On Mathematical Ways of Knowing

Abstract

Humanistic mathematics is a perspective on mathematics that emphasizes the ways our species creates, interacts with, and lives through it. I summarized this idea elsewhere (see [13]) by asserting that mathematics is the way our species makes sense of this world and that it is inherent in our thinking machinery; our mathematics in turn is dependent on the way we view our universe and ourselves. Lakoff and Núñez [17] argue carefully and eloquently for a mathematics inherently based on human cognition.Cognition is "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses" (see Wikipedia). In this note I attempt to engage with the construct of mathematical cognition through the lens of humanistic mathematics.