What Should be the Goal in Teaching About the Nature of Science?
Michael R. Matthews
INTRODUCTION
I have indicated elsewhere (Matthews 1994) that questions about the nature
of science have lang been of concern to science teachers and curriculum
developers. Since the early nineteenth century, when science first won its
place in the school curriculum, it has been hoped that its inclusion would
have a beneficial impact on the quality of culture and public life in virture
of children appreciating something of the nature of science. The expectation
has been that children studying science will become scientific in their
approach to life's problems,' and that by learning science, pupils will
learn something about science - its history, methodology, structure, values,
cultural relations, and how it articulates with other forms of knowledge.2
Clearly these reasonable, and long-standing, aspirations for science education
depend upon some rudimentary understanding by teachers and curriculum developers
of some of the methodological and epistemological aspects of science. That
is, some knowledge of the nature of science.
But other considerations and events also bring nature of science questions
on to the sciences education stage. For instance, the Creation Science debates
and trials in the USA in large part hinged upon answers to the question:
What is the nature of science? This was explicitly the case in the 1981
Little Rock trial over the constitutionality of Arkansas's Act 590 requiring
equal time for the teaching of creation science and evolutionary science.3
Likewise the widespread debates occurring at the present time over multicultural
science also, in part, hinge upon answers to the question: What is the nature
of science?4 That is, there is an epistemological question at issue in the
debate.5 If one can establish that non- Western sciences, or world-views
are indeed scientific, then their inclusion in the science curriculum is
more easily justified.6
That these epistemological debates concerning the nature of science are
not educationally idle has been dramatically shown in decisions by a string
of major USA cities to adopt the Portland Baseline Essays in their science
programmes. The science component of these essays lists a number of commitments
that are flatly at odds with a Western-scientific view of the world. But
the claim is made that the Western view is just one of a number of equally
valid scientific views, and thus the purportedly African science contained
in the Portland Baseline Essays should be included in the curriculum.7
Similarly, nature-of-science questions are at the heart of many feminist
critiques of contemporary science and of feminist proposals for the reform
of science programmes.3 Also questions about the nature of science inform
decisions about the place, or lack of it, of religion in science programmes.9
And epistemological questions are prompted by much environmentalist and
'new science' writing which students are increasingly exposed. It is a rare
science teacher who has not in the recent past been Asked: 'Do you believe
in the Gaia hypothesis?'or, 'Does the Big Bang prove Got's existence?' or,
'Do whales have rights?
Further there has been increased stress on metacognitive awareness and epistemological
development as important outcomes of science instruction (White & Gunstone
1989). In the words of Rosalind Driver ant her co-workers at Leeds University,
'Science learning, viewed from a constructivist perspective, involves epistemological
as well as conceptual development' (Driver et al. 1994, p. 219). Any specification
of 'epistemological development' brings to the fore questions about the
methodology ant nature of science. Just as one cannot specify 'moral development'
without some normative account of morality, so to one cannot identify 'epistemological
development' without some normative account of epistemology.
Perhaps overshadowing all these harbingers of nature-of-science questions
is the contemporary debate between, one the one hand, the long-standing,
orthodox, realist and cognitivist interpretation of Western science, and
on the other the variously post-modernist, largely anti-realist, and sociological
interpretations of science. This debate has enormous ramifications not only
for science education, but for nearly all educational endeavors. At stake
is our understanding of what are the purposes of intellectual life, and
of academic research. Ramifications of this debate are already being felt
in the science education community, with one commentator saying that: 'There
could scarcely be a more fundamental contribution to science education tan
the one offered by constructivist sociological theories, since they purport
to overturn "the very idea" of science as a distinctive intellectual
enterprise with its special values' (Slezak 1994a, p. 291).
So, like the poor in the Gospel, nature of science questions have been,
are, and in all likelihood will remain, important for science education.
THE RESEARCH TRADITION
There has been an imposing amount of research conducted over many decades
in the science education community concerning the curricular, pedagogical
and educational aspects of the nature of science. Students' understanding
of the nature of science have been studied (Mackay 1971, Rubba, Horner &
Smith 1981, Griffith&Barman 1995, Griffith t Barry 1993). Teachers'
epistemologies and beliefs about the nature of science have been documented
(Kimball 1967, Carey & Strauss 1968, Rowell Cawthron 1982, Koulaidis
1989, 1995, Koulaidis & Ogborn 1989, Gallagher 1991, Lakin & Wellington
1994). The impact, or otherwise, of teachers' epistemology on their classroom
practice has been debated (Lederman & Zeidler 1987, Duschl & Wright
1989, Brickhouse 1990). The influence of students' epistemologies on their
learning of science has been investigated (t;Hammer 1995). The history of
the linkage between curricular definitions of scientific literacy and knowledge
of the nature a£ science has ben documented (Meichtry 1993). The classroom
processes whereby teachers' beliefs about the nature of science interact
with curriculum and influence students' epistemologies have been researched
(Tobin & McRobbie forthcoming, Tobin, Tippins & Hook 1994). The
extent, justification, and effectiveness of nature of science courses in
teacher education programmes have been canvassed (Scheffler 1970, Loving
1991, Clemison 1990). And the epistemological assumptions, or commitments,
underlying various 'nature of science' tests have been identified ant criticized
(Lucas 1975, Doran, Guerin & Cavalieri 1974, Rubba & Anderson 1978).
And more recently, literature in science education has dealt with substantive
issues concerning the nature of science. That is, philosophical questions
about science have been directly raised and debated (Duschl 1990, Matthews
1994, Suchting 1995). This direct engagement with philosophical questions
resuscitates t tradition established a century ago by Mach and Dewey, and
so ably advanced by Joseph Schwab in the 195Os and 1960s (Westbury &
Wilkof 1978).
I will not here discuss this research. There have been three recent, and
excellent, reviews of it.'° The question tat I wish to address in this
symposium is the following:
What is the educational objective, or outcome to be realized,
when teaching about the nature of science?
CONSTRUCTIVISM, INDOCTRINATION AND NATURE OF SCIENCE OBJECTIVES
The answer to the question seems so obvious that the question seems to be
not be worth asking. But there is a tendency in current writing that suggests
that this question needs to be thought about.
The tendency, which I regard as unfortunate, is one which says: 'The reason
we want teachers to know more about the constructivist / cognitivist / realist
/ feminist / Marxist / multiculturalist / universalist nature of science
is so that their students will better embrace constructivist / cognitivist
/ realist / feminist / Marxist / multiculturalist / universalist views about
the nature of science'. That is, there is a tendency that says that the
educational purpose of promoting any particular view about tho nature of
science among teachers is so they can in turn promote it among their students.
This view needs to be questioned. At one level it is profoundly anti- educational.
It strikes at the purpose of liberal education, which as Bertrand Russell
nicely put it, is not to have students think what their teachers think,
but to have them think.
This tendency has long been present in science education. In the 1960s James
T. Robinson provided an extensive and detailed account of the logical empiricist
theory of science.11 He in turn identified scientific literacy with belief
in this theory, indeed he painstakingly spelled out 85 logical empiricist
theses about the nature of science and said that belief in these was required
for scientific literacy. Inductivism as an account of science was frequently
exhorted in textbooks with students being expected to know the inductive
steps in scientific discovery. In the USSR the Marxist (supposedly) nature
of science was taught, and successful teaching. was measured by student
agreement with the doctrine.
It is no secret that constructivism is fast becoming the new orthodoxy in
education. The embrace of constructivism is, as everyone knows, widespread
in the science and mathematics education communities. In 1991 the then president
of the U.S. National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST)
said: 'A unification of thinking, research, curriculum development, and
teacher education appears to now be occurring under the theme of constructivism...there
is a lack of polarized debate' (Yeany 1991, p. 1). In 1992 Peter Fensham,
a well-placed observer, remarked that: 'The most conspicuous psychological
cal influence on curriculum thinking in science since 1980 has been the
constructivist view of learning' (Fensham 1992, p. 801). It is no surprise
that Helga Pfundt's and Reinders Duit's immensely useful bibliography of
constructivist research in science education is now in its fourth edition
and lists nearly 3,500 works (Pfundt & Duit 1994).
Many in the education community have not merely adopted constructivism in
teaching, method, or constructivism in learning theory, or constructivism
in curriculum development;, but they have also adopted constructivism in
epistemology: they have adopted a constructivist epistemology and a constructivist
account of the nature of science.
For instance in 1986, Rosalind Driver and Beverley Bell wrote that: 'Rather
tan viewing truth as the fit between sense impressions and the real world,
for a constructivist it is the fit of our sense impressions with our conceptions:
the authority for truth lies with each of us' (Driver & Bell 1986, p.
452). In 1989, Ernst von Glasersfeld, claimed that: 'The word "knowledge
refers to a commodity that is radically different from the objective representation
of an observer-independent world which the mainstream of the Western philosophical
tradition has been looking for. Instead "knowledge" refers to
conceptual structures that epistemic agents, give the range of present experience
within their tradition of thought and language, consider viable ' (Glasersfeld
1989,p. 124). In 1993, Ken Tobin a forme,r president of NARST, maintained
that science education reform efforts needed a 'change in epistemology'
and he noted that 'there is widespread acceptance of alternatives to objectivism,
one of which is constructivism ... it use has become increasingly popular
as a referent for professional actions in the past ten years' (Tobin 1993,p.ix).
In 1994, Wolff-Michael Roth and Anita Roychoudhury asserted that constructivism
is the 'most mature epistemological commitment' (Roth & Roychoudhury
1994, p . 28). And so on. T.here is no difficulty in finding other such
examples in tho science education community of commitment to constructivist
epistemology, or to accounts of the constructivist nature of science.12
I do not want in this paper to argue the pros and cons of constructivist
epistemology. I have done that elsewhere,13 as have others inside,14 and
outside,l5 the education community. Pro£Professional opinion is, to
put it mildly, divided on the philosophical merits of constructivism.l6
I want here to leave this debate aside and to try and take up a more in
print:principle question about the very purpose of nature of science teaching
in science education.
As mentioned at the outset, there has been increasing, interest among educators
with children's epistemological development, with encouraging them to identify
metacognitive strategies. sot with having them loam more about the nature
of knowledge as they acquire particular. knowledge.17 Rosalind Driver and
her co- workers at Leeds University, say that 'Science learning, viewed
from a constructivist perspective, involves epistemological as well as conceptual
development' (Driver ct al. 1994, p. 219). One member of the Leeds group
has expressed the matter this way. 'If developing students' understanding
of the nature of science is to be an explicit purpose of science education,
rather than an implicit consequence of it, then it is necessary to characterize
tho nature of the understandings ut that it is hoped to promote' (Leach
1995, p. 4).
These aspirations are laudatory. They clearly point to the history and philosophy
of science being recognized as an essential component of science teacher
education - how else can teachers 'characterize the nature of the [epistemological]
understandings that it is hoped to promote'? However there is an ever-present
danger that teachers, curriculum developers, and examiners will define 'epistemological
development' merely as 'believing what I believe about epistemology'. When
this happens we confuse education with indoctrination.
There is a thin, and sometimes difficult to delineate line, between education
and indoctrination." The problems of threading this line can be illustrated
in a recent publication by two constructivists, Wolff-Michael Rot and Anita
Roychoudhury, where they say that:
If the epistemological development is partly a factor of age,
then we could simply wait for the students to become constructivists, the
most mature epistemological commitment ... For us practitioners, this is
not a satisfactory solution. However, simply exposing students to an environment
in which a constructivist epistemology is implicit may not be sufficient
... Time should be provided to discuss ... the plurality of languages for
describing reality. (Roth & Roychoudhury, 1994, p. 28)
The claims are a bit confused. Surely just growing up cannot turn children
into constructivists, a lot of people have grown up without so becoming.
Further, and very Importantly, a constructivist pedagogical regime where
pupils are respected, ideas are debated, experiences are shared, does not
at all uniquely presuppose constructivist epistemology. Realists and Rationalists
- think of Sots and John Stuart Mill - can assuredly defend this type of
pedagogy. Not withstanding these confusions, the suggestion in the above
quote is the understandings, whatever the natural maturational process,
the telos of constructivist epistemological beliefs can be realized by creating
a constructivist educational environment for the student. Alternatives do
not seem to be seriously canvassed. This is an interpretation that is strengthened
when we read that the authors are pleased that, when subject to the above
regime,
There seem to be considerable shifts in the students' views
of scientific knowledge toward a mate constructivist-relativist stance.
(Roth & Roychoudhury, 1994, p. 28)
Other examples from the literature can be given of this very natural tendency.
We like people to believe what we believe. Be it in politics, morals, religion,
economics, environmental matters, or whatever else. Teachers have their
share of this tendency. The problem for teachers arises when this natural
tendency nullifies their role as educators.
If teachers consciously want to transform into their own image the epistemological
- or political, moral, religious, economic, environmental etc. - beliefs
of their students, then there is a pressing obligation to ensure that one's
own epistemology - or whatever; else - is the best available. If this is
not done, then the opportunity for personal and cultural damage is significant.
The dangers of scientism are well known: it is conducive to narrow-minded
arrogance and simplistic reductionism of all kinds. tn tho other hand a
steady diet of relativism, constructivism and post-modernism tn schools
not just in humanities and the arts, but in science as well- has the potential
to corrupt public debate and undermine scientific and social institutions.
If, on matters of grave public concern, there is no truth to be ascertained
ten rhetoric can be substituted for argument, propaganda for investigation
and non cognitive goals proposed for research.
I have earlier quoted the epistemological opinion of Rosalind Driver and
Beverley Bell that "Rather than viewing truth as the fit between sense
impressions and the real world, for a constructivist it is tho fit of our
sense impressions with our conceptions: the authority for truth lies with
each of w' (Driver & Bell 1986, p. 452). If holding this view is to
count as epistemological development, and students are to be evaluated by
their degree of adoption of it, then there are some immediate, tInt to my
mind, unfortunate consequences.
On one interpretation the view seems to mean that if the evidence does not
fit in with your views / hypotheses / opinions / prejudices etc., then the
evidence is not true.19 There is a sense in which one might say this, but
it has to be a very nuanced sense. Further, in classical and realist epistemology
the world is relevant to judgements of truth. But in the above constructivist
account tho world seems to drop out; only experience [sense impression?]
and prior conceptions are relevant. How does one check on the veracity of
sense impressions, if Boswell's option of 'kicking the stone' is ruled out?
There is a retreat to the self- as the authors say, 'the authority for truth
lies with each of us'. Widespread promulgation of this idea in schools,
particularly in science classrooms, strikes at the idea of 'cosmic piety'
about which Russell wrote and which he said was one of the main achievements
of Western science.
But this line of argument takes us into substantive issues about constructivism
and the nature of science. Issues that in this presentation I do not want
to pursue.
STUDENT AUTONOMY AND LIBERAL EDUCATION
But, and this is the point I wish to stress, the educational issue is not
solved by merely ensuring that one's epistemology, or view about the nature
of science, is the best currently available. Even if it were (and who is
so confident?), a liberal view of education maintains that it is a profound
mistake to have students exposed to merely these views; to have them exposed
to just a 'constructivist environment' (or Realist, Materialist, Maoist,
Stalinist, Feminist, Roman Catholic, Environmentalist - intellectual milieu
for that matter). As the British philosopher of education, Richard Peters,
remarked some years ago, education is characterized not so much by the arriving
as the travelling with a different view Peters 1966).
The medievals, with their scheme of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, knew
this. Thomas Aquinas-s major treatises are full of arguments against the
propositions he advocates. He does his best to present the opposite point
of view before then answering it - so well in fact that many philosophers
believe that his arguments against the existence of God are so powerful
that he failed to adequately answer them. A number of Aquinas's latter-day
readers became atheists in virtue of their reading.
John Locke expressed this Socratic point about the grounding of knowledge
in his 1689 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, where he said:
The floating of other men's opinions in our brains makes us
not one jot more knowing, though they happen to be true. What in them was
science is in us but opiniatertry, whilst we give up our assent only to
reverend names, and do not, as they did, employ our own reason to understand
tho o truths which gave them reputation. (Locke 1689/1924. p. 40)
And then proceeded, memorably, to say:
Such borrowed wealth, like fairy money, though it be gold in
the hand from which he received it, will be but leaves and dust when it
comes to use. (ibid)
If Locke's argument holds against truths it certainly holds against contested
or false opinions. Bringing epistemology and philosophy into focus in science
education, and putting the nature of sciences on the curriculum stage, will
be to no great avail if it merely becomes the occasion for students repeating
the opinions of their teachers. If HPS in science teaching becomes a catechism
- like dimat in the former Soviet Union - then it defeats its potentially
major educative purpose.
Science educators should be modest when urging substantive positions in
the history and philosophy of science, or in epistemology. James Robinson
in the 1960s tied understanding the nature of science to agreement with
85 logical-empiricist propositions about science. It would have been wiser
to aim for understanding the propositions, or being interested in the propositions,
rather than being in agreement with them.
Teachers can of course have strong opinions on various substantive matters
in the philosophy of science. They can be fierce partisans of particular
viewpoints - they may believe that theoretical terms are mere conveniences
for linking observational statements, that aU theoretical progress in science
is the result of change in external social conditions, that there is no
scientific method, that Newton sent Western science down the wrong epistemological
track and so on. Some science teachers might strongly believe in the 3 Rs
- Realism, Rationality and Reason. Modesty does not entail vapid fence sitting,
but it does entail the recognition that there are usually two, if not more,
sides to most serious intellectual questions. And this recognition needs
to be intelligently and sensitively translated into classroom practice.
Minimally the strongest opposing case needs to be presented to students.
And their interest in alternatives needs to be encouraged.
Bertrand Russell, an out-spoken and fierce partisan of numerous philosophical
and social causes, recognized the anti-educational effect of indoctrination.
In his essay On Education, written during the First Great War, he pointed
out that:
If the children themselves were considered, education would
not aim at making them belong to this party or that, but at enabling them
to choose intelligently between the parties; it would aim at making them
able to think, not at making them think what their teachers think ... we
should educate them to as to give them the knowledge ledge and the mental
habits required for forming independent opinions... (Egner & Denonn
1961, p. 401)
Israel Scheffler (Scheffler 1973) and Harvey Siegel (Siegel 1988) have elaborated
this basic Platonic insight in terms of reason-giving being the raison d'etre
of education. Education, as distinct from indoctrination, conditioning,
brain- washing etc., is marked by students having a concern for reasons
and for the justification of beliefs. And these in turn depend upon free
ant informed inquiry. As Plato so long ago insisted, education is not just
the having of correct beliefs, it is the having of adequate reasons for
these beliefs. Without informed and adequate reasons, beliefs are just Locke's
'fairy money'.
CONCLUSION
Science programmes in any scheme of liberal education will include discussion
of the nature of science - its history, methodology, philosophy, social
and cultural impacts, and it relation to other forms of knowledge. and all
but the most impoverished technical programmes will also include aspects
of the nature of science - scientific method, hypothesis generation and
testing, and so on. The art of the teacher is to judge the sophistication
of his or her students, and present aspects of tho nature of science that
are intelligible to them without being overwhelming. To my mind the nature
of science is best approached inductively and tentatively, not didactically.
This is one of the educational benefits of a case study approach to philosophy
of science. The philosophical issue, or 'lessons about the nature of science',
can arise from questions about and discussion of, episodes in tho history
of sciences, from a appropriate biographies of scientists, from laboratory
exercises irK including ones that replicate historical experiments, from
textbook illustrations, from popular writings, or from science related social
is issues. Developing an informed yet critical mind is surely an undisputed
goal of nature of science teaching
Students'' opinions can be criticized and corrected, but finally they must
be encouraged to make their own decisions and develop their own informed
positions. Education in science, or in anything else, cannot be just a mantra-like
repetition of what the teacher says. Intellectual autonomy is characteristic
of a liberally educated person 20 and there is no reason why science classrooms
cannot contribute to its development.
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At least in those domains of life to vhich a scientific outlook is relevant
There ha6 of cour6e boen much debate about the extent of the putatively
scientific domain. From scientific imperialit on the one hand who maintain
that the scientific method is the only rational method and i6 applicaUe
to all dornains of human inquiry and decision making, through to scientific
minimalist4 who maintain that the scientific domain does not extend past
the laboratory door. The# liberal expectations for science education are
nicely revealed in a popular toxt fbr tbo ptation of science teachers published
over dxty years ago. The author, F.M. Woty, t tb t a sucoetl wience teacher
i6 one who: ... knows [his/her] own sutject ... is widely read in other
branchcs of scienco . . ht btlw to teach ... is able to expres6 plim/her
selfl lucid1y ... it stlful in manipulation ... it a ht ... is something
of a philosopher ... is so far an hi6tonsn that rWtho] can dt down wilh
a cmA of [ttudentc] and talk to them about the personal equations, the lit,
and the tIc af tch geniuse6 as Galileo, Newton, Faraday and Darwin. More
than all this, [he/ he] it an enthusiat of faith in [his/her] own particular
work (tiVe8taway,1929,p.3) Michael Rute, thc philosopher of biology, was
thc ACLU acpert witness who argued 0t1b th t Creation Science did not fitlfill
scicnce'6 defining critcria. For Rusc'6 testimany, do_ fiam the trial, ant
responscs from philosohers who thought it imprudent to give such tcstirnony,
ee the rticbt in Ruse (1988). I have tiscwsed this matter in Chapter 9
of my 1994 boolt Sec also Bcreiter (1994), Stanloy Brickhoute (1994), and
Gocd&Demastes (199t). Therc are al60 of counc political and ethical
issuot invohod in tho debste over multicultuml tnce. Tbere maybe pertctly
goot political and/or ethical reatons why intitnouo cience obauld bo tt
in certain 6chooh Thc6e dec6iont arc quite independent of the cpstcmological
evalut t indigonous sciencc. One problem in the debate ha6 been the tendency
to obscure tho e diAillctit4 and lo feel that inclusion of indigenous science
require6 an argument for epistawlagic l pstit. Thts i6 simply not neceaary.
Thus Graham Smith, a proponont of multicultural 6cience in New
7tqlantt maintaino ttt There io a a to struggle to assert the equal valitity
of Maoti knot10dgo _ and converoely to critically enW ideoaogia which reitr
We6tcrn lalowbt ( cunco) · being 6upcrior, more 6cicntific, and therefbre
more legitimate. (Smith 1992, p. 7) And Olugbemiro Jegale, who believes
that this tuggle has been won and that ttditico l 1t world-views are as
scientitic as Western views, tpell- out the curricular implicatiotu tf tho
at_ In developing new 6cience curriculum rnaterials, the African worlt
view af oature mu t tbrm the *tundation. Concepts 6hould be stntctwed in
such a way that tiats c_nco betweentheWe0ern6cientificandthetratition Ivietvpointoarct_
(bgode 1989, p. 192) For orne discu66ion of the Portland lts 6ee Martcl
(1991), ant Goot&Dcmat (199S). Sandra Harding, for in6tance, claims
that a feminist-informed science: seek6 a unity of knowletge combining
moral ant political with empirical undetnding Ant it seek6 to unify knowletge
of and by the heart with that which it gained by ant about the brain ant
hand. It see6 inquiry as compridng not just the mechanical ab ontation af
nature and other6 but the intertention of political ant moral illumination
'without which the secrets of nature cannot be uncovered'. (Harding 1986,
p. 241) Norman Lederman has provided a comprehensive guide to this nature
of science research (Leterman 1992). Yvonne Meichtry has written an excellent
account of nature of science considerationt in US curricula history (Meichtly
1993). Vicente Mellado has provided an exhaustive analyd6 of Spanish research
on the subject, as well as discussing the Anglo tradition (Mellato fotthcoming).
See Robinson (1965, 1968, 1969a, b) and Matthews (forthcoming). I quote
ant tiscuss a number of such examples in Matthews 1993, pp. 361-362, ant
in Matthews 1994, pp. 139-141. Soe Matthews 1992a, b, 1993, 1994 chap.7,
1995 pp. 115-125. See Suchting 1992, Good, Wandersee&St. Julien 1993,
Slezak 1994a, b, Solomon 1994, Nola 199S, Phillips l99S, and Osborne 1996.
See also a number of contributions to the ltrthcoming Scicnce dt Education
is6ue on 'Philosophy and Constructivism' (Matthews 1997). Among the better
known of recent anti-constructivist writing in scientiSc and philooophical
fields are: Gross&Levitt (1994), Cromer (1993), Brown (1994), and Devitt
(1991). For instance, commenting on Ernst von Glasersfeld'6 version of
personal constructivism Wallis Suchting has said First, much of the doctrine
known as 'constructivism' ... is simply unintelligible. Saond, to the extent
that it is intelligible ... it is simply confused. Third, there is a complote
tence of any argument for whatever positions can be made out.... In general,
far from bsing what it is claimed to be, namely, the New Age in philosophy
of science, an even slightly perceptive ear can detect the familiar voice
of a really quite primitive, traditional subjectividic empiricum with some
overtones of diverse provenance like Piaget ant Kuhn. (Suchdng 1992, p.
247) Ant, on the more sociological varieties of constructivism, Michael
Devitt has remarbed: I have a candidate for the most dangerous contemporary
intellectual tendency, it i6... construcdvism. Constructivism is a combination
of two Kantian ideas with twendeth-centuly relativism. The two Kandan ideas
are, first, that we make tbe known worlt by impoting concepts, and, secont,
tbat the indepentent worlt is (at most) a mere 'thing-in-ibet *trever beyond
our ken....lconsidering] its role in France, in the social science4 in literatre
departments, and in some largely well-meaning, but confilsed, political
mtmentt pt] has led to a veritable epidemic of 'worltmaking'. Constructivism
attacks the immune tn that save6 us from silliness. (Devitt 1991, p. ix)
This of coune is basically revisiting Socrates who always wanted his audience
to think about the nature of knowletge. or beauty, or gootness, or the state,
as they were acquiring htedge ant information about these realms. For attempts
to identify the differences between indoctrination and education,6ee the
es6ay6 in Snook (1972). One post-moterni6t commentator on the O.J. Simpson
trial sait that tbere was no truL tthe matter to be a6certained, there was
only the experiences ant opinions of the jurors to be manipulated. This
fits in with the epistemological vie vbeing disatssed, but it does seem
an unwelcome oonclusion. The idea of autonomy needs reSnement, and it has
some problems (see Dearten 197S), but Y Elizabeth Telfer observes 'thinking
for oneself can be seen as important, not only becau6e it is part of one's
own self-mastery, but also because truth is most likely to be attainet thereby'
telfer 197S, p. 34).