Constructivist Epistemology - Quotations

Quotations

• Verum esse ipsum factum, Giambattista Vico

"the norm of the truth is to have made it," or

"the true is precisely what is made"

• Verum et factum convertuntur, Giambattista Vico

"the true and the made are convertible"

• Et, quoi qu'on en dise, dans la vie scientifique, les problèmes ne se posent pas d'eux-mêmes. C'est précisément ce sens du problème qui donne la marque du véritable esprit scientifique. Pour un esprit scientifique, toute connaissance est une réponse à une question. S'il n'y a pas eu de question, il ne peut y avoir de connaissance scientifique. Rien ne va de soi. Rien n'est donné. Tout est construit, Gaston Bachelard (La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1934)

"And, irrespective of what one might assume, in the life of a science, problems do not arise by themselves. It is precisely this that marks out a problem as being of the true scientific spirit: all knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed."

• On a toujours cherché des explications quand c'était des représentations qu'on pouvait seulement essayer d'inventer, Paul Valéry

"We have always sought explanations when it was only representations that we could seek to invent"

• Ma main se sent touchée aussi bien qu'elle touche ; réel veut dire cela, et rien de plus, Paul Valéry

"My hand feels touched as well as it touches; real means this, and nothing more"

• Intelligence organizes the world by organizing itself, Jean Piaget in "La construction du réel chez l'enfant" (1937)
• "If the natives are in different worlds, how come we can shoot them?" Stephen Stich
• "I was once accused by Rene Thom of being a constructivist, which I understand was worse than being called an empiricist; I replied that I took pride in it" Sydney Brenner 2010