Book review: Knowledge Acquisition as Modeling. Edited by Kenneth M. Ford and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (John Wiley & Sons)

Abstract

Constructivism seems to be the rising star in many fields. Fifteen years ago, to utter the word was to be met with blind stares. Nowadays, constructivism and its cousins seem to be everywhere. Talk of the importance and multiplicity of meanings, of mental structure arising from activity, of a pragmatic conception of truth replacing a realist one, has permeated many fields. Psychology has been hit by the constructivist wave. The social sciences have been trying to figure out the relationship between constructivism, constructionism and various other isms. Computer science, or at least the knowledge acquisition part of the field has recently been hit by the bug. Over the last 10 years, a number of researchers in this area have been using constructivist ideas to guide knowledge acquisition and the development of knowledge acquisition tools. With the publication of this book, this trend appears to have reached critical mass and is vying for position as the dominant paradigm, or model, for conceptualizing knowledge acquisition.