cons V & M

Mike Cole (mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Fri, 15 Sep 1995 05:35:15 -0700

A belated thanks to Eva and Gary for responses re the difference
between constructiVism and constructioNism. I wonder if your
two takes are compatible and think they ought to be. For Eva,
the emphasis on the "made thing on the floor" versus the "made
thing (representation) in the head does seems to capture part of
what Papert at least meant, because the illustration he uses in
Lego logo, where the kids build things. But Gary's" a ton of
bricks" written on paper has some of the same "constructed in the
world"ness and he too makes the inside/outside distinction.

One common theme in the range of cultural/social approaches inspired
by the Russians, Dewey, Mead, Peirce, and later folks is the anti-
Cartesianism of their basic intuitions. Social semiotics seems to
be one expression of this starting point. Figuring out how the
different flavors of anti-cartesianism are related would be nice.
Anyone got that mapped out?
mike