Subject:      Sokal,Aronowitz,Vico
From:         tillman@abo.fi
Date:         1997/03/07
Message-Id:   <857726436.28666@dejanews.com>
Newsgroups:   alt.postmodern
[More Headers]

I was re-reading some articles about the Sokal affair and noted a detail :
In "Alan Sokal's `Transgression'", by Stanley Aronowitz (Dissent, Winter
1997) , Aronowitz writes :

'In these and other cases ethnographic and historical studies proceed from
Vico's idea that "making is knowing".'

Someone called "Vico" also appears in an article about constructivism in
maths and science education, namely "Old wine in new bottles : a problem
with constructivist epistemology" by Michael R. Matthews, in Philosophy of
Education Society Yearbook 1992.

The article is available on the Internet at :

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/COE/EPS/PES-Yearbook/92_docs/Matthews.HTM

In the article text, the following can be found :

"It is not coincidental that modern constructivists once having formulated
the epistemological problem in Aristotelian-Lockean terms then endorse
versions of Berkeley's savage critique of it and end up with relativism,
and for the more consistent, idealism. It is not for nothing that von
Glasersfeld says that 1710 was a very good year: being the year of
publication of both Vico's major work and Berkeley's Treatise (24) "

Reference number 24 says :

" That a leading constructivist identifies Vico and Berkeley as the
founders of constructivism and lauds their philosophy is indicative of the
ambiguous relationship between constructivism and modern science,
including science education : Vico and Berkeley were avowed opponents of
the Scientific Revolution and of the work of Galileo, Newton and others.
Both of them were defenders of orthodox Christianity against the perceived
irreligious philosophy of the new science. Berkeley's 1710 Treatise was
subtitled ' Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the
Sciences, With the grounds of Skepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion are
Inquired into'. That so many today are defending science education with
the doctrines of two deeply anti-scientific thinkers is cause for some
reflection".

There was no list of references in the Aronowitz article, so I could not
verify if it is the same Vico he and Matthews are writing about.

Does anyone know if it is the same Vico or two different persons ? I am
doing research about socioscientific issues in physics education, and I
need to get the details right.

Also, any information about works by or about Vico is welcome.


                Thomas H. Illman