Constructivist Epistemology - Constructivist Trends

Constructivist Trends

Cultural constructivism

Cultural constructivism asserts that knowledge and reality are a product of their cultural context, meaning that two independent cultures will likely form different observational methodologies. For instance, Western cultures generally rely on objects for scientific descriptions; by contrast, Native American culture relies on events for descriptions. These are two distinct ways of constructing reality based on external artifacts.

Radical constructivism

Ernst von Glasersfeld was a prominent proponent of radical constructivism, which claims that knowledge is not a commodity which is transported from one mind into another, rather, it is up to the individual to "link up" specific interpretations of experiences and ideas with their own reference of what is possible and viable. That is, the process of constructing knowledge is dependent on the individual's subjective interpretation of the experience not what "actually" occurred. For example, a teacher has the responsibility of ensuring the student can makes sense of the material being taught through the consideration of how the student will interpret the work rather than repeating phrases, words and definitions in the way the teacher sees fit. Further since knowledge is a subjective construct rather than a compilation of empirical data, it is impossible to know the extent to which knowledge reflects an ontological reality. See also: Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana, and Heinz von Foerster

Critical constructivism

A series of articles published in the journal Critical Inquiry (1991) served as a manifesto for the movement of critical constructivism in various disciplines, including the natural sciences. Not only truth and reality, but also "evidence", "document", "experience", "fact", "proof", and other central categories of empirical research (in physics, biology, statistics, history, law, etc.) reveal their contingent character as a social and ideological construction. Thus, a "realist" or "rationalist" interpretation is subjected to criticism. Kincheloe's political and pedagogical notion (above) has emerged as a central articulation of the concept.

While recognizing the constructedness of reality, many representatives of this critical paradigm deny philosophy the task of the creative construction of reality. They eagerly criticize realistic judgments, but they do not move beyond analytic procedures based on subtle tautologies. They thus remain in the critical paradigm and consider it to be a standard of scientific philosophy per se.

Genetic epistemology

James Mark Baldwin invented this expression, which was later popularized by Jean Piaget. From 1955 to 1980, Piaget was Director of the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva.