Italian Philosophy of Education and the End(s) of the Constructivist Koine

Abstract

In the last few years, educational philosophy and theory, the world over, has been increasingly foregrounding a criticism of what we may call – with a nod to Gianni Vattimo – “the constructivist koine,” which has been dominating the educational discourse over the last four decades. After outlining the reasons for this questioning of a well-established paradigm, this paper will focus on the specific and autonomous way in which Italian philosophy of education has engaged with this critique of constructivism. This will be accomplished by entering into a dialogue with the coeval attack, in the Italian philosophical debate, on hermeneutics and with the related vindication of a “new realist” stance.