Abstract
How far can mathematics be drawn into a linguistic domain and how far does such a move enable us to clarify the way in which students share their mathematical thinking with their peers and with their teacher? Such concerns will be addressed throughout the book. Before proceeding, however, I feel an example might help in further clarifying some of the issues of concern. I offer an account of someone working in a university seminar specifically concerned with exploring how words are introduced in holding on to evolving ideas (first reported by Brown, 1996 a, pp. 62–64). In the seminar there was an invitation to imagine a particular geometrical configuration. In an attempt to give a more graphic example of the issues of concern in this book I offer the three sentences which initiated the exercise and an account of someone’s developing understanding during the exercise, written immediately afterwards.
Keywords
- Mathematics Education
- Mathematical Learning
- Mathematical Activity
- Mathematics Education Research
- Mathematical Understanding
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The language used can only be the language we have. So one must not look for meanings — only for the things that are meant (Brookes, 1971, p 159).
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© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Brown, T. (2001). Hermeneutics and Mathematics Education. In: Mathematics Education and Language. Mathematics Education Library, vol 20/a. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0726-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0726-9_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-6969-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0726-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive