Overview

In epistemology, constructivism is the view that knowledge (and sometimes reality itself) is not just “discovered” but is actively “constructed” by human beings through social practices, language, and culture.

Core Idea

The core idea is that we do not have direct access to a raw, uninterpreted reality. Everything we “know” is filtered through our concepts, categories, and social frameworks. Therefore, knowledge is a human creation.

Formal Definition

Constructivism is the theory that knowledge is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. It stands in contrast to objectivism or realism, which hold that knowledge reflects an independent reality.

Intuition

  • Money: A dollar bill is just paper. It only has value because we construct that reality socially. If everyone stopped believing in it, it would cease to be money.
  • Gender: Many constructivists argue that gender roles are not biological facts but social scripts we perform and reinforce.
  • Planets: Even classifying Pluto as a “planet” or “dwarf planet” is a human decision (construction) based on definitions we created, not just a fact written in the stars.

Examples

  • Social Construction of Reality: Concepts like “race,” “crime,” or “illness” vary across cultures and eras, suggesting they are constructed.
  • Scientific Constructivism: The view (e.g., by Bruno Latour) that scientific facts are “made” in the laboratory through complex social and technical processes, not just “found.”

Common Misconceptions

  • Misconception: Nothing is real; walls are just ideas.
    • Correction: Most constructivists admit physical reality exists (the wall is there), but argue that how we categorize and understand it (as a “wall,” a “boundary,” “property”) is constructed.
  • Misconception: “It’s just a construct” means it’s not important.
    • Correction: Money and laws are constructs, but they are incredibly powerful and real in their effects.
  • Social Constructionism: The sociological focus on how social phenomena are created.
  • Relativism: Constructivism often implies that truth is relative to a framework.
  • Nominalism: The view that universals (categories) are just names we invent.

Applications

  • Education: “Constructivist teaching” (Piaget, Vygotsky) assumes students must actively build their own understanding, not just receive it passively.
  • Sociology: Understanding how societies build institutions.

Criticism and Limitations

  • “Sokal Hoax”: Physicist Alan Sokal parodied extreme constructivism to show that it can lead to nonsense when applied to hard science (gravity isn’t a social construct).
  • Self-Refutation: Is the theory of constructivism itself just a social construct? If so, why is it “true”?

Further Reading

  • The Social Construction of Reality by Berger and Luckmann
  • Laboratory Life by Bruno Latour
  • The Construction of Social Reality by John Searle