Abstract

Open peer commentary on the target article “Who Conceives of Society?” by Ernst von Glasersfeld. Excerpt: The fore going is intended to claim a place for a radically social constructivism that does not rely on the metaphysical assumption of ontological givens, avoids on cognitivist abstractions from the communication processes in which we realize ourselves as human beings, but on the embodied and largely linguistic practices of conversing with one another. Languaging is an intrinsically social phenomenon and so are all explanations that are grounded in language. As Ludwig Wittgenstein said about language, everything worth talking about is there, nothing is hidden; there is no private language; to which I would add that the cognition we talk of is not private either