Three Philosophical Views

I. Rationalism

One group of philosophical doctrines holds that knowledge begins at birth as innate ideas which correspond to the order of reality. Seventeenth century physicists had found that in using mathematics, universal laws could explain world phenomena, which suggested to philosophers that reality might be explained through logical, rational thought (Fabricius, 1983). For the rationalist, knowledge begins, not as a spontaneous subjective idea, but as a premise which then takes form through logical thinking. Thus this philosophy would argue that we have a concept for what a tree is before we see one. Through deductive logic we are able to use our power of reason (that is, we rationalize) as we come to know about that tree. In other words, we "discover" new knowledge by logically adding to or changing innate, old ideas.

II. Empiricism

In the seventeenth century, rationalism was challenged by Francis Bacon and John Locke, who proposed that the source of knowledge must be the observable environment rather than innate ideas or premises. This view, known as empiricism, developed along with the emergence of the scientific method. Empiricism holds that observable reality is the undistorted picture of the world, and that knowledge comes primarily from our inductive reasoning of the evidence received from experiences and observations. We come to know from gathering information and from testing our understanding of experience with the external world (Fabricius, 1983). To extend our example, we don't know the concept of a "tree'"until we first see one. Then, through multiple explorations of different types of trees, our objective concept of a tree is verified.

III. Phenomenologicalism

Empiricism and rationalism shared the view that the structural elements of knowledge must exist in the external world, a view challenged by a third position. Kant argued in his "Critique of Pure Reason" that whereas both rational and empirical views require that the individual go outside oneself in order to know the world, there is a different level of reality, how the world appears to the individual, which he labeled the phenomenological realm (cited in Fabricius, 1983). Because our minds have the structure of space and time, we impose order and objectivity on experience. In other words, as we interact with reality, we use temporal (categorization, listing, comparison/contrast) or spatial (cause/effect, sequence) dimensions to make meaning of experience and to construct knowledge. Thus we could come to understand the concept of a tree as we verify our understanding of an experience with trees and as we fit that concept into mental structures such as critical attributes of trees and changes in trees over time.

Psychological Interpretations of Learning

Near the end of the nineteenth century, attempts to understand how learning occurred in the mind led from epistemological philosophy to the development of the new discipline of psychology. Three distinct psychological perspectives have emerged from the three philosophical positions. Again, these psychological positions are neither correct nor incorrect, but rather a cognitive choice to accept or reject a particular psychological perspective.

Ia. Radical Constructivism

One psychological interpretation of rationalism has been called radical constructivism (Congolese, 1990). Within this interpretation, learning occurs when the individual logically constructs viable knowledge from the range of experiences with the world. Thus, all knowledge is constructed by the individual from information provided by the context. Here, the learner comes to understand how the world best fits his/her prior knowledge.

IIb. Behaviorism / Information Processing

One psychological interpretation of an empirical philosophy was that learning results from association, when two events occurring together become mentally linked. Based on the work of Pavlov (1927) and then Skinner (1969), a scientific learning theory emerged. Within this view, learning is stimulated by a condition that brings a response and is reinforced when a motive is satisfied or an association strengthened. Learning is inferred when there is a change in overt performance. Recently this interpretation of empiricism has shifted to the internal processing of information stemming from attempts to apply research in computer artificial intelligence to human psychology (i.e., an information processing view). The stimulus is seen as initiating, supporting, and maintaining several different kinds of ongoing mental processes. During a single act of learning there are several phases of processing which much be planned for by arranging conditions external to the learner (Gagne,1985). In many ways, learning is the result of what the instructor does, not what the students do.

IIIb. Guided Constructivism

Two psychologists in particular have interpreted Phenomenologicalism to explain psychological learning and they have called it constructivism. Piaget goes beyond Kant to say that mental structures develop over time rather than existing a priori (Carmichael, 1970). External sense data must interact internally with these mental structures for learning to occur. Learning is therefore constructed through ordering and synthesizing through the sense (Fabricius, 1983), resulting in the reality that we experience Vygotsky (1978) argued that constructivism takes place primarily through social interaction rather than individually within the individual. Through collaboration in a meaningful social interaction, an individual constructs a group meaning of a complex idea which in turn is personalized to an individual meaning.

Educational Adaptations

Ia1. Discovery/Inquiry Learning

Radical constructivism has emerged in education in the form of unguided inquiry or discovery learning. The starting point for instruction is the student's own questions. The teacher's role in this perspective is to foster individual inductive reasoning by providing a rich environment filled with opportunities for concrete observation. The student then learns by reasoning, either inductively or deductively, as he/she connect abstract, innate ideas with concrete objects in the environment. Inductively, in discovery learning, students determine rules, make generalizations and discover concepts. Educationally, this interpretation has been applied primarily in early childhood education through the Montessori approach (Montessori, 1917) and in developmental math instruction at the college level (vonGlaserfeld, 1990).

IIb2. Transmission/Skills

Empirical and information processing views of learning are well represented in developmental education pedagogy. The role of the instructor in this perspective is to transmit information to the student. Learning occurs as a result of an external agent, such as the instructor, text, or computer program transmitting to students a set of rules (i.e., skills) and then to giving students practice these in these skills until mastery is achieved.

Reading instruction, for example, is provided to students according to the level at which they have scored on a standardized test and according to skill deficiencies diagnosed through further testing. Students are taught skills, sometimes in isolation, individually or through direct instruction, and then they are retested to verify skill mastery and reading level (Fink, 1985). This approach has led to the production of highly structured and carefully aligned instructional materials which many novice reading instructors at the college level have made a foundation of their program.

IIIc3. Whole Language/Constructivist