Skip to main content
Log in

Constructivism deconstructed

  • Published:
Science & Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper examines the doctrine of ‘constructivism’ as presented by Ernst von Glasersfeld (1989). Part I attempts to elicit a clearer statement of the concepts, positions and arguments for the latter than is immediately available in the paper. Part II discusses the problem of intersubjectivity in constructivism. The general conclusions drawn from these sections is that the basic concepts and theses of constructivism are, mostly, at best very obscure, that there is very little argument involved, and that where there is it is quite unsatisfactory. Part III ventures an explanation of at least some of the weaknesses in the doctrine, this involving a brief independent treatment of some relevant epistemological questions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Althusser, L.: 1969, For Marx, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Althusser, L. and Balibar, E.: 1970, Reading Capital New Left Books, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Austin, J. L.: 1962, Sense and Sensibilia, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnouw, J.: 1980, ‘Vico and the Continuity of Science: The Relation of His Epistemology to Bacon and Hobbes’, Isis 71, 609–620.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baruzzi, A.: 1973, Mensch und Maschine. Das Denken sub specie machinae, W. Fink, Munich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berlin, I.: 1976, Vico and Herder. Two Essays in the History of Ideas, Chatto & Windus, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blumenberg, H.: 1987, Das Lachen der Thakerin. Eine Urgeschichte der Theorie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M.

    Google Scholar 

  • Böhme, G. (ed.): 1976, Protophysik. Für und wider eine konstruktive Wissenschaftstheorie der Physik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M.

    Google Scholar 

  • Böhme, G., van den Daele, W. and Krohn, W.: 1977, Experimentelle Philosophie. Ursprünge autonomer Wissenschaftsentwicklung, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butts, R. E. and Brown, J. (eds.): 1989, Construction and Science. Essays in Recent German Philosophy, Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E.: 1902, Leibniz's System in seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen, N. G. Elwert, Marburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E.: 1922, Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit (third edition) 2 vols B. Cassirer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E.: 1923, Substance and Function in Substance and Function and Einstein's Theory of Relativity (1910/1921) Open Court Publishing Co., La Salle, Ill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E.: 1959, Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 3: Phenomenology of Knowledge (1929) Yale University Press, Yale.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E.: 1985, ‘Die Sprache und der Aufbau der Gegenstandswelt’ (1932), in Orth, E. W. and Krois, J. M. (eds.), E. Cassirer, Symbol, Technik, Sprache. Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1927–1933 F. Meiner, Hamburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Child, A.: 1953, ‘Making and Knowing in Hobbes, Vico and Dewey’, University of California Publications in Philosophy 16, 271–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collingwood, R. G.: 1939, An Autobiography, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J.: 1938, Logic, the Theory of Inquiry, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dingler, H.: 1928, Das Experiment. Sien Wesen und seine Geschichte, Ernst Reinhardt, Munich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dingler, H.: 1938, Die Methode der Physik, Ernst Reinhardt, Munich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dingler, H.: 1952, Ueber die Geschicte und das Wesen des Experimentes Eidos-Verlag, Munich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dingler, H.: 1969, Die Ergreifung des Wirklichen Kapitel I–IV, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dingler, H.: 1987, Aufsätze zur Methodik, Felix Meiner, Hamburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Engels, F.: 1970, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1888) in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works in Three Volumes Volume 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feyerabend, P. K.: 1975, Against Method. Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, New Left Books, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fritz, K. von: 1964, Die έπαγωγή bei Aristoteles, Verlag der Bayerischer Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaukroger, S.: 1986, ‘Vico and the Maker's Knowledge Principle’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 3, 29–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gehlen, A.: 1988, Man. His Nature and Place in the World (1972), Columbia University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glasersfeld, E. von: 1989, ‘Cognition, Construction of Knowledge, and Teaching’, Synthese 80, 121–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes, T.: 1839–45, The English Works, W.Molesworth (ed.), John Bohn, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes, T.: 1839–45a, Opera philosophica, quae latine scripsit, omnia, W.Molesworth (ed.), John Bohn, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes, T.: 1651, Leviathan, in Hobbes 1839–45, Vol. III.

  • Hobbes, T.: 1656, Elements of Philosophy. The First Section, Concerning Body, in Hobbes 1839–45, Vol. I.

  • Hobbes, T.: 1656a, Six Lessons to the Savilian Professors of the Mathematics..., in Hobbes 1839–45, Vol. VII.

  • Hobbes, T.: 1658, Elementarum philosophiae sectio secunda, de Homine, in Hobbes 1839–45a, Vol. II.

  • Hobbes, T.: 1660, Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae hodiernae, in Hobbes 1839–45a, Vol. IV.

  • Husserl, E.: 1970, Logical Investigations, Volume I (1913), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Husserl, E.: 1970a, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (1954) Northwestern University Press, Evanston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacob, M. C.: 1988, The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution, Knopf, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobi, F.: 1816, ‘Von den göttlichen Dingen und ihre Offenbarung’ (1811), in Werke, Vol. III, G. Fleisher, Leipzig.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kannegiesser, H. J.: 1977, Knowledge and Society, Macmillan, Melbourne.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klüver, J.: 1977, Operationalismus. Kritik und Geschichte einer Philosophie der exakten Wissenschaften, Friedrich Frommann Verlag, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefèvre, W.: 1978, Naturtheorie und Produktionsweise. Probleme einer materialistischen Wissenschaftsgeschichtsschreibung. Eine Studie zur Genese der neuzeitlichen Naturwissenschaft, Luchterhand, Darmstadt and Neuwied.

  • Lewin, K.: 1935, ‘The Conflict between Aristotelian and Galilean Modes of Thought in Contemporary Psychology’, in K. Lewin, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 1–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Löwith, K.: 1968, Vicos Grundsatz:verum et factum convertuntur. Seine theologische Prämisse und deren säkulare Konsequenzen, Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malcolm, N.: 1958, ‘Knowledge of Other Minds’, Journal of Philosophy 55, 969–978.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, G. H.: 1934, Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviourist, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mittelstrass, J.: 1970, Neuzeit und Aufklärung:Studien zur Entstehung der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft und Philosophie, W. de Gruyter, Berlin and New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mittelstrass, J.: 1972, ‘The Galilean Revolution. The Historical Fate of a Methodological Insight’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 2, 297–328.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKeon, R.: 1930, ‘Causation and the Geometric Method in the Philosophy of Spinoza’, Philosophical Review 39, 178–189, 275–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pears, D.: 1988, The False Prison. A Study in the Development of Wittgenstein's Philosophy, Volume 2, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raphael, M.: 1974, Theorie des geistigen Schaffens auf marxistischer Grundlage, S. Fischer, Frankfurt/M.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, B.: 1956, ‘Mathematics and the Metaphysicians’ (1901/1918), in J. R.Newman (ed.), The World of Mathematics, Simon and Schuster, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sellars, W.: 1956, ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’, in H.Feigl and M.Scriven (eds.) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Vol. I, pp. 253–329.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spengler, O.: 1926–28, The Decline of the West (1923) 2 vols., Knopf, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stove, D.: 1991, The Cult of Plato and Other Philosophical Follies, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suchting, W.: 1986, Marx and Philosophy. Three Studies, Macmillan, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tetens, H.: 1987, Experimentelle Erfahrung. Eine wissenschaftstheoretische Studie über die Rolle des Experiments in der Begriffs-und Theorie-Bildung der Physik, Felix Meiner, Hamburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vico, G.: 1988, On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians Unearthed from the Origins of the Latin Language (1710), Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London (1744).

    Google Scholar 

  • Vico, G.: 1961, The New Science (1744), Anchor Books, Garden City, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vico, G.: 1963, Autobiography, Great Seal Books, Ithaca.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky, L. S.: 1962, Thought and Language, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, U.: 1983, ‘Wissenschaft als menschliches Handeln. Zu Thomas Hobbes' anthropologischer Fundierung von Wissenschaft’, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 37, 37–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wertsch, J.: 1985, Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, R.: 1983, Keywords. A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Fontana Paperbacks (Flamingo), London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, L. 1958, Philosophical Investigations (2nd ed.), Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zagorin, P.: 1984, ‘Vico's Theory of Knowledge: A Critique’, Philosophical Quarterly 34. 15–30.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Suchting, W.A. Constructivism deconstructed. Sci Educ 1, 223–254 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00430275

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00430275

Keywords

Navigation