Constructivism is one of the most influential theories in contemporary education and learning theory. It has had great influence in science education. The papers in this collection represent, arguably, the most sustained examination of the theoretical and philosophical foundations of constructivism yet published. Topics covered include: orthodox epistemology and the philosophical traditions of constructivism; the relationship of epistemology to learning theory; the connection between philosophy and pedagogy in constructivist practice; the difference between radical and social constructivism, and an appraisal of (...) their epistemology; the strengths and weaknesses of the Strong Programme in the sociology of science and implications for science education. The book contains an extensive bibliography. Contributors include philosophers of science, philosophers of education, science educators, and cognitive scientists. The book is noteworthy for bringing this diverse range of disciplines together in the examination of a central educational topic. (shrink)

"--Richard Grandy, Rice University "This is the first compelling diagnosis of what has gone awry in the raging 'science wars.

Summarizing this century's major debates over realism and the rationality of scientific knowledge, Joseph Rouse believes that these disputes oversimplify the ...

Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science.

Duhem's 1908 essay questions the relation between physical theory and metaphysics and, more specifically, between astronomy and physics–an issue still of importance today. He critiques the answers given by Greek thought, Arabic science, medieval Christian scholasticism, and, finally, the astronomers of the Renaissance.

This text provides a critique of the subjective Bayesian view of statistical inference, and proposes the author's own error-statistical approach as an alternative framework for the epistemology of experiment. It seeks to address the needs of researchers who work with statistical analysis.

In this much-anticipated revision and translation of Scienza e Retorica, Marcello Pera argues that rhetoric is central to the making of scientific knowledge. Pera begins with an attack of what he calls the "Cartesian syndrome"--the fixation on method common to both defenders of traditional philosophy of science and its detractors. He argues that in assuming the primacy of methodological rules, both sides get it wrong. Scientific knowledge is neither the simple mirror of nature nor a cultural construct imposed by contingent (...) interests, thus we must replace the idea of the scientific method with that of scientific rhetoric. Pera proposes a new dialectics of science to overcome the tension between normative and descriptive philosophies of science by focusing on the rhetoric in the proposition, defense, and argumentation of theories. Examining the uses of rhetoric in debates drawn from Galileo’s Dialogues, Darwin’s Origins, and the Big Bang-Steady State controversy in cosmology, Pera shows how the conduct of science involves not just nature and the inquiring mind, but nature, the inquiring mind, and a questioning community which, through the process of attack, defense, and dispute, determines what is science. Rhetoric, then, is an essential element in the constitution of science as the practice of persuasive argumentation through which results gain acceptance. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, a vision arose which was to captivate the Western imagination for the next three hundred years: the vision of Cosmopolis, a society as rationally ordered as the Newtonian view of nature. While fueling extraordinary advances in all fields of human endeavor, this vision perpetuated a hidden yet persistent agenda: the delusion that human nature and society could be fitted into precise and manageable rational categories. Stephen Toulmin confronts that agenda—its illusions and its consequences for our present (...) and future world. "By showing how different the last three centuries would have been if Montaigne, rather than Descartes, had been taken as a starting point, Toulmin helps destroy the illusion that the Cartesian quest for certainty is intrinsic to the nature of science or philosophy."—Richard M. Rorty, University of Virginia "[Toulmin] has now tackled perhaps his most ambitious theme of all.... His aim is nothing less than to lay before us an account of both the origins and the prospects of our distinctively modern world. By charting the evolution of modernity, he hopes to show us what intellectual posture we ought to adopt as we confront the coming millennium."—Quentin Skinner, New York Review of Books. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, Jim Garrison (1997) opines that a Deweyan social constructivism ought to be embraced by science educators in preference to the subjectivist variety espoused by Ernst von Glasersfeld as it '. . . retains all [of the latter's] virtues and does not get caught up in its confusions' (p. 543), In this response, I argue that key elements of Garrison's complaints are misguided and that his preferred Deweyan social constructivism is a theoretical framework without (...) apparent superiority and with enough flaws that it is best eschewed by science educators (and metascientists, generally). © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. (shrink)

This lucidly written book examines the social and political significance of the natural sciences through a detailed and original account of science as an interpretive social practice.

This ambitious book by one of the most original and provocative thinkers in science studies offers a sophisticated new understanding of the nature of scientific, mathematical, and engineering practice and the production of scientific knowledge. Andrew Pickering offers a new approach to the unpredictable nature of change in science, taking into account the extraordinary number of factors—social, technological, conceptual, and natural—that interact to affect the creation of scientific knowledge. In his view, machines, instruments, facts, theories, conceptual and mathematical structures, disciplined (...) practices, and human beings are in constantly shifting relationships with one another—"mangled" together in unforeseeable ways that are shaped by the contingencies of culture, time, and place. Situating material as well as human agency in their larger cultural context, Pickering uses case studies to show how this picture of the open, changeable nature of science advances a richer understanding of scientific work both past and present. Pickering examines in detail the building of the bubble chamber in particle physics, the search for the quark, the construction of the quarternion system in mathematics, and the introduction of computer-controlled machine tools in industry. He uses these examples to address the most basic elements of scientific practice—the development of experimental apparatus, the production of facts, the development of theory, and the interrelation of machines and social organization. (shrink)

Koslowski boldly criticizes many of the currently classic studies and musters a compelling set of arguments, backed by an exhaustive set of experiments carried out during the last decade.