PERSPECTIVISM

Charles François (2004). PERSPECTIVISM, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 2534.

Collection	International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics
Year	2004
Vol. (num.)	2(2)
ID	◀ 2534 ▶
Object type	Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model

I.V. BLAUBERG, V.N. SADOVSKY and E.G. YUDIN explain: “Perspectivism is founded on the idea that general categories of thought are similar in widely differing branches of modern science, hence the possibility of evolving a unified science on the basis of isomorphy of laws in its various fields. That makes it possible to speak of the structural similarity of the theoretical models used in various fields of science” (1977, p.53).

Prof. ELOHIM jl. organized in Vienna (2002) a symposium about “Development as a Systems Epistemology ”, dedicated to BERTALANFFY's view on the subject.

He wrote: “The BERTALANFFY's perpectivism in practice oblige every learned person, while learning, to be aware of his/her relative ignorance, to recognize that using his/her brain to the utmost he/she must increasingly try to be aware of the limits of his/her powers of cognition , because ”perception is not a reflexion of “real thing”, but rather is an interaction between knower and known“. It means that the result of every observation is partly the result of the viewpoint and methodology of the observer”.

And “…all what seems to be objective perception of real facts and events is filtered by the biological features of the observer and his/her psychocultural achievements”(pers. comm.)

These early insights of Bertalanffy have been widely confirmed in different ways by scientists and scholars like L. WITTGENSTEIN, K. POPPER, H.von FOERSTER, H. MATURANA, F. VARELA, E.von GLASERSFELD and some others.

Perspectivism has also a more directly human and psychological value, when understood as an interactional behavior between people. This view has been developed by the Dutch andragology school, among others by W.J. WITTEVEEN who writes: “The perspectivist procedure leads to comparison or arguments” and “Perspectivism requires the readiness to weight different principles in new circumstances. It requires openness to new participants in the ongoing conversations ”(2000, p. 86)

See also