Philosophical and Psychological Aspects of Constructivism

Abstract

Clifford Geertz (1983) speaks of “genre blurring” to refer to, among other things, the cross-fertilization of the social sciences and the humanities. In the process, the social sciences are giving up their long-held objective of patterning themselves after the physical sciences. This volume might be looked at as a case study of such genre blurring. Some of the contributors come from academic backgrounds other than mathematics and mathematics education. They include academics trained in psychology, philosophy, and classical studies. This diversity is reflected to some extent in the lack of overlap in the works each chapter references. But there is a stronger rationale for characterizing these chapters as cross-disciplinary: one finds within single chapters, references culled from a variety of disciplines. Although the authors come from and draw on diverse disciplines, they share a core perspective. This shared perspective is a species of constructivism.

For whatever may be said about the importance of aiming at depth rather than width in our studies, and however the demand of the present age may be for specialists, there will always be work, not only for those who build up particular sciences and write monographs on them, but for those who open up such communications between the different groups of builders as will facilitate a healthy interaction between them. James Clerk Maxwell (1878)