Re: cons-ism
(no name) ((no email))
Tue, 12 Sep 95 10:19 CDT
Good question, Mike. As I see it, constructionism's main
contribution is that it turns the Piagetean hierarchy of
cognitive development into a quasi-hierarchy. That is, once we
master one of these cognitive skills, its not so much a matter
of replacing it, as it is of using it where we need it. For
example, suppose I am teaching a class about the concept of the
interpretant in semiotics. At the formal level, I explain that
the interpretant is a mediated consequent, or the consequence of
the manifestation of the object via the sign. They of course do
not understand this yet. Then I write the phrase "a ton of
bricks" on a piece of paper. I ask them what this sign -- the
phrase -- stands for. They tell me that it stands for a ton of
bricks. Concrete level. Then I walk over and drop the piece
of paper on a volunteer's head, and invite the class to enter-
tain the different consequences between using the sign and the
object itself. This sensorimotor act usually opens the door to
a re-emergence of creative thinking, first on the concrete and
then on the formal level. As a teacher, I weave back and forth
among these levels to pursue my goal. This is the point that
I think Papert seeks to make.
Constructivism seems to be one of those movements with a heart
of gold, but which gets trapped in conceptual corners that work
against what it seeks to achieve. It is ironic that it is yet
another form of the Cartesian controvery, since Descartes is one
of the best historical examples of a person creating conceptual
trouble via trying to do good. As I see it, and I willing to
be illuminated out of this view by the way, constructivism falls
into the Cartesian trap of trying to determine whether the person
is the author of the material world, or else the person's cons-
ciousness is instead a byproduct of that material world. Skinner
for example was clearly on the material side of the fence, when
he considered consciousness, selfhood, and identity to be just
epiphenomenal byproducts of the workings of the material world.
In explicitly rejecting the Skinnerian view, the constructivist
embraces the idealist pole by saying that the person not so much
constructs the material world, but rather the intelligibility of
that world. In other words, there is no clear distinction drawn
between the intelligibility of the world and the interpretation
of the world by that person. Later constructivists realize that
we have to live together, so we cannot say that the intelligib-
ility of the world is up to each of us alone. Instead, they
argue that the intelligibility of the world is a social co-
construction, and the reason that one particular pattern of
meaning prevails in a culture over another is due to the
social conventions of that culture.
A semiotician realizes that the intelligibility of the world is
a complex matter, and has a certain integrity above and beyond
the critically important contribution of social conventions. In
other words, the world has a logic of its own, and our social
and personal strivings contribute, rather than constitute solely,
that logic. It is very difficult for a true constructivist to
adopt this view, since he/she would then have to explain how come
the world has this overarching, yet evolving, complex logic over
and above cultural and historical input. The semiotic realist,
on the other hand, simply accepts the proposition that the world
has order. Since cultural and historical factors no longer have
to carry the entire burden of creating the meaningful frame we
experience, we can then study these factors in terms of the way
they creatively and synthetically alter the continuing evolution
of this order.
Sorry to ramble on,
gary
gshank who-is-at niu.edu