Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Constructivist biosemiotics foundations imply the first-person basis of cognition. CBF are developed by the biology of cognition, relational biology, enactive approach, ecology of mind, second order cybernetics, genetic epistemology, gestalt, ecological perception and affordances, and active inference by minimization of free energy. CBF reject the idea of an objective independent reality to be represented by information processing in order to be the fittest. CBF assumes that perception is the behavioral configuration of an object and objects are tokens for eigen-behaviors. Cognition (...) takes place in the organism-environment structural coupling during the ontogeny and phylogeny of all biological unities including unicellular organisms. Therefore, if exogenous DNA particles are just tokens for the cell signalling eigen-behaviors, if there is no ‘information’ in the DNA sequence, how can we explain that the same virus or trans- sequence is associated with a similar phenotype? We call this ‘exogenomic problem’. With this basic example, but sufficiently generic to the whole biological world, we agree respectively with Autopoiesis, -system, and Gaia theory: i) ‘Information, code and meaning’ in the DNA sequence belong to the domain of the observer’s description. ii) Genetic ‘information’ is not a program or algorithmic software in DNA sequence. Rather it is a microphysical observable mode of eigen-behaviors in biological unities. iii) The transfer and acquisition of DNA particles is a biospheric phenomenon that maintains its homeorhesis, symbiotic and biosemiotic entailment. Based on the theoretical and experimental results of these theories, it is concluded that genetic ‘information’ is not a genomic sequence, nor any kind of information, but for the cell DNA must embody physical forcing. Genetic characters are the effects and not the cause of phenotype and DNA particles do not ‘use or manipulate’ cellular metabolism. Rather, any cellular configuration change that occurred before or during DNA perturbation is determined on the basis of the cellular standpoint. (shrink)

Constructivism rejects the metaphysical position that “truth”, and thus knowledge in science, can represent an “objective” reality, independent of the knower. It modifies the role of knowledge from “true” representation to functional viability. In this interview, Ernst von Glasersfeld, the leading proponent of Radical Constructivism underlines the inaccessibility of reality, and proposes his view that the function of cognition is adaptive, in the biological sense: the adaptation is the result of the elimination of all that is not adapted. There is (...) no rational way of knowing anything outside the domain of our experience and we construct our world of experiences. In addition to these philosophical claims, the interviewee provides some personal insights; he also gives some suggestions about better teaching and problem solving. These are the aspects of constructivism that have had a major impact on instruction and have modified the manner many of us teach. The process of teaching as linguistic communication, he says, needs to change in a way to involve actively the students in the construction of their knowledge. Because knowledge is not a transferable commodity, learning is mainly identified with the activity of the construction of personal meaning. This interview also provides glimpses on von Glasersfeld’s life. (shrink)

There is an overlooked similarity between three classic accounts of the conditions of object experience from three distinct disciplines. Sociology: the “inversion” that accompanies discovery in the natural sciences, as local causes of effects are reattributed to an observed object. Psychology: the “externalization” that accompanies mastery of a visual–tactile sensory substitution interface, as tactile sensations of the proximal interface are transformed into vision-like experience of a distal object. Biology: the “projection” that brings forth an animal’s Umwelt, as impressions on its (...) body’s sensory surfaces are reconfigured into perception of an external object. This similarity between the effects of scientific practice and interface-use on the one hand, and of sensorimotor interaction on the other, becomes intelligible once we accept that skillful engagement with instruments and interfaces constitutes a socio-material augmentation of our basic perceptual capacity. This enactive interpretation stands in contrast to anti-realism about science associated with constructivist interpretations of these three phenomena, which are motivated by viewing them as the internal mental construction of the experienced object. Instead, it favors a participatory realism: the sensorimotor basis of perceptual experience loops not only through our body, but also through the external world. This allows us to conceive of object experience in relational terms, i.e., as one or more subjects directly engaging with the world. Consequently, we can appreciate scientific observation in its full complexity: it is a socio-materially augmented process of becoming acquainted with the observed object that—like tool-use and perceiving more generally—is irreducibly self, other-, and world-involving. (shrink)

In this article, I study, from the point of view of the analytic philosophy of mind, the compatibility of students’ ideas studies with radical constructivism. I demonstrate that RC is based on a psychology of narrow mental states; that is, the idea that the mental content of an individual can be fully characterised without any reference external to her or him. I show that this fact imposes some severe restrictions to SIS to be incorporated into RC. In particular, I argue (...) that only qualitative studies can comply with the requirement of narrowness. Nevertheless, I propose that quantitative works can be employed as sources of types in order to study token actual students. I use this type-token dichotomy to put forward an outline of a theory of the relation between school contents and mental contents. In this view, token mental contents regarding a given topic can be defined, and probed, only by resorting to typical school contents. (shrink)

The present article discusses shared epistemological characteristics of two distinct areas of research: the field of first-person inquiry and the field of quantum mechanics. We outline certain philosophical challenges that arise in each of the two lines of inquiry, and point towards the central similarity of their observational situation: the impossibility of disregarding the interrelatedness of the observed phenomena with the act of observation. We argue that this observational feature delineates a specific category of research that we call the non-trivial (...) domain. Unlike the trivial domain, non-trivial research cannot assume the view from nowhere on which the observed phenomena could be regarded as existing independently of the process of observation. Presenting first-person inquiry and quantum mechanics as two of its examples, we show that non-trivial research violates several fundamental observational presuppositions of the trivial domain, exemplified in the principles of classical physics. Drawing on Niels Bohr’s philosophy of quantum mechanics and the constructivist notion of enaction, we stress the constructive, participatory, and irreversible nature of observation in the non-trivial domain. We discuss the possibility of developing a non-representationalist epistemology of the non-trivial, and consider the implications of our discussion for research in the non-trivial domain, as well as for the general understanding of the scientific inquiry. (shrink)

In this article, I introduce Robert Brandom’s inferentialism as an alternative to common representational interpretations of constructivism in science education. By turning our attention away from the representational role of conceptual contents and toward the norms governing their use in inferences, we may interpret knowledge as a capacity to engage in a particular form of social activity, the game of giving and asking for reasons. This capacity is not readily reduced to a diagrammatic structure defining the knowledge to be acquired. (...) By considering the application of these ideas to the concept of electrical current and the use of analogies in science education, I hope to illustrate how they may be given practical employment as the child comes to explore within the concepts derived from historical scientific endeavours and not merely meander through her individual experiences of scientific phenomena themselves. In moving away from the representational role of analogy, our focus shifts from the quality of the analogy itself toward the quality of the discourse utilising the analogy. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Research into learners' ideas about science suggests that students often have alternative conceptions about important science concepts. Because of this dissatisfaction, constructivism has been adopted as a theoretical framework by many teachers and researchers, and it has had a curricular influence in many countries. Constructivism is much more than an educational doctrine and we are aware that a ‘science war’ about the possibility of objectivity is in progress. ‘Constructivism’ cannot necessary be a package deal: it must be possible to accept (...) educational suggestions deemed useful without buying all the epistemology or the metaphysical implications. The claim that cognitive agents understand the world by constructing mental representations of it can be a shared suggestion for changing science instruction. Many teachers are much more concerned in finding productive teaching methods than about philosophical questions as if knowledge must be considered an objective representation of the real world or not. We have to ponder if some ideas from the constructivist theory of instruction can help instructors to become better teachers. The pragmatic suggestions that come from the constructivist theory of instruction developed by von Glasersfeld, the leading proponent of radical constructivism, could be a good start in this␣search. (shrink)

In this essay Clarence Joldersma explores radical constructivism through the work of its most well-known advocate, Ernst von Glasersfeld, who combines a sophisticated philosophical discussion of knowledge and truth with educational practices. Joldersma uses Joseph Rouse's work in philosophy of science to criticize the antirealism inherent in radical constructivism, emphasizing that Rouse's Heideggerian critique differs from the standard realist defense of modernist epistemology. Next, Joldersma develops an alternative conception of truth, in terms of disclosure, based on Lambert Zuidervaart's work in (...) aesthetics. Joldersma concludes by arguing that this notion of truth avoids the pitfalls of both realism and antirealism, giving educational theorists a way forward to accept some of the major insights of constructivism with respect to learning and teaching without having to relinquish a robust notion of truth. (shrink)

Even if the concept of “community of persons” is more and more present, only a few studies with practical cases actually use it. This paper is based on the pragmatic constructivism epistemological paradigm and uses an autopraxeography method from a previous action research study. The case presented concerns part of a large business. At the beginning of our study, this organization experienced many conflicts. The intervention we implemented developed dialogues and built a community of persons. At the end of this (...) story, a new HR manager arrived and decided to stop what was previously implemented, putting an end to the dialogues and all of the collaboration that went along with them. This way of doing leads to fake productivity because it generates a lot of hidden costs. Thus, this case shows that a dialogue is necessary to build a community of persons, and vice versa. Otherwise, there are just associations of individuals. (shrink)