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Any one-dimensional answer to the question “What is constructivism?” does not only contradict constructivist principles, it is above all
counterproductive for scientific and philosophical endeavors.
It would be difficult if not impossible to lump together the many independent disciplinary roots and proponents of constructivism.
However, it is possible and desirable to distill their common denominator.
It encompasses the following ten aspects.
- 1. Constructivist approaches question the Cartesian separation between objective world and subjective experience
2. Constructivist approaches demand the inclusion of the observer in (scientific) explanations
3. Representationalism is rejected
4. It is futile to claim that knowledge approaches observer-independent reality; instead, reality is brought forth by the subject
5. Constructivist approaches entertain an agnostic relationship with any observer-independent reality
6. The focus of research moves from the world that consists of matter to the world that consists of what matters
7. Constructivist approaches focus on self-referential and organizationally closed systems
Such systems strive for control over their inputs rather than their outputs.
8. Constructivist approaches favor a process-oriented approach rather than a substance-based perspective
9. Constructivist approaches emphasize the “individual as personal scientist” approach…
…as their starting point is the cognitive capacity of the experiencing subject.
10. Constructivism asks for an open pluralistic approach to science…
…in order to generate the plasticity that is needed to cope with the scientific frontier.
1. Constructivist approaches question the Cartesian separation between objective world and subjective experience
As argued by Josef Mitterer (2001), such dualistic approaches, being the prevailing scientific orientation, are based on the distinction between description and object, and their argumentation is directed towards the object of thought. Mitterer claims that the dualistic method of searching for truth is but an argumentative technique that can turn any arbitrary opinion either true or false. Therefore, the goal of dualistic philosophies, i.e., philosophies based on the subject–object dichotomy, is to convince a public audience (readers, listeners, discussion partners) of the truth. An example to surmount the separation is the concept of “enaction” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991: 150) according to which “…knower and known, mind and world, stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or dependent co-origination.”
2. Constructivist approaches demand the inclusion of the observer in (scientific) explanations
This is a consequence of the previous point. Heinz von Foerster (quoted from Glasersfeld 1995) summarizes the crucial point in a single statement, “Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.” Maturana (1978: 3) made it a dictum: “Everything said is said by an observer to another observer that could be him- or herself.”
3. Representationalism is rejected
Questioning the correspondence theory of representation (cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “in order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality”) induced Ernst von Glasersfeld to formulate the radical constructivist position. It is the claim that knowledge is the result of an active construction process rather than of a more or less passive representational mapping from the environment of an objective world onto subjective cognitive structures. Therefore, knowledge is a system-related cognitive process (Peschl & Riegler 1999).
4. It is futile to claim that knowledge approaches observer-independent reality; instead, reality is brought forth by the subject
The second aspect of von Glasersfeld’s position is, “the function of cognition is adaptive and serves the organization of the experiential world, not the discovery of ontological reality” (Glasersfeld 1995: 18), which means that, “those who merely speak of the construction of knowledge, but do not explicitly give up the notion that our conceptual constructions can or should in some way represent an independent, ‘objective’ reality, are still caught up in the traditional theory of knowledge” (Glasersfeld 1991: 16)
5. Constructivist approaches entertain an agnostic relationship with any observer-independent reality
Observer-independent reality is considered beyond our cognitive horizon. Any reference to it should be refrained from. Rudolf Carnap expressed the necessity of this aspect already in 1935 by saying that
“we reject the thesis of the Reality of the physical world;
but we do not reject it as false, but as having no sense, and its Idealistic anti-thesis is subject to exactly the same rejection.
We neither assert nor deny these theses, we reject the whole question.”
