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Commognition

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Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education

Definition

Commognition, the portmanteau of communication and cognition, is the focal notion of the approach to learning grounded in the assumption that thinking can be usefully conceptualized as one’s communication with oneself. This foundational tenet goes against the famous Cartesian split between the bodily and the mental. According to the resulting non-dualist vision of human cognition, mathematics is a historically established discourse, and learning mathematics means becoming a participant in this special form of communication. The basic assumption about thinking as communicating has multiple entailments that combine into a comprehensive non-dualist theory of learning.

Origins

The idea of commognition was born within the context of mathematics education in response to certain weaknesses of traditional visions of human development. Whereas learning has always been seen as a process of change, proponents of the various conceptualizations that emerged in the twentieth century...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics Education, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Anna Sfard

Authors
  1. Anna Sfard
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Correspondence to Anna Sfard .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. South Bank University Centre for Mathematics Education, London, United Kingdom

    Steve Lerman

Section Editor information

  1. Laboratoire de Didactique André Revuz (EA4434), Université Paris-Diderot, Paris, France

    Michéle Artigue

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Sfard, A. (2018). Commognition. In: Lerman, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77487-9_100031-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77487-9_100031-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77487-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77487-9

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