Response: Footnotes to "The Many Faces of Constructivism"

Author(s): Ernst von Glasersfeld

Source: Educational Researcher, Vol. 25, No. 6 (Aug. - Sep., 1996), p. 19
Published by: American Educational Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1176044
Accessed: 10-04-2017 18:37 UTC

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Response:

Footnotes to "The Many Faces of Constructivism"

ERNST VON GLASERSFELD

Educational Researcher, Vol. 25, No. 6, p 19 actions. Our constructs of other people and the society they
collectively constitute are by no means more malleable or
Editor's note: The following interchange between Ernst von Glasers- "softer" than the physical items with which we furnish our
feld and Denis Phillips was generated by Phillips's article "The experiential world. Thus, although we construct them our-
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of Constructivism" selves on the basis of subjective experience, we actually
that appeared in the October 1995 issue of Educational Re- interact with them and can learn to interact more success-
searcher. In that article, Phillips characterized constructivism as "a fully in much the same way as we do in the case of "atoms
'powerful folktale' about the origins of human knowledge." He also and molecules and forces of the external physical uni-
discussed a number of different conceptions of constructivism and verse" (Phillips, p. 9). For whatever things we know, we
presented an analytic framework to help make sense of the similar- know only insofar as we have constructed them as rela-
ities and differences among these different views. Included in Phillips's
tively viable permanent entities in our conceptual world.
framework was a continuum that had "human construction" at one
end and "instruction by nature" at the other. Phillips Indicated that
References
von Glasersfeld was probably the best example of a theorist who is
furthest from the "nature as instructor" end of the continuum. He
also raised a number of questions and apparent problems with this Philhps, D. C. (1995). The good, the bad, and the ugly- The many faces
of constructivism. Educational Researcher, 24(7), 5-12.
position. In the following exchange, von Glasersfeld responds and
von Glasersfeld, E (1985) Reconstructing the concept of knowledge
Phillips provides a rebuttal.
Archives de Psychologic, 53, 91-101
von Glasersfeld, E. (1989). Facts and the self from a constructivist
D. C. Phillips provided an excellent and timely survey point of view. Poetics, 18(4-5), 435-448.
of the current brands of constructivism in "The von Glasersfeld, E. (1995). Radical constructivism. A way of knowing and
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faceslearning
of London. Falmer Press.
Constructivism" (Phillips, 1995). Given that he cites me as
Manuscript received December 14, 1995
"the clearest example of a theorist who also is far from the
Accepted February 12, 1996
'nature as instructor' end of the continuum" (p. 8), I
would, for the sake of future discussions, like to clear up
two points concerning my position. ERNST VON GLASERSFELD is a professor of psychology, emeritus, at
The phrases "instruction by nature" and "template" the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute at the University of
(Figure 1) tend to imply that nature has a way ofMassachusetts-Amherst,
deter- Amherst, MA 01003. He specializes in the
mining what is produced as knowledge. As Phillips istheory
care- of cognition and cybernetics.
ful to specify, constructivists believe that this determining
influence has the form of constraints. In this context, the NBME MEDICAL EDUCATION
terms "instruction" and "template" are somewhat mis- 19 15
leading. For Piagetian and radical constructivists, the no- RESEARCH FUND
tion of constraint stems from the biological principle of
adaptation, which says that to survive and reproduce, or- 1996-97 Request for Proposals
ganisms must have properties and develop ways of behav-
ing that do not bring them into fatal conflict with their
environment. Nature does not instruct them what to be or
The National Board of Medical Examiners' (NBME)
how to behave; it merely eliminates them if they are not
viable. Medical Education Research Fund's purpose is to provide
Having adopted this principle for use in the cognitive/ support for innovative research and development of
conceptual domain, radical constructivism holds that theevaluation methodology at LCME or AOA-accredited
only instruction or information a human knower can pos- medical schools.
sibly receive from "nature" or "reality" is negative. In other
words, the world beyond our experiential interface may
show us what concepts, theories, and actions are not vi- The 1996-97 RFP invites proposals with promise of
able, but it cannot instruct us what to think. Many critics providing advances in methods for assessment of those
seem to disregard that this view changes the kind of rela- preparing for or continuing to assume responsibility for
tion between nature (or reality) and knowledge but does the health of the public. Assessment approaches used
not deny their relatedness.
The second point concerns the assertion that "it is diffi- throughout the educational continuum are of interest,
cult to see how he [von Glasersfeld] can consistently allow from undergraduate through continuing education.
that social influences exist" (p. 8). In several papers (1985, Applicants may request up to $50,000 for up to two
1989) and most explicitly in my recent book (1995), 1 have years of project support. Originality of the proposed
explained how "others" may be constructed from within
research will be a major criterion for grantee selection.
the domain of subjective experience. My form of construc-
tivism, I keep reiterating, is a theory of rational knowing,
not a metaphysics of being. We come to know other per- DEADLINE: November 15, 1996 for receipt of appli-
sons in the same way in which we come to know cups and cations. For additional information, contact the NBME
spoons, water and fire, stairs and bicycles-by learning toat (215) 590-9657 or Internet: dkuhar@mail.nbme.org.
live with them in the course of more and less viable inter-

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1996 19

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