Passibility

This book argues that the `constructivist metaphor has become a self-appointed overriding concept that suppresses other modes of thinking about knowing and learning science. Yet there are questions about knowledge that constructivism cannot properly answer, such as how a cognitive structure can intentionally develop a formation that is more complex than itself; how a learner can aim at a learning objective that is, by definition, itself unknown; how we learn through pain, suffering, love or passion; and the role emotion and crises play in knowing and learning.

In support of the hypothesis that passibility underlies cognition, readers are provided with a collation of empirical studies and phenomenological analyses of knowing and learning science in schools, scientific laboratories and everyday life all of which defy a constructivist explanation. The author argues that `passibility constitutes an essential factor in the development of consciousness, with a range of essential experiences that cannot be brought into the linguistic realm. His exploration is guided by concepts such as `otherness , passion, passivity and undecidability, and concludes by resituating the construction metaphor to accord it its proper place in a more comprehensive theory of learning.

Frontispiece. - Preface. - 1. De/Constructing the Blind Spots of Constructivism. - PART A: PASSIVITY, UNCERTAINTY, UNDECIDABILITY. - 2. Learning and the Erasure of Knowledge. - 3. Radical Passivity in Learning. - 4. Radical Uncertainty in Acting. - 5. Emergence of Duality. - PART B: OTHERNESS. - 6. Talking Conceptions without Conceptions. - 7. Thought Follows Communication. - 8. Otherness of Self. - 9. The Nonsense of Meaning. - PART C: PASSIONS. - 10. Emotion, Motives, Motivations. - 11. Crises, Suffering, Joy. - 12. From Incarnation to Responsibility. - PART D: EPILOGUE. - 13. Sublating the Constructivist Metaphor. - References. - Index.