ABSTRACT
As I write, I am thinking back some twenty years to a time when I was a graduate student at Emory University in what I called ‘epistemology’ (and which Emory, not knowing what to make of it, covered its bets by calling ‘general studies’). My thoughts stray to the implications for my own education which arose as I encountered Ernst’s work. At the time, I knew I was interested in Piaget and in Kant, in Gregory Bateson and in cybernetics, in Heidegger and phenomenology; for me they were parts of the same puzzle. But, alas, apart from my intuitions and the hopeful support offered by a cohort of similarly confused peers, this was a puzzle which lacked academic legitimation-lacked legitimation, that is, until I met Ernst von Glasersfeld.
