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

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. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.