Why Humean constructivists should become Kantian constructivists

Why constructivists should not talk about constructivist learning environments: a commentary on Loyens and Gijbels (2008)

In this journal, Loyens and Gijbels (2008) recently edited an interesting and inspiring special issue on the effects of constructivist learning environments. In this commentary, I do not want to evaluate the specific strengths and shortcomings of the single contributions or of the special issue as a whole. Rikers et al. (2008) have already provided such a balanced evaluation of the special issu...

Inside Embodiment — What means Embodiment to Radical Constructivists?

The nervous system is operationally closed. It operates only in contact to itself. This astonishing claim has been made by Heinz von Foerster, one of the founders of radical constructivism. This work explores the consequences of his claim in the context of linear signal theory, embodiment and the creation of artifacts. In linear signal theory all transfer functions can be directly associated wi...

Re-solving the Learning Paradox: Epistemological and Ontological Questions for Radical Constructivists

Over 30 years ago, a debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky revived an ancient learning paradox filst intioduced by Plato (Piattelli-Palmarini, 1980) Chomsky challenged Piaget to explain how one could constrnct more advanced knowledge horn one's existing (less advanced) knowledge Chomsky argued that, without such an explanation fo1 learning, we must assume the innativist position that all ...

Why the Semantic Web Should Become More Imprecise

Recent Semantic Web research has been largely focused on precise ontologies and knowledge representation, leaving only little space for imprecise knowledge such as rules of thumb. The result is a Semantic Web which can answer requests almost perfectly with respect to precision, but provides only a low recall. In this position paper, we envision to address this issue with a stack of Semantic Web...

Why dentists should become oral physicians: A response to Dr. Donald Giddon's "Why dentists should be called oral physicians now".