Reverberations of Wittgenstein’s philosophy on mathematical education

Resumo

The present text aims at elucidating the possible contributions resulting from Wittgenstein’s philosophy, in its second phase, so as to allow us to consider some of the propositions presented to Mathematics Education. First of all, we shall start by emphasizing the importance of the conceptions of rationality and language developed by the Austrian philosopher in the sense of our questioning of the academic mathematic claim for universality, then, on a further moment, we move on to analyze one of its implications for School Mathematics Education. In a specific way, on the second part of the text, making use of the theoretical tools provided by the work of the second Wittgenstein, we problematize the deep-rooted truth spread in the educational discourse which states the need to take into account and starting point, the student’s reality in the classroom as a way to attribute meaning to school mathematics. We claim here that such enterprise is impossible, by arguing that the language games of school mathematics and those which constitute the social practices, in spite of having family similarities among them, are, in fact, different, and the “passage” from a language game, pertaining to a certain form of life, into another, would not guarantee the permanence of meaning. Rather, it suggests its transformation.