re: what kinds of exchanges: a playground for loose constructs

Brian Gaines ( gaines@cpsc.ucalgary.ca )
Sun, 30 Jun 1996 23:19:42 -0700

Lois Shawver writes:

>On Sun, 30 Jun 1996, Brian Gaines wrote:
>
>>
>> This text substantiates both Jim's remarks that anyone contributing
>> should have a good knowledge of PCP (else how can they discuss it),
>
>Well, they could certainly discuss it as students. And the distinction
>between students and scholars is not clear cut. I think if you want to
>restrict your posters to those with "good knowledge of PCP" you need to
>be up front about that from the beginning and restrict your posters to
>those who have made this a central area of scholarship. It's done on
>some lists. If you want a broader membership, then you have to tolerate
>their lacek of a "good knowledge".

I don't think this list has ever had problems with students. Most of
those who pose questions to the list have read Kelly's 1955 work -- that
would seem the basic qualification for being able to discuss PCP.

>> and Lois' that the list is open to anyone to initiate a discussion
>> (but, presumably, with the parameters of the list definition).
>
>But the meaning of your parameters needs to be refined. I think this is
>especially true because the word "constructivism" isn't confined to
>George Kelly's philosophy.

This was the point of my posting the list definition. It nowhere mentions
"constructivism". It is very specific to PCP. Clearly there is scope stated
for a comparsion of PCP with various forms of constructivism, but the essence
of the stated purpose of the list is that the starting point is a knowledge
of PCP. There are other lists that specialize in other aspects of
cosntructivism -- for example, an extremely active one on Maturana
and Varela's work. This list does have a very clear mandate in PCP.

"This list is concerned to offer both a forum for the discussion of Personal
Construct Psychology, in terms of the theoretical and methodological concerns
of this discipline, and an analysis of the relationship between this discipline
and other perspectives within the social sciences."

b.

Dr Brian R Gaines Knowledge Science Institute
University of Calgary
gaines@cpsc.ucalgary.ca Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
403-220-5901 Fax:403-284-4707 http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/KSI

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