Abstract

ARJA CASTANON, Gustavo. Constructivism and human sciences. Ciênc. cogn. [online]. 2005, vol.5, n.1, pp.36-49. ISSN 1806-5821.

In the last years, we observed a proliferation of the term constructivism in disciplines such as Psychology, Education, Sociology and Philosophy of Mind. Nervertheless, if we took this concept in its strict sense, as the position that defends an active role of the subject in his relation with knowledge object and in the construction of their reality representations, we see that several positions self-named constructivists adopts theories that contradicts the spirit of this philosophical tradition. This article makes a brief investigation on the most influential contemporary uses of this term, like Piagetian Constructivism, Social Construcionism, Social Constructivism and Radical Constructivism. It concludes that these last three currents are not strict sense constructivists, because they dissolve the epistemic subject. After that, it demonstrates that Constructivism does not implicate idealism, and that the Critical Rationalism and Piagetian Constructivism are the legitimate representatives of the constructivist tradition that, adhering to realism, behold in Modern Science field. © Ciências & Cognição 2005; Vol. 05: 36-49.

Keywords : epistemology; constructivism; social constructivism; radical constructivism; critical rationalism.

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