Abstract
One of the most salient arguments in favor of a semiotic approach, put forward on various occasions among others by Luis Radford, claims that semiotics is most appropriate to treat the interaction between socio-cultural and objective aspects of knowledge problems. But if we want to take such claims seriously, we have to undertake revisions of our basic conceptions about reality, existence, cognition, and cultural development. The semiotic evolutionary realism of Charles S. Peirce provides, or so it appears, an appropriate basis to such intentions. Man is a sign, Peirce had famously said, and “thought is more without us than within. It is we that are in it, rather than it in any of us” (Peirce CP 8.256). And as there is no thought without a sign, we have to accept thoughts, concepts, theories, or works of art as realities sui generis. Concepts or theories have to be recognized as real before we can ask for their meaning or relevance. This was the problem that concerned critics and protagonists of the New Math Reform of the 1960s and 1970s of the twentieth century, like Thom or Bruner.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aristotle. (1926). The art of rhetoric. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bateson, G. (1973). Steps to an ecology of mind. London: Paladin Books.
Bateson, G. (1980). Mind and nature. Toronto: Bantam Books.
Beiser, F. C. (2008). German idealism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bentham, J. (1814). The works of Jeremy Bentham. Published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring; In 11 vols., Volume 8. Edinburgh: William Tait.
Bruner, J. (1969). The process of education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (1983). In search of mind. New York: Harper & Row.
Cartwright, N. (1983). How the laws of physics lie. Oxford: Clarendon.
Cauchy, A.-L. (1821). Cours d’analyse. Paris: De L’Imprimerie Royale.
Davidov, V. (1977). Arten der Verallgemeinerungen im Unterricht. (Types of generalization in instruction). Berlin: Verlag Volk & Wissen.
Desmond, A., & Moore, J. (2009). Darwin’s sacred cause—race, slavery and the quest for human origins. London: Penguin.
Feynman, R. (1965). The character of physical law. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Goodman, N. (1976). Languages of art. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Hilbert, D. (1977/1899). Grundlagen der geometrie [Foundations of geometry]. Stuttgart: Teubner.
Humboldt, W. (1809/1980). Werke in Fuenf Baenden, Bd.IV. [Works in 5 vols.]. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft.
Jakobson, R. (1985). Selected writings, Vol. VII. Berlin: Mouton.
Lenhard, J., & Otte, M. (2010). Two types of mathematization. In B. van Kerkhove et al. (Eds.), Philosophical perspectives on mathematical practice (pp. 301–330). London: College Publications.
Lovejoy, A. (1964/1936). The great chain of being. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mayer, R. (1911). Die Mechanik der Wärme. [The mechanism of heat.]. Leipzig: Engelmann.
Otte, M. (1976). Die didaktischen Systeme von Davidov/Elkonin einersits und Zankov andererseits. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 6, 475–497.
Otte, M. (1986). What is a text? In B. Christiansen, G. Howson, & M. Otte (Eds.), Perspectives on mathematics education (pp. 173–204). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Otte, M. (2003). Complementarity, sets and numbers. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 53, 203–228.
Otte, M. (2008). Metaphor and contingency. In L. Radford, G. Schubring, & F. Seeger (Eds.), Semiotics in mathematics education: epistemology, history, classroom, and culture (pp. 63–82). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Peirce, C. S. (1958). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Volumes I-VI. C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (Eds.) 1931–1935; volumes VII–VIII, A. W. Burks (Ed.) 1958. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press (Quoted by nunber of volume and paragraph.)
Peirce, C. S. (1982). Writings of Charles S. Peirce. A chronological edition, Vol. 1–5. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.
Radford, L. (2006). Semiótica y educación matemática: Introducción. [Semiotics and mathematics education; Introduction] RELIME, 9, 1–9.
Richards, J. (1988). Mathematical visions. Boston: Academic.
Rorty, R. (1980). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Spencer-Brown, G. (1979). Laws of form. New York: Dutton.
Steinbring, H. (2005). Do mathematical symbols serve to describe or to construct reality? In M. Hoffmann, J. Lenhard, & F. Seeger (Eds.), Activity and sign (pp. 91–104). New York: Springer.
Suppe, F. (Ed.). (1974). The structure of scientific theories. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Turner, S. (1981). The Prussian professorate and the research imperative 1790–1840. In N. Jahnke & M. Otte (Eds.), Epistemological and social problems of the sciences in the early 19thcCentury (109–121). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Otte, M.F. Evolution, learning, and semiotics from a Peircean point of view. Educ Stud Math 77, 313–329 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-011-9302-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-011-9302-9