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An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense

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Abstract

“What is truth?” Pontius Pilot asked Jesus of Nazareth. For many educators today this question seems quaintly passé. Rejection of “truth” goes hand-in-hand with the rejection of epistemological realism. Educational thought over the last decade has instead been dominated by empiricist, anti-realist, instrumentalist epistemologies of two types: first by psychological constructivism and later by social constructivism. Social constructivism subsequently has been pressed to its logical conclusion in the form of relativistic multiculturalism. Proponents of both psychological constructivism and social constructivism value knowledge for its utility and eschew as irrelevant speculation any notion that knowledge is actually about reality. The arguments are largely grounded in the discourse of science and science education where science is “western” science; neither universal nor about what is really real. The authors defended the notion of science as universal in a previous article. The present purpose is to offer a commonsense argument in defense of critical realism as an epistemology and the epistemically distinguished position of science (rather than privileged) within a framework of epistemological pluralism. The paper begins with a brief cultural survey of events during the thirty-year period from 1960–1990 that brought many educators to break with epistemological realism and concludes with comments on the pedagogical importance of realism. Understanding the cultural milieu of the past forty years is critical to understanding why traditional philosophical attacks on social constructivist ideas have proved impotent defenders of scientific realism.

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Notes

  1. Traditionally realism refers to ontology. However, especially in education circles, realism is taken as an epistemology. Few anti-realist in the education community are ontological anti-realists––the issue is epistemology.

  2. Our cultural survey is of necessity very brief. First, our argument is meant as an hypothesis to stimulate further study and discussion. Second, a longer treatment would be beyond the scope of the journal. Third, our focus is limited to American culture. Other countries and societies would undoubtedly tell the story differently.

  3. It should be noted that logical positivism, in its doctrinaire form, was never a realist position. Early positivists like Carnap and Ayer rejected the idea that science aims to describe an independent reality, not because they thought it was false, but because they saw no way to confirm or disconfirm it by experience. Later (long before the 1960s), many former positivists abandoned this position in favor of a form of realism known as logical empiricism. The two positions have significant similarities but should not be confused (Salmon 2000).

  4. There were other reasons for reforming science education. See Rudolph (2002) for a thorough discussion of economic and political pressures for science education reform prominent in the early Cold War period.

  5. For an excellent discussion of the difference between the interests of science and public interest in science, see Eger (1989).

  6. For examples of socially relevant science curriculum ideas of the period, see Baird (1937) or Zechiel (1937).

  7. One indication that the critics failed in their efforts is that the Kromhout and Good title reappears thirteen years later in Gross et al. (1996). Indeed, in the eyes of many in science, the situation had only worsened as indicated by the two-word addition in the Gross et al title, The Flight From Science and Reason.

  8. See <http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/Kuhnsnap.html> for a brief biographical sketch of Kuhn’s life and work. See also Science & Education vol.9 nos.1–2 for discussion of Kuhn’s impact on science educators.

  9. We are not indicating a chronological order. For the most part, these were simultaneous events during the decade.

  10. Although our focus is the United States, Kuhn’s book had more immediate impact in Great Britain during the late 1960s founding of the University of Edinburgh’s Strong Program in the sociology of science. This school of sociology was “in direct conflict with all philosophical theories that seek to distinguish logic or rationality from psychology or sociology” (Giere 1991, p. 51). On the Continent, while no direct influence is claimed here between Kuhn’s science writings and the European literary “deconstructionists,” it is interesting to note some similar revolutionary writings. While Kuhn was revising the first edition of his magnum opus in an attempt to deal with criticisms of his myriad uses of “paradigms” in science communities, Jacque Derrida was, at about the same time, “deconstructing” literary texts in articles with titles like Ends of Man (Derrida 1969), The Purveyor of Truth (Derrida (1975), or his psychoanalysis of the “truth factor” (1975).

  11. See RachelCarson.org (“a website devoted to the life and legacy of Rachel Carson”) at: http://www.rachelcarson.org/.

  12. The education and social science literatures often overstate Kuhn’s influence in academic philosophy. As a counterbalance, consider that in Wesley Salmon's (1989) Four Decades of Scientific Explanation, Kuhn is mentioned only once in over 200 pages of meticulous historical survey.

  13. The notion that Copernicus was an instrumentalist is an historical myth. “All of the evidence is that Copernicus was a robust realist and that it is Osiander, not Copernicus, who bears responsibility for the instrumentalism here. When Copernicus's disciple Georg Joachim Rheticus (author of the famous “Narratio Prima”) read the unsigned preface, he was furious and said that if he had positive proof that Osiander had inserted this he would personally give him such a thrashing that Osiander would never again interfere in the affairs of scientific men! Many good scientists who read further than the preface realized that Copernicus is an earnest realist: Maestlin and his famous pupil Kepler, Thomas Digges in England, etc.” (McGrew 2002)

  14. We quote Vico because Glasersfeld does; however, we do not necessarily agree with Glasersfeld’s interpretation of Vico’s work. For a different perspective on Vico, see Lilla (1993).

  15. For a discussion on types of multiculturalism, see: Haack (1998, Ch. 8).

  16. It should be apparent that epistemological realism and ontological realism go hand in hand.

  17. The inability to have direct access to reality is a key supposition for anti-realists. For an incisive rebuttal and defense of the theory of direct perception, see Nola (2003).

  18. Along with the sociology of science, critical realism agrees that constructing goes on in science––that science is not about discovering “already categorized objects and relations.” The difference comes, however, in that scientists can legitimately claim “genuine similarities” between logical constructs and aspects of reality. Rather than “critical,” Giere (1999) refers to “perspectival” realism to emphasize that scientific theories never capture completely the “totality of reality” but provide us with only—perspectives “…science that is perspectival rather than absolute” (Giere 1999, p. 79). Our use of “critical realism” is in this vein. For a philosophical introduction to critical realism, see Bhaskar (1989), Harré (1975), Putman (1987) or Salmon (1989). There are different varieties of critical realism such as Giere’s (1999) “constructive realism” but what they have in common is nicely described by Polkinghorne (1991, p. 304): “epistemology models ontology.”

  19. For more on Traditional Ecological Knowledge, see Snively and Corsiglia (2001).

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  1. The Mallinson Institute for Science Education, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, 49008, USA

    William W. Cobern

  2. Department of Teaching, Learning & Culture, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, 77843, USA

    Cathleen C. Loving

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Cobern, W.W., Loving, C.C. An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense. Sci & Educ 17, 425–447 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9095-5

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