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Mathematics Education Research Journal

, Volume 29, Issue 4, pp 493–508 | Cite as

On inferentialism

  • Luis Radford
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
First Online:

Abstract

This article is a critical commentary on inferentialism in mathematics education. In the first part, I comment on some of the major shortcomings that inferentialists see in the theoretical underpinnings of representationalist, empiricist, and socioconstructivist mathematics education theories. I discuss in particular the criticism that inferentialism makes of the social dimension as conceptualized by socioconstructivism and the question related to the objectivity of knowledge. In the second part, I discuss some of the theoretical foundations of inferentialism in mathematics education and try to answer the question of whether or not inferentialism overcomes the individual-social divide. In the third part, I speculate on what I think inferentialism accomplishes and what I think it does not.

Keywords

Socioconstructivism Reason Objectivity Concept Theories in mathematics education 
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Copyright information

© Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Inc. 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Ecole des Sciences de l’EducationUniversité LaurentienneSudburyCanada

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