TY - JOUR
T1 - Mathematizing as a virtuous practice
T2 - different narratives and their consequences for mathematics education and society
AU - Kant, Deborah
AU - Sarikaya, Deniz
N1 - Funding Information: The first author is thankful for the financial support within the Forcing Project by the Volkswagen Foundation. The second author is thankful for the financial and ideal support of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Claussen-Simon-Stiftung. Both authors are thankful to the Projekt DEAL for enabling open access. They are very thankful for the advice of the Guest-Editors and reviewers, who offered both detailed points and feedback for the overarching theme of the paper. They also received helpful comments by Ozan Altan Altinok, Neil Barton, Balthasar Grabmayr, Lukas Lang, Sophie Nagler, Hannah Pillin, Mira Sarikaya, Clemens Wladimir Wetcholowsky and the participants of the colloquium of Ulrich Gähde. The paper looked much worse before the incorporation of these points. The views stated here are not necessarily the views of the supporting organizations and people mentioned in this acknowledgement. Publisher Copyright: © 2020, The Author(s). Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - There are different narratives on mathematics as part of our world, some of which are more appropriate than others. Such narratives might be of the form ‘Mathematics is useful’, ‘Mathematics is beautiful’, or ‘Mathematicians aim at theorem-credit’. These narratives play a crucial role in mathematics education and in society as they are influencing people’s willingness to engage with the subject or the way they interpret mathematical results in relation to real-world questions; the latter yielding important normative considerations. Our strategy is to frame current narratives of mathematics from a virtue-theoretic perspective. We identify the practice of mathematizing, put forward by Freudenthal’s ‘Realistic mathematics education’, as virtuous and use it to evaluate different narratives. We show that this can help to render the narratives more adequately, and to provide implications for societal organization.
AB - There are different narratives on mathematics as part of our world, some of which are more appropriate than others. Such narratives might be of the form ‘Mathematics is useful’, ‘Mathematics is beautiful’, or ‘Mathematicians aim at theorem-credit’. These narratives play a crucial role in mathematics education and in society as they are influencing people’s willingness to engage with the subject or the way they interpret mathematical results in relation to real-world questions; the latter yielding important normative considerations. Our strategy is to frame current narratives of mathematics from a virtue-theoretic perspective. We identify the practice of mathematizing, put forward by Freudenthal’s ‘Realistic mathematics education’, as virtuous and use it to evaluate different narratives. We show that this can help to render the narratives more adequately, and to provide implications for societal organization.
U2 - 10.1007/s11229-020-02939-y
DO - 10.1007/s11229-020-02939-y
M3 - Zeitschriftenaufsätze
SN - 0039-7857
VL - 199
SP - 3405
EP - 3429
JO - Synthese
JF - Synthese
IS - 1-2
ER -
