philosophy for radical constructiv- July 2008, an opportunity we used to gather claims. Otherwise we get trapped in an infinite ist (RC) research. He considers Mitterer’s connoisseurs of his work to discuss, for the regress. work as a radical critique of the semantic turn. first time in the English language, his achieve- Franz Ofner starts with the observation The relevance of non-dualism varies accord- ments and impact. The result is in no relation that Mitterer has not developed a non-dualis- ing to the use of the term “radical constructiv- to the limited spread of his ideas so far. We have tic concept of action. He suggests that George ism.” Its relevance is significant if RC is viewed collected some 22 contributions covering a Herbert Mead’s theory, in his opinion con- as a new epistemology but left marginal if RC large variety of intellectual terrain and point- taining a non-dualistic nucleus, may be a way is a label for a group of empirical research pro- ing out the potential impact of his philosophy to implement this missing link. grams. from now on. Volker Gadenne intends to reconcile real- ism and constructivism and proposes a cau- Non-dualizing Philosophy and Reconstructing tious or “fallibilistic” version of realism by tak- Actor-Network Theory Philosophical Dualisms ing constructivist criticism seriously and In Poland, a group of young philosophers has In the first section three authors try to identify treating knowledge as a constructive process. worked out the links between Mitterer’s phi- traces of non-dualistic thinking in the history He argues that non-dualism is wrong when it losophy and the actor-network theory (ANT) of philosophy. says that a thesis does not fail by means of the of Bruno Latour et al. Two of them present the The conceptual analysis of Ernst von Gla- object, but by means of a new thesis. Gadenne details of their work in this section. sersfeld scrutinizes the notion of dichotomy, reminds us that there is experience between a Krzysztof Abriszewski compares Mitter- which is Mitterer’s main task as well. The au- thesis and its failure. er’s non-dualizing way of speaking (NDS) thor discusses Ogden’s work on dichotomy with Latour’s ANT. Despite their different re- and concludes with the claim that non-dualiz- Non-dualizing Philosophy and spective backgrounds – ANT is a continua- ing philosophy is an excellent example of how (Radical) Constructivism tion of social studies of science situated in the to counter the tradition of realism. Mitterer’s philosophy has always been said to field of sociology of knowledge while NDS be- Christian Meierhofer aims to reproduce have close ties with (radical) constructivism longs to the domain of philosophy of lan- the development of non-dualism by drawing despite Mitterer’s attempts to keep equidis- guage and epistemology – the author shows similarities and associations between Mitter- tance to both realism and constructivism (cf. that there is a certain degree of convergence er’s work, and cultural theories and philoso- the brief remark in his text in this special is- between them. phies prior to Mitterer. In particular he points sue). Four authors in this section explore this The paper by Ewa Binczyk embraces Mit- out that there are some interesting analogies alleged relationship. terer’s criticism of dualistic ways of thinking between Mitterer and the work of James, Rick- The section starts with one of Josef Mitter- and speaking.