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Book Review: The philosophy of mathematics education today. Paul Ernest (Ed.) (2018)

Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 377 pages. Hardcover: ISBN 978-3-319-77759-7 (109,99 € $119.00 US). Softcover: ISBN 978-3-030-08532-2 (109,99 € $119.00 US). eBook ISBN 978-3-319-77760-3 (91,62 € $89.00 US). doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77760-3

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Notes

  1. Note how I have felt obliged to insert so many alternative metaphors for learning—a challenge in our field is that there is no commonly accepted theory of learning; there is not even any agreement about what mathematics is. The absence of agreement demonstrates the necessity of all working in mathematics education to have a sound grasp of the philosophical foundations of the field.

  2. Barwell explains “post-normal science”, “Post-normal science is a way of responding to problems with particular features: high levels of uncertainty, urgency, high stakes and the interrelation of facts and values. Such problems feature contradictions and our collective response needs to involve an extended peer community. Normal science with its standardised procedures, ways of defining problems and separation of facts from values is insufficient” (p. 154).

  3. Subsequent to reading the hard copy, I did download the e-version through my university library. In particular, I wanted to get an idea of the extent to which the collection of articles referred to “established” philosophers. The search tool worked well, but I had to enter separately the names of individual philosophers, and it still required an amount of work to determine whether the citations were concentrated within a single or small number of articles. It is not the same as a well-prepared index.

References

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  • Van Bendegem, J. P., & François, K. (Eds.). (2007). Philosophical dimensions in mathematics education. New York, NY: Springer.

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  1. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Simon Goodchild

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  1. Simon Goodchild
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Correspondence to Simon Goodchild.

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Goodchild, S. Book Review: The philosophy of mathematics education today. Paul Ernest (Ed.) (2018). Educ Stud Math 103, 109–119 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-019-09919-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-019-09919-1

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