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The Epistemic Relativism of Radical

Constructivism: Some Implications
for Teaching the Natural Sciences
Andreas Quale A University of Oslo (Norway) <andreas.quale@ils.uio.no>
Purpose:The relativism inherent in radical constructivism is discussed.The epistemic
positions of realism and relativism are contrasted, particularly their different approaches
to the concept of truth, denoted (respectively) as truth by correspondence and truth by
context. I argue that the latter is the relevant one in the domain of science.
Findings: Radical constructivism asserts that all knowledge must be constructed by the
individual knower.This has implications for teaching, here imagined as a sharing of knowledge between teacher and students: it should be done, not by reporting the true facts
of whatever is being taught, but rather by telling a story about it. An explicit distinction
is made between the notions of cognitive and non-cognitive knowledge. It is argued that
cognitive knowledge (such as in mathematics and science) is characterised by rules that
can be unambiguously agreed on by actors who choose to play the game; and hence such
knowledge is directly communicable from the teacher to the students.
Implications: In telling the story of science, the teacher can verify that the students have
got it right, even though they are all constructing their knowledge individually. In contrast,
for non-cognitive knowledge (emotion, preferences, belief, ) there are no such unambiguous rules to agree on, and therefore it is not communicable in this way: in telling this
story, the teacher has no way of verifying that the same knowledge is actually being shared.
Conclusion: Science teaching should be carried out in the mode of story-telling; it does
not need an epistemology of realism.
Key words: Relativism, truth, scientific epistemology, science education.

Epistemology
vs. ontology:
The role of cognition
The theory of Radical Constructivism (RC)
has generated considerable controversy
within the philosophy of science and science
education. This is to a large extent due to its
position of epistemic relativism, emerging
from the two fundamental propositions of
this theory put forward by Ernst von Glasersfeld (1995):
1. Knowledge is not passively received, but is
actively built up by the cognizing subject.
2. The function of cognition is adaptive, and
serves the subjects organization of his/her
experiential world, not the discovery of an
objective ontological reality.

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Note that these propositions make explicit

reference to cognitive knowledge, and to cognition as the procedure for gaining such
knowledge.
Proposition #2 is the problematic one; it is
frequently interpreted (by the critics) as
implying that learning cannot give us knowledge of the real world! It highlights a distinction between issues of epistemology (the
nature of human knowledge) and ontology
(existence, or being). Specifically, it maintains
that ontological knowledge (e.g., about the
existence of an objective reality) is based on
preferred belief, and as such is not within the
scope of cognition. It does not deny the possibility of an objective reality, existing independently of all subjects, but asserts that it is in
principle not possible to obtain cognitive
knowledge of such an entity. The operative

word here is cognitive: many of the objections raised against RC arise from a failure to
distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive knowledge.
Thus, the notions of cognition, and of cognitive vs. non-cognitive knowledge, need to be
clarified. The Oxford English Dictionary
(1996) defines cognition, rather tersely, as
knowing, perceiving or conceiving, as an
act or faculty distinct from emotion and volition. Let us expand on this:
First, to avoid any misunderstanding it
should be emphasised that the terms cognition and experience, as used in this paper,
have quite different meanings. Any and all perceptions (of outside stimuli) and reflections (on
such stimuli) would classify as instances of
experience, in this very general sense. The term
cognition, on the other hand, refers to the
mental faculty that we use to construct cognitive knowledge out of such experiences. In
other words, we need to distinguish between
our experiential world (the totality of all that
we experience, at any one moment) and the
knowledge that we construct on the basis of our
experiences: this knowledge can then be of the
cognitive kind (of which science is the prime
example), or it can be non-cognitive.
Cognitive knowledge is based on reasoning, using rules and procedures that can be
agreed on and communicated. (Prime examples are, of course, science and mathematics.)
On the other hand, non-cognitive sometimes called affective or emotive knowledge deals with personal experiences that cannot be communicated: emotion, volition,
preferences, beliefs, etc. A simple example,
illustrating this difference: I can know (cognitively), and communicate to you, how Newtons law of gravity operates, and how it
describes observable features of the Solar System; and I can know (non-cognitively), but

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not communicate to you, how it feels for me

to like a particular piece of music.
Let us be a little more specific, to illustrate
this distinction (between cognitive and noncognitive knowledge) in more detail: A person can experience the act of observing and
studying a concrete physical process say, a
body falling under gravity. But this experience
does not, in itself, constitute cognitive scientific knowledge. Such knowledge must be constructed by applying the agreed rules of science: here, measuring times and distances of
falling, and establishing quantitative relations
between these. And in addition, this activity
(of studying falling bodies) can also generate
many kinds of non-cognitive knowledge,
such as feelings of satisfaction (on the experience of understanding the scientific content)
or frustration (at not getting it right).
This raises another question, of importance for science education. It has been proposed by some authors that non-cognitive
knowledge of this kind is indeed relevant for
the students, and hence should be included
under the heading of science, in the hope of
making it more relevant and palatable to
them. Now, this is a matter of educational
strategy a choice of pedagogical policy, so to
speak and therefore not arguable in scientific terms. So, let me just state my position on
this issue: Science is an ambitious human
enterprise, where we use our cognitive abilities
to construct knowledge designed to make
sense of certain parts of our experiential
world. Note that this does not disparage the
importance of non-cognitive aspects of
engaging in scientific activity: the sense of
wonder, the feeling of relevance and personal
involvement, the satisfaction of understanding natural processes and using them to make
devices to control our environment, etc.
These aspects surely play a large part in both
scientific research and the learning of science.
But they should not be conflated with science
itself in very simplistic terms, I am proposing that it is useful and valuable to maintain a
distinction between what is to be learnt and
our various motivations for learning it!
The defining propositions #1 and #2 imply
that the conception of knowledge in RC is
inherently individualistic: each person must
confront her own experiential world, defined
as the totality of her individual perceptions
and reflections, and construct her knowledge
of the world from that. Thus, acquisition of

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knowledge is a strictly individual enterprise,

and the knowledge obtained will reside in the
knower: i.e., the person who is in possession
of said knowledge. Note, however, that this
individualistic view of knowledge, as constructed by and residing in the individual
knower, should not be taken to imply that RC
rejects the social aspects of learning! On the
contrary, it is recognised that the construction of knowledge by an individual is always
done in a social environment, which will constrain the learning process. One might say
that the social experiential world, which
includes other people, provides an ontological
framework for the individuals construction of
knowledge. This is an important issue in RC,
but it will not be further discussed here; the
present paper will focus on the individualistic
aspects of learning and knowledge, as indicated above.
The question then arises: How is it possible to communicate and share such individual
knowledge say, between teacher and student, or between scientific co-workers? As
we shall see, this is where the cognitive/noncognitive distinction becomes important.

Relativism vs. realism:

The notion of truth
RC features an epistemic relativism, rejecting
the idea that cognitive knowledge can have an
ontological underpinning that it can be
knowledge of an objective reality of some
kind. And, as we know, the word relativism
is often used in academic discourse with
strongly negative connotations.
In the present context, the opposing
epistemic positions of realism and relativism
may be described briefly as follows:
[ Realism asserts that there exists an objective physical reality independently of
human observers, and that science can
attain true knowledge of this reality i.e.,
discover an objectively true representation
of it.
[ Relativism asserts that it is not cognitively
meaningful to speak of such an objective
reality. Any piece of knowledge is (and
must be) constructed by individuals, for
some specific purpose and in some particular context; and its truth value can then
only be determined relative to this purpose
and context.

Note that this distinction makes explicit

reference to the notion of truth. Indeed, much
of the criticism against relativism and thus
also against RC arises from a perception that
it, in some sense, denies truth. So, let us take
a closer look at this notion.
First, a relativist epistemology does not
deny the possibility of obtaining knowledge
of the world. On the contrary, it allows us to
gain such knowledge generally consisting of
both cognitive and non-cognitive elements.
The issue here is the truth value of this knowledge: whether it can be said to be true, in some
sense.
Philosophical arguments addressing truth
values are commonly based on the so-called
correspondence theory of truth. This asserts
that a proposition is true if it gives a correct
description of (some aspect of) the real world.
It is then often assumed that knowledge itself
must imply truth: a proposition p that someone knows to be true, has to be true. To avoid
tautological reasoning, one introduces the
notion of knowledge as justified true belief :
it is not enough that somebody knows something there must also be some justification
for believing this knowledge to be true.
This theory raises difficult questions, especially when applied to scientific knowledge.
For instance, it tends to continually demote
past true knowledge, as science evolves with
time. Thus, scientists some two centuries ago
believed in the phlogiston theory of fire in
fact, they knew this theory was true. Nowadays, however, it is regarded as false, i.e., as not
describing the nature of fire correctly. So, it
seems that the knowledge (true belief) of that
time was not really justified. But what then of
our present knowledge? Is it true (justified
belief) or at least more true (more justified)
than previous beliefs were? How can we know
that a given justification, offered in support of
some belief, is in fact good enough? Is scientific knowledge approaching, in some sense,
true knowledge about the universe? How can
we recognise this true knowledge, if and when
we arrive there? How can we even know when
we are getting closer to it?
The issue here is: does the notion of true
knowledge make sense, as an objective
descripton of the world we experience? Here
the epistemic positions of realism and relativism give sharply different answers: realism
says yes, while relativism says no! RC, being a
relativist theory, rejects the correspondence

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theory (with its associated notion of justified

true belief), and its conception of objective
truth. Instead, it adopts the relativist
epistemic position of truth by context. This
states that a proposition cannot be true or
false in itself (i.e., objectively), but only relative to some given context: a conceptual
scheme, a social group or practice, a personal
conviction,
Examples of this abound in mathematics
and science. Consider e.g., this proposition:
the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180
degrees. This is true in Euclidean geometry,
i.e., in the context of the Euclidean geometric
axioms, but false in (say) elliptic geometry,
which has a different axiomatic base. Another
example: The universe is many billions of
years old, as agreed by most scientists today,
or only some six thousand years old, as at least
some creationists1 believe. Here both sides
would presumably claim that they know their
position to be the correct one or, at least, to
be more correct than that of the other. The
point is that, from the viewpoint of RC, the
truth values of the two positions are defined
relative to different contexts; and hence each
of them can lay claim to being true, relative to
its context.

Teaching:
A sharing of knowledge
RC states that each individual learner must
construct her own knowledge, without any
objectively defined guidelines for the right
way to do this. Once this is accepted, it is
immediately apparent that one needs to reappraise the role of the teacher in the educational process. One may even ask, rhetorically: Do we really need teachers, in the
traditional sense i.e., persons with knowledge of some topic, who have the responsibility of conveying this knowledge to the learners? Or, should the constructivist teacher
just make the relevant material available to
the learners, and surrender to them the
responsibility of learning in effect, let them
teach themselves, by individually constructing their knowledge through a processing of
perceived data (which they will do anyway,
according to RC!) In short: is teaching, in the
classical sense, even possible in RC?
In general, teaching may be defined as:
action by an agent (the teacher) to influence

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the learning process of a recipient (the

learner). The teacher has an agenda to convey to the learner a certain body of (cognitive
or non-cognitive) knowledge. Hence, contrary to what is often claimed, there is no
requirement in RC of learner independence: while it is true that learners will construct their own knowledge (since that is how
all learning is done), it is the teachers task to
try to guide this process of construction in the
right direction and it is the teacher who
decides which direction is right here! Thus,
the teacher is in possession of a certain body
of knowledge that she wants to share with the
learners.
(Note that it is implicit in this scenario of
teaching that the students also possess a certain autonomy: they are, in principle, free to
accept or reject the insights that the teacher is
inviting them to share with her. Our obligation as science teachers is to teach as best we
know how: use our ability to empathise with
the students, present the material in a way
adjusted to their level of preknowledge, striving for original and fresh approaches, etc.
But even so, we may observe that some students will indeed fail, and drop out, for a
variety of reasons: they find science to be
uninteresting, or even unattractive; they feel
that it is too difficult, and not worth the effort;
they decide that they are more interested in
engaging in something else; etc. And this is
their right; we (the teachers) are not required,
or obliged, to force science onto them, if they
choose not to accept it!)
How can individual knowledge of any kind
be meaningfully shared between knowers?
The answer offered by RC is: by personal
interaction, within the framework of a common language. Through a continual process of
socialisation into various groups (family
members, work-place colleagues, fellow students, etc.), each one of us learns to attach
meanings to particular words, and to expect
that other members of the group will also
attach similar meanings to them. This enables
us to interact, communicate and share knowledge, making the tacit assumption that we are
talking about the same thing. However, this
notion of sharing does have limitations: We
may discover, in the course of this interaction,
that we are not on the same wave length
after all, contrary to what we had initially
assumed. In the words of von Glasersfeld
(1995): Two individuals do share their

knowledge, until (perhaps) something happens in the interaction between them that
leads them to discover that they do not!
For this notion of sharing, the distinction
between cognitive and non-cognitive knowledge becomes important. Cognitive knowledge (e.g., of science) is based on rules of reasoning, as noted above; hence it can be shared,
in the sense that two individuals can agree to
play by the same rules. Non-cognitive
knowledge, on the other hand, derives from
individual experiences: volition, emotions,
preferences, beliefs, etc.; and here there are no
rules of reasoning to agree on! In this case,
there is no direct sharing of experiences; a
person can have no idea whether another has
the same experience as she has. A simple
example: a believer (in a particular religion)
cannot communicate to another person how
it feels to experience this belief. And even
when the two claim to share their faith, they
have no way of checking whether they actually
do: all they can do is to use the same language,
with words describing the faith, and assume
that they both mean the same thing by those
words.
Returning to the issue of teaching: If
knowledge (of any kind) is of such an individual and private character, how can it be
taught, i.e., conveyed by a teacher to her students?
The answer, as proposed by RC, will
depend on the type of knowledge in question.
For cognitive knowledge, the teaching will
require demonstrating the rules of the
game: the methodology used to deal with the
content matter of this knowledge. The message conveyed to the students would then, in
effect, be: These rules govern the material to
be studied here; if you want to work in this
field, you must learn them, and play by them.
(A crude analogy: If you want to become proficient at chess, you must learn the rules of this
game, and practise them by playing often)
Science, in particular, is an example of cognitive knowledge, defined by a certain methodology generally denoted as scientific: data,
hypothetic-deductive reasoning, theoretical
models, observational techniques, computational procedures, etc. In this perspective, the
teaching of science is about demonstrating scientific methodology to the students, and
training them in using it.
Non-cognitive knowledge, on the other
hand, will contain elements that cannot be

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conveyed by such demonstrable rules. As a

concrete example, consider a school of the
performing arts, teaching a course in music
appreciation. Here there are indeed some rules
to be demonstrated: structural elements such
as musical scales and schemas of composition, how to play a given instrument, etc. all
examples of cognitive knowledge. But these
rules cannot by themselves make evident the
quality of the music that one is invited to
appreciate the students cannot be taught,
solely through using the rules, to enjoy the
music! The teacher may feel (i.e., know, noncognitively) that she enjoys listening to A, but
does not care much for B. However, there is no
way she can communicate the feeling of this
preference to the students: i.e., demonstrate
to them that they should also prefer A to B!
What she can do is tell them about her experience with the music, invite them to listen to
it, and try to inspire in them an enjoyment
that fits with her description. Now, there is of
course nothing wrong with this; much knowledge is of a non-cognitive character, and
hence must be taught in such an inspirational mode. Still, it does illustrate an important difference between cognitive and noncognitive knowledge, in an educational context.
Concerning the teaching of science, this
can be regarded as the act of demonstrating
the rules of science and inviting the students
to play the game, as noted above. However,
it should be emphasised that these rules do
not require the epistemic assumption of scientific realism: that science aspires to find a
true description of the natural world. RC
advocates a pragmatic view, where the rules of
science are presented as chosen by scientists,
for the purpose of constructing knowledge of
certain phenomena observed in the world, to
answer certain questions that scientists like to
ask about these phenomena and then justified only by the success of these answers.
Another important point: it is not
assumed that these rules are manifest and
clear to the students from the start. On the
contrary, they are an integral part of the science that is to be learnt. The students are, in
effect, at the beginning of a long process of
knowledge construction, which will (hopefully) lead eventually to a better understanding of the various implications of these rules
i.e., to an improved mastery of science
itself!

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It is, of course, possible to adopt as many

science teachers do the epistemic position of
realism, that the goal of science is to search for
true knowledge of the world, as a proposition
for the students in a science class. But this is
then non-cognitive knowledge: a personally
preferred belief that the teacher is inviting the
students to share with her. It does not follow
from the methodology of science.
Concerning knowledge, one question that
is often asked in the discussion of relativism
vs. realism is: What is it knowledge of? This
is a natural question for a realist: to her,
knowledge must be knowledge of something,
with the implication that this something
exists independently of the knower an external reality. But a relativist does not think in
those categories: RC takes knowledge to be
constructed by the knower, as a model of
(some part of) her experiential world and
that is all there is to it! The notion of an external reality, existing independently of human
knowers, simply does not apply!
Thus the relativist position is one of instrumentalism: the terms entering into propositions of knowledge are constructed, with the
goal of obtaining a satisfactory description of
the phenomena that are being studied; but the
question of whether these terms refer to
existing objects is not answerable by cognitive argumentation, and is therefore dismissed as cognitively irrelevant. One simple
example: it is generally agreed that the concepts of electric and magnetic vector fields, and
the Maxwellian field equations that govern
their behaviour, give a good description of
various physical phenomena commonly designated as electromagnetic; but it does not follow that these vectors actually exist out
there, as objects to be discovered and studied.
For one thing, they can be equally well represented by other mathematical entities: e.g., by
four-dimensional tensors, as is done in relativity theory.
RC states that knowledge (of any kind)
must be constructed individually by each
learner. So, the teachers dilemma is: how can
she control this learning process such as to
make the learners construct the right
knowledge that which she wants to share
with them? The simple answer is: she cannot
there is no way for her to ensure with certainty that the learners have learnt correctly! Knowledge cannot be simply transmitted: i.e., imprinted on the learner, to be

retrieved in identical form for inspection

later. The question is then: What is the meaning of shareable knowledge, if we cannot
check whether it is really shared?
The answer, again as proposed by RC, is
that knowledge may be considered to be
shared between two persons only insofar as
they can agree that they share it. In other
words: they share it until something happens
that lets them discover that they do not! To
illustrate, imagine that I am in communication with another person about some topic of
common interest to us both. It may then
appear to me that the two of us are in complete agreement on our knowledge of this
topic until the other says (or does) something that reveals to me that her understanding of the matter is different from mine! Of
course, it may be that this never happens; if so,
I should remain satisfied that the two of us do
indeed share this knowledge. The same may
also hold vice versa, for the situation as seen
from the others point of view; and in that
case, we should have a mutual sharing of the
knowledge.
Loosely speaking, then, we share, to the
extent that we think we do! This statement
simply serves to highlight the unavoidable
limitation on our capability, as human beings,
to know each others minds. In practice, it
does not constitute a problem. For instance,
the practitioners of any given academic discipline will for all practical purposes share (in
this sense) the established knowledge characterising that discipline indeed, this mutual
sharing may be taken to provide a working
definition of the term established knowledge. (For instance, one would not expect
two scientists, both working within the field
of chemistry, to suddenly discover that they
do not have the same understanding of the
periodic table of elements!)
Having established the concept of knowledge sharing as fundamental in education, we
now turn to the issue of how such sharing
can be attained through the act of teaching.
The question is: Granted that the teacher
cannot control the learning process going on
in the minds of her students, how can she at
least try to influence it i.e., convey her
knowledge to the learners, to achieve a
mutual sharing of it between her and them?
This is, of course, just another version of the
age-old question: What characterises good
teaching?

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Teaching:Telling a story
The traditional notion of reality, as having an
absolute and demonstrable existence independent of human construction, is rejected
by RC at least, as an ontological basis for
cognitive knowledge. Instead, the theory prefers to speak of our common experiential
world, highlighting the basic epistemic
premise of the theory: that it is precisely this
world that we can experience and obtain cognitive knowledge of, not some abstract reality hiding behind the scene of our perception
and construction.
So, how do we teach it? In other words,
how can cognitive knowledge be delivered by
a teacher i.e., conveyed to, and shared with,
a learner? The answer of RC is that it should
be conveyed in a narrative form: the teaching
of any topic is essentially tantamount to telling a story about it!
It should be remarked that this is not a
new idea: throughout human history the art
of narration has provided the basic technique for passing on knowledge of all kinds,
whether by word of mouth or in writing.
Thus, for whatever content to be taught, the
teacher will: (i) demonstrate the rules of the
game for instance, a mathematical framework (relevant for many sciences), or the
system of chromatic scales (relevant for
musical composition); and (ii) tell a story,2
using these rules to describe and structure
the content that is to be conveyed. In delivering this narrative, the narrator (teacher)
must then rely on the power of a common
language imagery, metaphors, cultural
connotations, etc. and (in a school scenario, at least) on testing the learners, to check
whether shared knowledge seems to have
been generated.
Now, specifically considering science education, we ask: How does RC impact on that?
In particular, we address one criticism often
raised against RC in the context of teaching:
How can we teach science if we leave the
learners free to construct their knowledge of
it in any way they may fancy? Surely, it is the
teachers obligation to keep the learners on
the right track to make sure that they learn
science correctly?
To answer this, we first note that the controversial nature of RC is particularly apparent in the natural sciences. The conception of
teaching as storytelling would probably not

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be considered very provocative in most

humanistic and social academic disciplines
(see, e.g., Phillips 2000). The difference
derives from the epistemic nature of the
knowledge that is being taught.
On the one hand, it would seem generally
acceptable to say that knowledge within the
humanistic and social disciplines is generated
and disseminated along the lines of RC: i.e., as
knowledge constructed by individuals, interacting in (and socially constrained by) their
common environment. For instance, one will
generally not be offered definitive and
exhaustive answers to questions like: What
are the true merits of Shakespeares play Othello? or What were the true causes of the
First World War? On the contrary, such
issues would more often be addressed by telling a story: presenting and arguing the merits
of evidence and viewpoints bearing on the
topic of discussion, or criticizing related work
as presented by others with no pretension of
having found the true or final account of
the matter. Differently put: the humanistic
and social disciplines tend to feature an epistemology of relativism, where knowledge is
constructed by the learner, with no claim that
it is possible to attain objectively true knowledge.
On the other hand, the epistemic position
traditionally adopted in the natural sciences
has been that of realism, with its assumption
that there exists an objective reality independent of human cognition with an underlying assumption that a scientific theory can be
right, in the sense of giving a true or correct
description of this reality. It then makes sense
to look for the Final Theory of physics unifying all known interactions (Weinberg 1993);
and to worry that once we have found the
correct theory, the era of interesting scientific
discovery will be over, since we shall then
have reached the End of Science (Horgan
1996).
So, we ask: How can the teacher provide
for her students to learn science correctly, if
they are free to construct their knowledge
individually, as claimed by RC? Specifically,
how can she share her knowledge of the subject with them, if her mode of delivery is to be
that of telling the story of science and then
letting them construct from this story whatever they may instead of informing them of
the correct facts (laws, observational data,
etc.) that constitute science?

Telling the story of

science
Recall that in RC, knowledge is regarded as a
structure that the learner makes (constructs)
and imposes on her experiential world. In particular, science (as defined by its methodology) is seen as a human project to impose
structure on certain aspects of the world, in
order to better understand and/or control
those aspects. As we all know, this project has
been eminently successful: it has given us stable, useful and reliable knowledge, offering
hitherto unprecedented understanding and
control of our natural environment! However, RC maintains that this knowledge cannot legitimately be considered as (actually or
potentially) true, in the sense of reporting
the correct constitution of the natural world.
Differently put: scientific knowledge should
not be regarded as a mapping aiming to give a
faithful representation of nature; rather, it is
like a story, composed and written by scientists to describe those aspects of the world that
they are interested in. In this imagery, then,
science teaching is essentially an act of telling
the story of science. (Of course, this notion of
teaching as story-telling may be perceived
by many as being a little vague; a more precise
formulation would be teaching as a presentation of presently viable structures describing our experiential world. On the other
hand, the metaphor of story-telling is an
appealing one; it captures well the spirit in
which all teaching should be done the sharing of knowledge between teacher and students, for mutual enjoyment.)
This conception of science, as a story to be
told, does not fit in well with an epistemology
of scientific realism, where one major goal of
science is to find and report the truth. The act
of telling a story may easily be invested with
negative significations, such as making it all
up, or even outright lying! Thus, many science teachers would probably protest strongly
the claim that they are just telling stories:
that may be how things are done in the arts
and humanities, but certainly not in science;
our task is to teach the students the facts of the
real world! In the relativist epistemology of
RC, however, scientific knowledge is not
designed to give a factually true description of
the world, but to provide a successful model of
it. Indeed, it may well be argued that the constructivist (relativist) approach to science

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teaching is actually more realistic than the traditional approach of realism; the latter relies
heavily on purported facts of the real world,
which are in effect fictitious i.e., mind-independent metaphysical entities not accessible
to cognitive knowledge sharing.
It may be noted that there are many other
stories, constructed to portray various aspects
of the world. Some are of the academic variety
say, as produced by the humanistic or social
disciplines. Others are told (in different
media) by writers, artists, performers and
preachers. The crucial point here is that science is not to be considered as intrinsically
more true or correct than any of these
alternative stories. In this light, even the socalled pseudo-sciences, such as astrology or
pyramidology,3 are just different stories
(which we need not accept!) not being sciences, they cannot and need not be disproved
by scientific arguments, any more than a
fairytale can or needs! (Except, of course,
when they make claims that can be tested by
the methods of science and even then, we
can only state that the claims are not supported by scientific testing.)
Let us elaborate on this second item: suppose that the biology teacher, in teaching
about evolution in her class, discovers that
some of her students are believers in creationism. Should she then try to persuade these
students that they are mistaken that Darwinian evolution gives the correct description, and that the Creation story told in the
Bible is wrong? The answer, from the viewpoint of RC, is: No, she should not and
indeed she cannot with honesty do so, since
the criteria of being right or wrong do not
apply here! Her obligation as a biology
teacher is to present to the students the story
offered by biological science: the theory of
evolution, with the arguments and evidence
that support it. If, in the end, the students
decide to stay with their belief in the biblical
explanation as more satisfactory well, that is
their privilege. It is not a teachers responsibility to convert her students to the true doctrine of science. Or, more succinctly: The
teachers job is to teach, not to preach!
Indeed, this example highlights an essential difference between these two conceptions
of science teaching: the realist reporting the
true facts of the world vs. the relativist telling a story to describe the world. Traditional
science teaching tends to be carried out in a

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somewhat authoritarian fashion, with the

teacher telling the learners what the world is
really like and requiring that they accept this
as the truth. A story-telling scenario, on the
other hand, leaves more room for the learners
to form their own images and metaphors,
develop and present their own ideas, formulate their own explanations in short, to construct their own knowledge. In fact, I would
propose that one mark of a good storyteller is
that she invites her listeners to join in as the
story unfolds i.e., to use their imagination to
enrich the narrative by giving colour and texture to its plot and characters whether the
medium of delivery is by word of mouth or
written text. This applies to any kind of story
that is worth telling: a fairytale, a novel, a play
at the theatre, etc. and I maintain that it also
applies to the teaching of science.
Note that there is no detailed prescription
of how the story is to be told: i.e., whether the
teacher should lecture (or avoid lecturing),
whether she should encourage the students to
work in groups (or engage them in individual
project assignments), etc. RC does not tell
teachers how to teach. It provides a background stage, as it were, for the act of teaching: reminding the teacher that she is telling a
story, and calling on her to use whatever
instruments (lecturing, group assignments,
etc.) she feels are the best suited for connecting with her audience. This requires (on the
part of the teacher) not only a thorough
knowledge of the subject, but also the ability
to empathise with the learners. She must take
into account their preknowledge and preconceptions, level of maturity and receptivity,
and attitudes of interest or indifference and
then use her narrative skills (choice of language, metaphors, tone of voice, etc.), inviting them to construct and present their own
knowledge of what she is trying to tell them,
in such a way as to (hopefully) generate a
mutual feeling that this knowledge is shared
between teacher and learners. In a word, a
good teacher must be a good story-teller!
To conclude, RC asserts that science
should not be taught in the mode of previously people thought (erroneously) but
now we know (correctly) In other words,
the advance of scientific knowledge should
not be represented as a progression towards
the truth; we can never know if and when our
knowledge has actually reached this state of
truth, or even how close to it we may be at any

time. Rather, we should present the advance

of scientific knowledge as a progression in the
kind of stories we tell about nature. The only
guideline for this progression is that the
knowledge produced should respect the constraints imposed by our experiential world,
and give satisfactory answers to the questions
we ask i.e., that it must conform to the rules
of the game that determine the form of such
questions at the time of asking. Indeed, only
in this (almost tautological) sense is it meaningful to speak of todays science as being
more advanced than yesterdays: it is better
suited to answer the questions we are asking
of it today!
Finally, it is worth noting that the rejection
of truth as a valid epistemic category applies
not only to theories of proper science, e.g.,
physics or biology, but also to theories of epistemology, such as RC itself. Thus, RC should
not be regarded as being right or wrong,
in the sense of giving a correct or incorrect
description of its subject matter. Rather, it is
(like science) a story told to make a point and
thus successful only to the extent that the listeners actually feel that the point was worth
making!
The position of RC with respect to scientific epistemology, and the teaching of science, may be briefly summed up as follows:
[ Science is, in essence, a powerful and evocative story that we tell about the world.
This story is well able to stand on its own
feet; it does not need an objective reality
to support the knowledge that it offers.
[ Teaching science is not intrinsically different from teaching other subjects: the goal
is to convey to the learners a body of shareable knowledge, and the appropriate
method of conveyance is then narration,
i.e., telling a story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andreas Quale is associate professor at the
department of Teacher Education and
School Development at the University of
Oslo. In 1974, he received a doctoral
degree in theoretical physics from the
University of Oslo. His present research
interests include the epistemology of
science, with particular application to
teaching physics.

Constructivist Foundations

educational

radical constructivism

CONCEPTS

Postscript
An anonymous referee has raised the following
question: How do the constructivist principles, as outlined in the present paper, apply to
the teaching of skills involving rote or practical
learning, such as arithmetic, Latin grammar,
driving a car, or piloting an airplane? This is
an important issue, and an adequate treatment
of it would require a separate
paper. Here is a very
brief outline of the

2007, vol. 2, nos. 23

RC position on this issue, with a particular

view to the teaching of science.
In the approach adopted in the present
paper, the primary aim of science teaching is to
generate scientific understanding and knowledge in the students. RC recommends that this
be done through the medium of story-telling.
However, in the course of the teaching the students will inevitably discover that they have to
engage in some rote learning, and some acquisition of practical skills: various mathematical
and/or statistical techniques need to be mastered; a lot of factual information (such as e.g.,
the Mendeleyev table of elements, in
chemistry) must be assimilated; some
training in the use of experimental
hardware and software is necessary; etc. Items of this kind constitute, so to speak, the rules of
the game, which any student
has to grasp and follow, in order
to attain knowledge in whatever field
that is being taught. The teachers task
is then to guide the students in their
learning of these rules. Her mode of
teaching will still be that of storytelling, but now with an instructional component: in effect, she
will demonstrate the material to
her students, and then tell them
that these are the rules, and you
yourselves will have to make the
effort necessary to master them (by
rote and/or by practising), and follow them, if you want to study science!
In fact, RC argues that this applies
to the teaching of any kind of content,
not only science. There will be certain
skills that have to be
learnt; they may
be of an intellec-

tual nature (e.g., the mastery of grammar, for

language studies), or more physical skills
(e.g., piloting an aircraft). Any such skill may
then be demonstrated by a teacher, but in the
end the students must acquire it themselves,
through personal effort it cannot be learnt
by demonstration alone.

Notes
1. Creationism: a doctrine which holds that
God created the world, with the species of
life that inhabit it, much along the lines described in the book of Genesis.
2. Or, using a related metaphor: paint a picture.
3. The idea that there are messages of wisdom to be found in the measures of the
Great Pyramid in Egypt.

References
Glasersfeld, E. von (1995) Radical constructivism: A way of knowing and learning.
Falmer Press: London.
Horgan, J. (1996) The end of science. Addison-Wesley: New York.
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition
(1996) Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Phillips, D. C. (ed.) (2000) Constructivism in
education. University of Chicago Press:
Chicago.
Weinberg, S. (1993) Dreams of a final theory.
Random House: New York.

Received: 17 April 2006

Accepted: 27 February 2007

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