The truth and all the truth about untruth: What you don't want to know about Radical Constructivism

The truth and all the truth about untruth: What you don't want to know about Radical Constructivism        ©Ariella Atzmon

As an offspring of phenomenology that aspires to the pure primary expression of the "I", Constructivism endorses a belief in the human ability to penetrate the depths of the universal essences existing at the heart of things. It propagates an all-embracing trust in the learning subject’s ability to construct his own reality. I argue that Von Glasersfeld’s ‘Radical Constructivism’ which dominates recent education and pedagogical theory, is symptomatic of a more serious condition generated by the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory and its Neo-Marxist ringleaders. Phenomenology that was intended to overcome positivism, turned out to be the quintessential buttress of scientism.[1] Husserl the founder of Phenomenology, described the philosopher as a labourer in the ‘vineyard of God’. Actually some phenomenologists, under the veil of human rationality presented a pious epistemology as a substitute for religion.

Hence any study of constructivism should start with analysing its basic assumptions rooted within Husserel’s ego centred 'I' philosophy that shifted the positivist view of the human subject as an object of research, into methodological Idealism. It insists that by dominating language as a transparent medium the ‘speaking subject,' acquires a spontaneous capability to express his own meanings, thus achieving a full possession of himself. Derrida called it the 'The metaphysics of presence'. This belief in the subject’s ability to reflect critically upon his own mind, in order to construct personal schemes for discerning reality is also what ‘critical theory’ is about.

Phenomenologists’ and constructivists’ assumption regarding harmony between the subject’s existence and his experienced phenomena complies with the view about observation as the main source of understanding. The observer is expected to crystallize meanings as universal essences through a personal conceptual gestalt.

From the 1930’s onward, gaining momentum after WW2, left-wing neo-Marxist thought adopted F.S. ideas, manifesting in an enormous influence on academic intellectual work. Presenting empirical positivist social science as an aspect of domination and oppression, C.T. provokes the social scientist to share the critique of culture and adopt a sceptical attitude towards contemporary paradigms. These C.T. ideas, are taking over most branches of the human sciences and R.C. as its educationist offshoot. 

Growth of knowledge modelling: It has been more than half a century since sociology of knowledge was immersed in encoding the process of “the Growth of Knowledge”, attempting to unveil the hidden socio-cultural, and political elements that affect the power/knowledge intricacies. Aiming to make reality more accessible, they seek for a model that will govern that evolutionary process, and also catalyse it.

Horkheimer and Adorno were consistent in transforming society by resisting a value-free social science research in favour of a moral perspective and a pluralist utopia. For the F.S. the precedence of the political and the moral should equip the social scientist with a critical attitude of resistance towards contemporary societies. Actually the F.S. thinkers who preached against empirical sciences adopted a reckless psychologized discourse. As a non-empirical hermeneutic discipline, psychoanalysis played as an elastic tool in the hands of F.S. for their political intentions.  It enabled them to shape standards for socio-cultural and political health. Hence, developing a body of scientific knowledge is not vital to F.S.’s critical studies. They are more involved with evolutionary facets about scientific knowledge for its ideological and political aspects.

I argue that excessive preoccupation with the growth of knowledge that caused lots of ado around methodology damaged the ‘natural’ evolutionary process of knowledge advancement. Actually the centrality of methodology in human sciences’ research is a myth that non-philosophers try to defend. It fosters quantified statistical bearings for validations rather than theoretical understanding, which has its crucial impact on scientific education. Methodologies are defined as methods used to produce valid knowledge, and justified by philosophical arguments. This dubious link between philosophy and science, bestows sociology with a superior scientific status due to the legitimization of specified methodologies and refined procedures. Thus, touching on the production of a discourse necessitates a demarcation between: 1) the logical coherence of the relations between the concepts in a discourse and 2) The process of production of a discourse (including methodologies and protocols). Any analysis of a discourse should be concerned with part one, i.e., the logical coherence that justifies a conceptual framework irrespective of any belief, intention, or any eventual occurrences invoked on the part of the author. We should note that when a scientist tries to convince his audience about his findings, he describes neither his insomnia, nor his reveries. He must present his statements as agreed messages between sender and recipient. Thus, discourses dealing with the growth of knowledge despite the obsession with methodology, are irrelevant. A theoretical discourse can rise or fall only in respect of the coherence and relations between its concepts. Any experiential knowledge that is ideologically oriented is logically invalid.

In Woolgar and Latour’s ethno-methodological writings, a “reflexive fallacy” is revealed. While they attempt to present the process of the production of knowledge as irrational, at the same time they want us to relate to their statements rationally. New sociologists of science relate to scientific research as an arbitrary process nurtured by factors they seek to disclose. Their writings attempt to put scientists in a ridiculous light. I wonder how they dare use the word “research” for the plethora of their recorded impressions. Latour’s book is stuffed with populist descriptions, recorded protocols of dialogues held in the “lab room,” describing how facts are consolidated into theory. But, we should note that the scientific process is more than a narration about scientific institutional auspices.

Since any study of a specific discourse requires a strict distinction between 1) the context of discovery and 2) the context of justification, with no logical inferential flow between the two, so despite the didactic significance of the ‘history of science’ stories that may trigger the learners motivation, it has nothing to do with the body of scientific knowledge. As an educational strategy R.C. focuses on the context of discovery while ignoring the context of justification which can be derived from 1) correspondence or 2) coherence. R. Constructivism’s disregard for the context of justification results in a confusing oscillation between descriptive phenomenology a la Descartes and Husserl’s hermeneutic phenomenology. When it comes to justification, Constructivism shares lines with logical positivism that established the rule of correspondence as the ground for scientific validation. For the constructivist the correspondence between the world and intentional reports of the ‘experiential subject’ manifests the priority of existence to the essence of ‘what is’. Hence, phenomenology didn’t abandon the positivist’s rule of correspondence; it just shifted it into a distinction between the subject’s ‘pure expression’ and indication. The phenomenologist assumption about the individual construction of schemes of knowledge, manifests a metaphysical belief in harmony between the subjects faculties of the mind and the world.

While epistemology strives to bridge the theoretical with the observed, ontology examines the nature of the discussed entities regarding what is. Constructivism shares with phenomenology and positivism an epistemological view. To the question of how is the subject supposed to synthesize sense data?  the answer of R.C. is grounded in Berkeley’s epistemology, which assumes the construction of knowledge as supposed natural adjustment between the regularity of experiences and summarized abstractions of the subject’s reflexive self-experienced mind. It is the same with Kantian rational grounds for belief that human knowledge can represent reality independently of human experience. Glasersfeld’s insistence on patterns of correspondence, applying to statistics as all-inclusive official substitution of proof, dissociates constructivism from Kant.

Epistemology which explores the relation of propositions to what “is given” is founded in the belief about a similarity engraved in the world between experience and conceptualization. Constructivist epistemology bridges the realm of concepts with the realm of experience and assumes a dichotomy between facts and theories, between ‘a subject’ and ‘an object’ i.e., empiricism. According to Kant ‘reason’ corresponds to a level higher than understanding. While understanding synthesizes sense input as a sum of experiential reports elaborated by the cognitive faculties of the mind, reason is the faculty that unites the judgment of experience through the construction of inferences. The idea shared by German Idealism and Romanticism, is that there are things in Being that are not reducible to appearances. It is the remoteness from immediacy where reason has its importance. By listening to Heraclitus we shall be reminded that “eyes and ears are bad witnesses if they have barbarian souls”. Kant’s transcendental philosophy provides Glasersfeld with a model for his constructivist rational analysis of human understanding; but yet not embarking on the higher phase of experience as a heuristic fiction utilized by reason. Here the proximity to Kant collapses. While Kant lifts us toward the sublime, and the aesthetic judgment, Glasersfeld appeals to Piaget’s genetic epistemology. Glasersfeld’s pragmatism, that understanding is true as long as it works, ensnares us within an epistemological methodology. Thus, with no rational coherent status to factual protocols, his methodological assumptions are grounded within pseudo-scientific supposition and cannot be considered serious.

Oddly enough constructivists insistence on achieving knowledge through a ‘model building’ epistemology is typical of positivism. Since we are unable to collect all the facts of the world, we presume that the selection of facts is governed by an extra-theoretical consideration. To the question how does one choose among the multiplicity of possible models? Levi Strauss’ answer is that the facts must be allowed to decide for themselves! Constructivist epistemology of model building rests on an arbitrary belief as if the world is essentially ordered and that knowledge reflects this order by models as the products of unconscious preconceptions that predetermine the possible forms of knowledge.

But what is appropriate in Mathematics where the connection between a model and its mathematical interpretation is theoretical, starts to feel dodgy when a theoretical model is linked to reality. Constructivist pantheist metaphysical supposition about a resemblance between models and facts as a part of an essential order imprinted in the world leaves us with a religious overtone in the theory of knowledge. Phenomenology’s assertion “Let the facts talk for themselves” means; that the better the models construction is, the better reality will be correlated to it. It is an hidden assumption about human unconscious ability to construct models that can achieve a perfect mirroring of the world. According to Piaget’s genetic epistemology, every conscious theoretical activity is grounded hard wired within unconscious ‘biological’, ‘psychological’ and social structures that exist in advance in the mind. This speculative idea upholds R.C.

Action theory is inseparable from R.C. The term ‘action” refers to the subject as a rational actor bestowed with free choice.  Rationality is defined as a behaviour that strives to maximize its satisfaction as derived by preferences. This evolutionist definition of survival is vital to R.C.  In celebrating experience above abstraction the ‘theory of action’ allows methodological subversive research such as: interviews and recorded data of irrelevant relationships as if they are relevant, counter-intuitive interpretations and psychodynamic thinking aimed at producing desired interpretive outcomes. Fortified by action theory and fuelled in advance by ideological predisposition R.C. serves to silence alternative paradigms with its impressionist researches. Thus 'Action theory' is a humanist vulgarization of Husserl’s phenomenology. It works in the service of ideologies and cannot be seen as innocent.

Since constructivism refers to ‘Action theory’, ‘rational choice’, and the portfolio neologisms, before being hooked by this terminology we should examine its usage in its educational context. The portfolio concept tells us that the “actor’ holds a set of beliefs and wishes, that while required to act he selects from this portfolio the relevant elements which are supposed to support his decision-making for the next action.  The ‘rational action’ and the portfolio terminology are consistent with phenomenology where the ‘I’ is the location of his decisions in accordance with his actions. Actor’s performances are viewed by interpretation of his behaviour. This is the reason for the pre-occupation with video-cameras, recordings and portfolio files that signal the manic spirit of constructivism. The portfolio model treats the subject as a Cartesian individual and his choices as a manifestation of transparent rationality. Disregarding the idea that decision-making is conditioned upon the filtered meanings in use.

The R.C. tendency to avoid abstract-theoretical terminology tempting students to construct reality in terms of their own experience is realized at all levels of education. Hence, contemporary education manifests a blur between Husserl’s phenomenology and Positivist-behaviourism. While the first stresses genuine expression alongside experiencing the pure phenomena, the second advocates rigorous methodologies for formulating descriptive reports. The craze for constructing the student’s image as an independent researcher manifests a ‘Hailing process’ where the student is told “follow me, I am about to teach you how to construct your own reality.” The educational field is saturated with phenomenological thought without internalizing its premises. Validating statements according to correspondence i.e. linking a term to sense data is how R.C. buttress’ rhetorical styles in western liberal democracies; making statistics prevail!  Statements are supported in the media in reference to statistical data, survey polls etc. which promote peoples’ dependence on pundits’ expertise. Science education devises ‘false’ images of science for the public, and what sounds scientific is legitimized in advance, so the rhetorical apparatus is upheld by constructivist science education.

The Frankfurt school use of philosophical analysis of culture, to resist universality, and objectivity, for the sake of qualitative study of individualist differences, explains R.C. enthusiasm with portfolio files and its attempt to prove that knowledge is temporary, non-objective, and socio-culturally mediated. As a ghost of phenomenology R.C. could blossom within the F.S. posturing garden.

In the name of superior scientific thought, populist trends dismantle a genuine striving for moral judgement. This blend of positivism and phenomenology became blatant in universities curricula. As the guardians of the democratic deceit, their treatise prevents us from analysing Finding on an ontological basis. Totalitarian regimes invented prisons and torture cellars for rebels and political outsiders, contemporary democracy have F.S. C.T. for drugging their citizens.  Just like positivism, the new sociology of knowledge doesn’t show any tendency to penetrate the ‘black box’ obscurity regarding the logic of the “national curriculum”, namely, false images of science linked with populist rhetoric founded in surveys polls and statistics. The R.C.  promise of self-expression, ends in immunity to the inexpressible.

Summary: At all levels of the educational arena the magic words ‘critical’ and ‘radical’ prevail. Knowledge is accommodated through an experiential procedure, which results in radical fragmentation of contents. Universities were justly condemned by Heidegger as sclerotic institutions, like department stores that had lost their authentic existence. He sought for a philosophical reform that might bring the fragmented disciplines together, like arches under the dome of a great cathedral.

It is Heidegger the most inspirational philosopher of the century and of western philosophy that  should be praised for identifying at that early stage of the twenty century the potential danger cloaked in Husserl’s phenomenology. As a part of the greatness of  German spiritual and intellectual  tradition, it was Heidegger that could forecast Husserl’s phenomenology poisonous  impact on the future generations. 

Thinkers in the past were fascinated and tormented by ideas regarding human nature, what is meant by knowledge, what are the paths, if any, to widen the understanding of the world and ourselves. So many questions about the human spirit, its commitments to humanity, to the universe, a homeland, a nation, religion or a tribe, are still hanging in the air. Yet, the minute the new sociology of knowledge started gauging the Growth of Knowledge, Knowledge stopped growing!

The F.S. was established mainly by Jewish thinkers - as a centre for philosophy and the social sciences, to challenge the accepted values and standards in all aspects of life. C.T. was invented as a strategy for subverting traditional society from a neo-Marxist perspective. Actually their main goal of confusing the status quo was to amplify their own ideology. We should admit that they were very successful in fulfilling this mission. In a world where the blind lead the blind, the retrieval of what is called ‘knowledge’ should come from the university, not the other way around. [2]

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[1] ‘scientism’ is a belief in the applicability of the methods of the physical sciences to the social sciences.

[2] Following Heideger’s ontological phenomenology the liberated ‘observing subject’ should feel things as they are appearing to each other through him! For Heidegger this ‘passive’ “not doing”, is a responsible releasement of the individual from obsessive activity. Not to subject things to our will, to let them be what they already are.