Cover -- Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface by Series Editor -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- List of Figures -- Chapter 1 Growing up Constructivist: Languages and Thoughtful People -- Which Language Tells It 'as It Is'? -- The Wrong Time in Vienna -- Growing Roots in Dublin -- Interdisciplinary Education -- A Close Look at Meanings -- The American Connection -- Introduction to Psychology -- Collaboration with a Chimpanzee -- Discovering Piaget -- From Mental Operations to the Construction of Reality -- A Decisive Friendship -- Teaching Experiments -- The Spreading of Constructivist Ideas -- Retirement and a New Beginning -- Support from Physics and Philosophy of Science -- Chapter 2 Unpopular Philosophical Ideas: A History in Quotations -- Objectivity Put in Question -- The Pre-Socratics -- Theological Insights -- Modern Science Widens The Rift -- A Failure and an Achievement of Descartes -- Locke's Forgotten Reflection -- The Exaggeration of the 'Blank Slate' -- A Reinterpretation of Berkeley -- Hume's Deconstruction of Conceptual Relations -- Bentham and Vico - Pioneers of Conceptual Analysis -- Kant's 'Transcendental Enterprise' -- A Re-assessment of Causality -- New Fuel for Instrumentalism -- Hypotheses and Fictions -- The Foundation of Language Analysis -- Conclusion -- Chapter 3 Piaget's Constructivist Theory of Knowing -- The Biological Premise -- Active Construction -- Beginnings -- The Construction of Experiential Reality -- Individual Identity -- Assimilation -- From Reflexes to Scheme Theory -- Accommodation -- The Concept of Equilibration -- Learning -- Different Types of Abstraction -- Stages of Development -- The Observer and the Observed -- Experience and Reality -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4 The Construction of Concepts -- Analysis of Operations -- The Concept of Change.

The Concept of Motion -- Generating Individual Identity -- Space and Time -- Conclusion -- Chapter 5 Reflection and Abstraction -- Reflection -- Abstraction -- Generalization -- The Notion of Re-presentation -- Re-presenting Past Experiences -- Recognition -- The Need of an Agent -- Meaning as Re-presentation -- The Power of Symbols -- Piaget's Theory of Abstraction -- Form and Content -- Four Kinds of Abstraction -- The Question of Awareness -- Operational Awareness -- Conclusion -- Philosophical Postscript -- Chapter 6 Constructing Agents: The Self and Others -- The Illusion of Encoded Information -- The Reality of Experience -- Analysis of Empirical Construction -- The Question of Objectivity -- Corroboration by Others -- The Elusive Self -- The Notion of Environment -- The Perceived Self -- Sensory Clues -- Reflected Images -- The Social Self -- Conclusion -- Chapter 7 On Language, Meaning, and Communication -- The Semantic Basis -- Language Games -- The Construction of Meaning -- Language and Reality -- Theory of Communication -- How We May Come to Use Language -- To Understand Understanding -- Why Communication? Why Language? -- Chapter 8 The Cybernetic Connection -- Declaration of the American Society for Cybernetics -- Feedback, Induction, and Epistemology -- A Learning Mechanism -- Cognitive Development -- The Inductive Basis of Instrumental Learning -- Negative Feedback as 'Information' -- The Nature of Hypothetical Models -- Chapter 9 Units, Plurality and Number -- An Elusive Definition -- Things and Units -- Conception Rather than Perception -- The Attentional Model -- An Iteration of Pulses -- The Genesis of Plurality -- The Abstract Concept of Number -- The 'Pointing Power' of Symbols -- Mathematical Certainty -- Chapter 10 To Encourage Students' Conceptual Constructing -- What Is Our Goal? -- Teaching Rather than Training.

Environmental Stimuli -- Reinforcement -- The Deceptive Character of Language -- The Orienting Function -- Perceptual Materials -- A Geometric Point -- The Need to Infer Students' Thinking -- Help Rather than Instruction -- Fostering Reflection -- The Secret of 'Social' Interaction -- A Final Point -- References -- Index of Names -- Subject Index.