Constructivism: a ‘next’ area of scientific development?

Radical Constructivism has been defined as an ‘unconventional approach to theproblem of knowledge and knowing’. Its unconventionality is summarised byits claim that it is impossible to attribute unique meaning to experience-as nomind-independent yardstick can be assumed to exist against which to identifyuniqueness, and hence to produce knowledge and knowing. In other words, itis claimed that there is no ‘reality’ that is knowable to all individual knowers.This claim appears indefensible by itself, as it does not explain why thesuccesses of traditional science appear as such. However, it is defensible in thecontext of numerous failures to achieve unique attributions, or of the history ofscience. Even so, what is missing are concrete methods and research designs.This often leaves Radical Constructivism to be critical only, to concentrate onjustifying the impossibility of success without contributing itself.Where this is the case it reduces scientists to individuals considered unableto communicate with others on public (and unique) attributions-who may do soonly by borrowing methods from previous approaches. It is argued that a morevaluable contribution is possible if Radical Constructivism is seen as a responseto the challenge defined by frequent failures of traditional approaches. Thelatter may be extended such that the extensions converge to RadicalConstructivism. Such extensions are based on reported observations, ratherthan on experiences in general, and are to be attributed meanings-uniquely aswell as non-uniquely-by way of a collective. The latter should allow its ‘actors’to restrict what maintains the collective to what is observable to others, as wellas use the collective to restrict their own observations. The study of collectivesthus allows for the study of restrictions or values, and hence for includingsubjective or constructivist experiences beyond (reportable) observations.