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On Constructing a Reality*
HEINZ vON FOERSTER
Draw a distinction!
G. Spencer Brown
1
The Postulate
I AM SURE YOU remember the plain citizen Jourdain in Molière's
Le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme
who, nouveau riche, travels in the sophisticated
circles of the French aristocracy and who is eager to learn. On one occa-
sion his new friends speak about poetry and prose, and Jourdain discovers
to his amazement and great delight that whenever he speaks, he speaks
prose. He is overwhelmed by this discovery: “I am speaking Prose! I have
always spoken Prose! I have spoken Prose throughout my whole life!”
A similar discovery has been made not so long ago, but it was neither of
poetry nor of prose—it was the environment that was discovered. I remem-
ber when, perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, some of my American friends
came running to me with the delight and amazement of having just made a
great discovery: “I am living in an Environment! I have always lived in an
Environment! I have lived in an Environment throughout my whole life!”
However, neither M. Jourdain nor my friends have as yet made another
discovery, and that is when M. Jourdain speaks, may it be prose or poetry,
it is he who invents it, and, likewise, when we perceive our environment, it
is we who invent it.
Every discovery has a painful and a joyful side: painful, while struggling
with a new insight; joyful, when this insight is gained. I see the sole purpose
of my presentation to minimize the pain and maximize the joy for those
who have not yet made this discovery; and for those who have made it, to
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