Varieties of Constructivism and the Inaccessibility of Reality Argument

Abstract

Constructivism is probably the most widely accepted theory among science educators. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that in the last two decades constructivism represents a paradigm change in science education. One indication is the enormous amount of literature devoted to it. According to one estimate, 2500 scholarly articles inspired by it appeared in science education journals by 1993 (Duit 1993), and no doubt this number has grown even bigger since then. Constructivism is not a unitary theory, and it has proponents outside the community of science educators as well. It has many varieties, some being more plausible than others. First, there is constructivism in sociology of scientific knowledge. This is known as social constructivism, a view that says that even the very content of knowledge, including scientific knowledge, can be explained causally by social factors. Social constructivism owes much to sociologists of science David Bloor and Barry Barnes and will be taken up in chapter 11. In the field of education the term "constructivism" refers to a theory of "knowing", teaching and learning. Although constructivism in science education is predominantly an epistemological and pedagogical theory, it also contains ontological, semantical, and cognitive aspects. Unfortunately, these distinctions are not always observed in the literature on science education, resulting in much confusion. Accordingly, in Section 5.1 we distinguish between four types of constructivism: cognitive, semantical, epistemological, and ontological. We argue that with the sole exception of cognitive constructivism, all other three versions are flawed in various ways. The bulk of this chapter is devoted to a careful scrutiny of an argument, which we prefer to call the Inaccessibility of Reality Argument (IRA for short). This is the philosophical underpinning of what we distinguish as epistemic constructivism. IRA is an old and pervasive argument among not only constructivist science educators, but also philosophers with anti-realist inclinations. It attempts to undermine any realist account of truth and thus knowledge in science and elsewhere. This is the claim that we can never compare either our experiences of, or our beliefs about, reality with how reality is because, in order to check whether our experiences or beliefs correspond with reality, further experiences or beliefs must always intervene. Thus we can never have direct knowledge, or more strongly any knowledge at all, of how reality is. Constructivists take this to heart and look for accounts of knowledge that are anti-realist and coherentist and/or constructivist in which the role of the external world in knowledge claims is thoroughly downplayed or non-existent. Since IRA is a central tenet of constructivism both with respect to scientific knowledge and learning, we have devoted several sections to it. Much of the groundwork for this has been laid in Chapter 4 in which various epistemological theories have been discussed. As has been pointed out, epistemological constructivism takes it cue by denying certain claims made in the classical foundations theory of knowledge and adopting aspects of the coherence theory of knowledge; but in effect it is an independent theory. More specifically, in Section 5.2 we quote from constructivist literature in education, which shows how widely IRA is employed. In Sections 5.3 and 5.4 we focus on two of the most influential constructivist theorists in education, namely Piaget and Glasersfeld, who are advocates of IRA, and on some of the many philosophers who have endorsed IRA. Though widespread, IRA is not without serious difficulties, and an early protest came from the logical positivist Moritz Schlick in the 1930s. Schlick's is a refreshing common-sensical opposition that deserves attention. In Section 5.5 we distinguish two versions of IRA that argue for the inaccessibility of the external world of common sense. The first depends on the idea that there is a veil of perception that keeps the external world forever beyond our direct inspection. The other is that the very activity of applying concepts to reality somehow shuts off that reality from us. In Section 5.6 we focus on the second of these versions of IRA. We set out the impossibility argument and show how it can be disarmed. We do this in outline but indicate the philosophical literature where these arguments are much more fully developed. After we dispel the spectre of IRA, we turn to a discussion of constructivism as a pedagogical theory in Section 5.7. It is important to distinguish two aspects of constructivism, epistemic and pedagogical. First there are the claims of constructivism to provide a theory of knowledge. But we have shown in the previous sections that it is really a warmed up version of scepticism or idealism, and that it is wedded to the quite counterintuitive claim of IRA that it is impossible to compare our beliefs with reality. Second, and quite independently, constructivism aims to provide a theory of teaching and learning. While there is much to commend in constructivism as pedagogy, it provides little novelty in this regard. Long ago it was anticipated by many, from those at the beginning of philosophy such as Socrates (see Section 3.3) up to the 20(th) century.(1)