What is a Mathematical Concept?

Front Cover
Elizabeth de Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, Alf Coles
Cambridge University Press, Jun 22, 2017 - Education - 288 pages
Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social inquiry, this book addresses the question 'what is a mathematical concept?' using a variety of vanguard theories in the humanities and posthumanities. Tapping historical, philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of how mathematics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural activity, drawing connections with empirical practice. Unlike other books in this area, it is highly interdisciplinary, devoted to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in different contexts. This book will appeal to scholars who are interested in particular mathematical habits - creative diagramming, structural mappings, material agency, interdisciplinary coverings - that shed light on both mathematics and other disciplines. Chapters are also relevant to social sciences and humanities scholars, as each offers philosophical insight into mathematics and how we might live mathematically.
 

Contents

Homotopy Type Theory and the Vertical Unity of Concepts
7
Michael Harris
144
Queering Mathematical Concepts
163
1o Mathematics Concepts in the News
177
Concepts and Commodities in Mathematical Learning
191
A Relational View of Mathematical Concepts
213
Cultural Concepts Concretely
225
Ideas as Species
239
Inhabiting Mathematical Concepts
253
David Pimm
270
Index
285
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About the author (2017)

Alf Coles' recently published Engaging in School Mathematics: Symbols and Experiences (2015) draws on more than twenty years of work as a teacher-researcher at both primary and secondary levels. He is on the executive committee of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics and is an active member of the Mathematics Education Special interest Group of the British Educational Research Association. His current interests include drawing his work in mathematics education into closer dialogue with issues of sustainability.

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