Against Local Constructivisms: Why Cognitive Constructivism Cannot Remain Domain-Specific

Constructivist approaches have become influential across philosophy, cognitive science, and social theory, yet they are often applied in a fragmented and domain-specific way. Knowledge may be described as constructed while nature is treated as given; social reality as constructed while perception or physical reality remains exempt. This paper argues that such local constructivisms are conceptually unstable. If cognition is genuinely constructive, then construction cannot be confined to isolated domains without reintroducing hidden dualisms. Building on insights from epistemic, radical, social, and enactive constructivism, the paper defends cognitive constructivism as a general ontology of world-availability. On this view, any world accessible to a cognitive system is available only through constructive processes shaped by constraints. Reality is not denied, but reconceived as what emerges through stable, constrained constructions rather than as a pre-given foundation. The paper explores the implications of this position for objectivity, realism, intersubjectivity, and cognitive failure, and argues that cognitive constructivism, taken seriously, must be global rather than local in scope.