A phenomenological look at the issue of context in Mathematical Investigation in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Inspired by Husserl's phenomenology, in this essay, I intend to open up the question of the context of Mathematical Investigation in Mathematics Education. In it, I engage in theoretical-philosophical thinking that, articulated and expressed, can illuminate understandings and contribute to researchers and teachers involved in this theme, giving meaning to their work. As it was revealed to me, context can be understood as a text expressed by language that carries a multiplicity of meanings that make it possible to grasp the meaning of what is expressed in it and that opens up to other meanings, always in the man-world fusion. However, the meanings are not governed only by the writing of the text, because the meanings are revealed as perceptive acts of the person who experiences the event, contextualized by them. In Mathematical Investigation, in turn, this text is structured with a linguistic system that contains signs representing mathematics to state the underlying situations (tasks). As a student-task-world dialectic is established in the flow of time experienced when dealing with Mathematical Investigation in the classroom, the meaning of mathematics is revealed and understood from different perspectives and modalities in a perceptual field that has as its backdrop the mathematics itself.

Keywords
Philosophy of Mathematics Education; Phenomenology; Rehearsal; Teaching Mathematics