The short answer to the question is, ‘No, a Socratic teacher cannot be a constructivist’.
Even though there are elements of constructivism within Socratic pedagogy,
constructivist learning theory is, at base, antithetical Socratic practice.
The epistemological and ontological assumptions going into a Socratic discourse are
not just completely different, but at odds with constructivist learning theory. The presupposition
of the Socratic method is that the truth exists independent of one’s beliefs; even
though one may not be able to find the truth of the matter in a particular Socratic
session, ‘progress towards reaching [a] final understanding has taken place’ (Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001). An imperfect example is that one cannot inquire
into how an airplane flies unless one accepts the fact that airplanes exist. Similarly,
there are the underlying assumptions of every Socratic discourse—that the world exists
independently of the knower, that there is a truth of the matter that can be discovered,
that one can come to truth through discourse, that there are fair and impartial ways
to adjudicate competing claims, that some propositions are false, and that there is such
a thing as a ‘final understanding’. These assumptions are at odds with constructivism.
For constructivists, helping students arrive at the truth is impossible, and therefore
it cannot be the purpose of education. Constructivist learning theory is about
the process of learning and helping people discover their truths. The truth element
of the Socratic method is an anathema to most varieties of constructivism, particularly
those committed to the stronger thesis that whatever students construct as
knowledge then becomes de facto true. An extreme example of this would be if I
think that 7 + 5 = 13, then my thinking so is both necessary and sufficient justifi-
cation for it being the case.8 Again, this is because of radical subjectivity, or the
‘true for’ nature embodied in the constructivist learning paradigm.
The purpose of the Socratic method is give participants a way to arrive at the truth,
and the Socratic teacher attempts to guide students, and even herself, to the truth. In
the Socratic model, there is no ‘true for’ me and not ‘true for’ you; there are propositions
that have truth-values. Constructivism, however, asserts that the purpose of an education
is to let students discover their own truth, that is, what is true for them. These two
notions are fundamentally incompatible: propositions are either true or false, or they
are true for me and not true for you. One’s beliefs about truth will drive one’s pedagogy.
To accomplish its ultimate goal, the Socratic method has a built in corrective
mechanism—the elenchus—that makes it unlikely that false propositions will endure
the entire discourse. However, if knowledge is constructed and truth is ‘located’, as
the constructivists believe that it is (Lincoln, 1996), then the Socratic method cannot
achieve its epistemological ambitions, and false propositions can neither be weeded
out nor identified. If utterances like ‘Oh, it’s just true for me in my reality’, were acceptable,
then there could be no elenetic process. This would lead to an epistemological
obituary because any type of dialectical interchange would be prevented by relativist
claims. As such, a constructivist could not authentically practice the Socratic method.