Constructivist Epistemology - Key Concepts

Key Concepts

The common thread among all forms of constructivism is that they do not focus on an ontological reality, but instead on a constructed reality. Indeed, a basic presupposition of constructivism is that Reality-As-It-Is-In-Itself (Ontological Reality) is utterly incoherent as a concept, since there is no way to verify how one has finally reached a definitive notion of Reality. Talk of verification in this connection is beside the point. According to constructivism, one must already have Reality in mind—that is, one must already know what Reality consists of—in order to confirm when one has at last "hit bottom." Richard Rorty has said that all claims to Realism can be reduced to intuition (Consequences of Pragmatism, chs. 9, 11). The Realist/Anti-Realist debate can be reduced, in the end, to a conflict of intuitions: "It seems to us that..." vs "Well, it seems to us that..." A realist would not view the argument in this way, and would say that one of these is misled, that one group perceives correctly, and the other perceives incorrectly. Strict constructivists will attest that there is no way to confirm one way or another, since the goal of inquiry (Reality) must be assumed to be understood at the outset. Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge and truth that forms a new paradigm, based on inter-subjectivity instead of the classical objectivity and viability instead of truth. The constructivist point of view is pragmatic as Vico said: "the truth is to have made it".

In this paradigm, "sciences of the artificial" (see Herbert A. Simon) such as cybernetics, automatics or decision theory, management and engineering sciences can justify their teaching and have a space in the academy as "real sciences".

Several scientists and researchers see a close connection between constructivism and modeling and simulation. A model is a purposeful abstraction and simplification of a perception of reality, captured as a formal but implementation independent specification of the resulting conceptualization of things, processes, and relation. The simulation implements the model, often on a digital computer. The result is a constructed reality in the computer from which new ideas can be generated. As these ideas, however, are rooted in the implementation of a model, hence being derived from a constructed reality, the principles are strongly connected with constructivism. Nevertheless constructivism implies a fundamental differentiation between ontological reality and a constructed model of one.