CONSTRUCTIVISM AND THE LOGIC OF EXPLANATION

The abandonment of motivational concepts in personal construct theory paves the way for the metatheoretical principles of constructivism: a cognitivist mode of explanation, a constructivist epistemology, a view of the person as autonomous agent, and an anti-realist ontology. Each of these is unsustainable. A nonmotivational find purely cognitive fo rm of explanation is deficient, and dependence on the idea of voluntar y agency to redress this deficiency results in explanatory regress. Bo th the constructivist theory of indirect knowledge (which is necessari ly representationist) and the anti-realist ontology it entails are inc oherent and self-defeating. Taken as a general metatheory, constructiv ism fails. However, constructivist theory and practice are of value wh en taken as a psychological approach that encourages self-reflection a nd tolerance and that examines the structures of knowledge and their r ole in the determination of action.