Table of Contents

Preface (Ernst von Glasersfeld)         vii

List of contributors         ix

Acknowledgment of sources         xi

INTRODUCTION: ERNST VON GLASERSFELD'S WAY OF WORLDMAKING (Marie Larochelle)         xiii

PART I: LEARNING, LANGUAGE, AND THE RADICAL THEORY

  1. Learning as a constructive activity         3
  2. Reconstructing the concept of knowledge         21
  3. Facts and the self from a constructivist point of view         31
  4. Signs, communication, and language         43
  5. How do we mean? A constructivist sketch of semantics         55
  6. On the concept of interpretation         63
  7. Piaget and the radical constructivist epistemology         73

PART II: THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

  1. Aspects of constructivism: Vico, Berkeley, Piaget         91
  2. The end of a grand illusion         101
  3. The simplicity complex         111
  4. The logic of scientific fallibility         119
  5. The incommensurability of science and poetic wisdom         129
  6. Farewell to objectivity         135
  7. The radical constructivist view of science         143
  8. Cybernetics and the theory of knowledge         153

PART III: CONCEPTUAL ANALYSES

  1. Notes on the concept of change         173
  2. Abstraction, re-presentation, and reflection. An interpretation of experience and of Piaget's approach         179
  3. Representation and deduction         199 19 A constructivist approach to experiential foundations of mathematical concepts         205
  4. The conceptual construction of time         225
  5. Anticipation in the constructivist theory of cognition         231
  6. A constructive approach to 'universals'         241

PART IV: COMMENTS

  1. Experiences of artifacts: People's appropriations / objects' 'affordances' (Edith Ackermann)         249
  2. Knowledge as representation (Gérard Fourez)         259
  3. A constructivist account of knowledge production as a social phenomenon and its relation to scientific literacy (J. Désautels)         267
  4. Radical constructivism and "school mathematics" (Leslie P. Steffe)         279

POSTSCRIPT: THE REVOLUTION THAT WAS CONSTRUCTIVISM (Kenneth Tobin)         291

References         299

Index of names         313

Index of subjects         319