Purpose: Yerkish is an artificial language created in 1971 for the specific purpose of exploring the linguistic potential of nonhuman primates. The aim of this paper is to remind the research community of some important issues and concepts related to Yerkish that seem to have been forgotten or appear to be distorted. These are, particularly, its success, its promising aspects for future research and last but not least that it was Ernst von Glasersfeld who invented Yerkish: he coined the term (...) “lexigrams,” created the first 120 of them and designed the grammar that regulated their combination. Design: The first part of this paper begins with a short outline of the context in which the Yerkish language originated: the original LANA project. It continues by presenting the language itself in more detail: first, its design, focusing on its “lexigrams” and its “correlational” grammar, and then its use by the chimpanzee Lana in formulating sentences. The second part gives a brief introduction to the foundation of Yerkish in Silvio Ceccato’s Operational Methodology, particularly his idea of the correlational structure of thought and concludes with the main insights that can be derived from the Yerkish experiment seen in the light of Operational Methodology. Findings: Lana’s success in language learning and the success of Yerkish during the past decades are probably due to the characteristics of Yerkish, particularly its foundation in operational methodology. The operation of correlation could be what constitutes thinking in a chimpanzee and an attentional system could be what delivers the mental content that correlation assembles into triads and networks. Research implications: Since no other assessment or explanation of Lana’s performances has considered these foundational issues, a new research project or program should validate the above-mentioned hypotheses, particularly the correlational structure of chimpanzee thinking. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “Arguments Opposing the Radicalism of Radical Constructivism” by Gernot Saalmann. First paragraph: I appreciate Saalmann’s recognition that “there are considerable differences amongst the authors” and that these “have changed their opinions in the course of time” (§3); but given this, what are the consequences for an outline of the theses of radical constructivism (RC)? Which approach is best for outlining a theory of knowing under these hindering conditions? My suggestion would be to use (...) a method specifically developed for this kind of situation and to present it explicitly, or, if it does not yet exist, to develop one. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “Who Conceives of Society?” by Ernst von Glasersfeld. First paragraph: Issues such as social interaction and communication play an essential role in my recent approach to knowledge management called “Knowledge Cooperation”, conceived as “the participative cultivation of knowledge in a voluntary, informal social group”. Radical Constructivism provides a substantial support to the foundations of this approach, which aims at equilibrating intellectual and social capital. So I warmly welcome Ernst von Glasersfeld’s clarification of the (...) constructivist position in regard to “society.”. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “How and Why the Brain Lays the Foundations for a Conscious Self” by Martin V. Butz. Excerpt: Avoiding the term “representation” would make the article much more consistent with a radical constructivist way of thinking. It would also open up unexpected opportunities for realizing the potential of some of its most interesting ideas, such as the connection between anticipatory drive and attention (§31).

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivism and Computation: Can Computer-Based Modeling Add to the Case for Constructivism?” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: Füllsack’s article offers many interesting ideas but falls short of elucidating the relationship between constructivism and computation. It could profit by taking into consideration stronger constructivist foundations such as the distinction between machine and organism, the relationship between reality and the observer, and Ceccato’s theory of attention.