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Guided by concepts such as passion and undecidability, this book uses empirical studies and phenomenological analyses of knowing and learning science to argue that the ´constructivist metaphor´ suppresses other modes of thinking about scientific learning.

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This book argues that the ´constructivist metaphor´ has become a self-appointed overriding concept that suppresses other modes of thinking about knowing and learning science. Yet there are questions about knowledge that constructivism cannot properly answer, such as how a cognitive structure can intentionally develop a formation that is more complex than itself; how a learner can aim at a learning objective that is, by definition, itself unknown; how we learn through pain, suffering, love or passion; and the role emotion and crises play in knowing and learning.

In support of the hypothesis that passibility underlies cognition, readers are provided with a collation of empirical studies and phenomenological analyses of knowing and learning science-in schools, scientific laboratories and everyday life-all of which defy a constructivist explanation. The author argues that ´passibility´ constitutes an essential factor in the development of consciousness, with a range of essential experiences that cannot be brought into the linguistic realm. His exploration is guided by concepts such as ´otherness´, passion, passivity and undecidability, and concludes by resituating the construction metaphor to accord it its proper place in a more comprehensive theory of learning.

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Frontispiece.- Preface.- 1. De/Constructing the Blind Spots of Constructivism.- PART A: PASSIVITY, UNCERTAINTY, UNDECIDABILITY.- 2. Learning and the Erasure of Knowledge.- 3. Radical Passivity in Learning.- 4. Radical Uncertainty in Acting.- 5. Emergence of Duality.- PART B: OTHERNESS.- 6. Talking Conceptions without Conceptions.- 7. Thought Follows Communication.- 8. Otherness of Self.- 9. The Nonsense of Meaning.- PART C: PASSIONS.- 10. Emotion, Motives, Motivations.- 11. Crises, Suffering, Joy.- 12. From Incarnation to Responsibility.- PART D: EPILOGUE.- 13. Sublating the Constructivist Metaphor.- References.- Index.

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