Numerical Cognition and the Epistemology of Arithmetic

Numerical Cognition and the Epistemology of Arithmetic
Author: Markus Pantsar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2024-03-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 100946888X

The first book-length philosophical account of arithmetical knowledge that is based on the state-of-the-art empirical studies of numerical cognition.

Dual-Process Theories of Numerical Cognition

Dual-Process Theories of Numerical Cognition
Author: Mario Graziano
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2018-08-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319967975

This book presents a philosophical interpretation to numerical cognition based on dual process theories and heuristics. It shows how investigations in cognitive science can shed light on issues traditionally raised by philosophers of mathematics. The analysis will also help readers to better understand the relationship between current neuroscientific research and the philosophical reflection on mathematics. The author seeks to explain the acquisition of mathematical concepts. To accomplish this, he needs to answer two questions. How can the concepts of approximate numerosity become an object of thought that is so accessible to our consciousness? How are these concepts refined and specified in such a way as to become numbers? Unfortunately, there is currently no model that can truly demonstrate the role of language in the development of numerical skills starting from approximate pre-verbal skills. However, the author details a solution to this problem: dual process theories. It is an approach widely used by theorists focusing on reasoning, decision making, social cognition, and consciousness. Here, he applies this approach to the studies on mathematical knowledge. He details the results brought about by psychological and neuroscientific studies conducted on numerical cognition by key neuroscientists. In the process, he develops the foundations of a new, potential philosophical explanation on mathematical knowledge.

Naturalizing Logico-Mathematical Knowledge

Naturalizing Logico-Mathematical Knowledge
Author: Sorin Bangu
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2018-02-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1351998447

This book is meant as a part of the larger contemporary philosophical project of naturalizing logico-mathematical knowledge, and addresses the key question that motivates most of the work in this field: What is philosophically relevant about the nature of logico-mathematical knowledge in recent research in psychology and cognitive science? The question about this distinctive kind of knowledge is rooted in Plato’s dialogues, and virtually all major philosophers have expressed interest in it. The essays in this collection tackle this important philosophical query from the perspective of the modern sciences of cognition, namely cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Naturalizing Logico-Mathematical Knowledge contributes to consolidating a new, emerging direction in the philosophy of mathematics, which, while keeping the traditional concerns of this sub-discipline in sight, aims to engage with them in a scientifically-informed manner. A subsequent aim is to signal the philosophers’ willingness to enter into a fruitful dialogue with the community of cognitive scientists and psychologists by examining their methods and interpretive strategies.

Oxford Handbook of Numerical Cognition

Oxford Handbook of Numerical Cognition
Author: Roi Kadosh
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 1217
Release: 2015-07-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0191036005

How do we understand numbers? Do animals and babies have numerical abilities? Why do some people fail to grasp numbers, and how we can improve numerical understanding? Numbers are vital to so many areas of life: in science, economics, sports, education, and many aspects of everyday life from infancy onwards. Numerical cognition is a vibrant area that brings together scientists from different and diverse research areas (e.g., neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, anthropology, education, and neuroscience) using different methodological approaches (e.g., behavioral studies of healthy children and adults and of patients; electrophysiology and brain imaging studies in humans; single-cell neurophysiology in non-human primates, habituation studies in human infants and animals, and computer modeling). While the study of numerical cognition had been relatively neglected for a long time, during the last decade there has been an explosion of studies and new findings. This has resulted in an enormous advance in our understanding of the neural and cognitive mechanisms of numerical cognition. In addition, there has recently been increasing interest and concern about pupils' mathematical achievement in many countries, resulting in attempts to use research to guide mathematics instruction in schools, and to develop interventions for children with mathematical difficulties. This handbook brings together the different research areas that make up the field of numerical cognition in one comprehensive and authoritative volume. The chapters provide a broad and extensive review that is written in an accessible form for scholars and students, as well as educationalists, clinicians, and policy makers. The book covers the most important aspects of research on numerical cognition from the areas of development psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and rehabilitation, learning disabilities, human and animal cognition and neuroscience, computational modeling, education and individual differences, and philosophy. Containing more than 60 chapters by leading specialists in their fields, the Oxford Handbook of Numerical Cognition is a state-of-the-art review of the current literature.

Visual Thinking in Mathematics

Visual Thinking in Mathematics
Author: Marcus Giaquinto
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2007-07-05
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0199285942

Drawing from philosophical work on the nature of concepts and from empirical studies of visual perception, mental imagery, and numerical cognition, Giaquinto explores a major source of our grasp of mathematics, using examples from basic geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and real analysis.

Numerical Cognition

Numerical Cognition
Author: Stanislas Dehaene
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Total Pages: 209
Release: 1993-01-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9781557864444

What computations do our brains perform when we complete a simple addition task such as adding two and three to make five? How do numerical abilities develop through infancy? Is language a prerequisite for numeracy, or can animals as well as human beings calculate with numbers? Ever since Plato, the mental representation of number and the psychological and neurobiological bases of mathematical abilities in general have been the focus of philosophical and scientific speculation. Recently, new methods in cognitive and developmental psychology, neuropsychology, and animal behavior research have permitted the experimental exploration of old questions. Numerical Cognition constitutes the first comprehensive and up-to-date overview of an emerging field, and points out future directions for researchers to take. An introductory chapter offers an overview of the problem and then focuses on the critical relationship between number and language and on evidence for nonlinguistic representations of number. Subsequent chapters trace the fascinating parallels between human and animal representations of number, probe the meanings of the disintegration of numerical abilities following brain damage, and analyze unusual forms of visuo-spatial number representations first discovered by Sir John Galton more than a century ago. The editor and authors of Numerical Cognition have performed a signal service for students and researchers in cognitive science, neuropsychology, and mathematics, indeed, for everyone interested in the nature of mathematics and its relation to mind and brain.

Abstraction and Representation

Abstraction and Representation
Author: Peter Damerow
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2013-06-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 9401586241

This book deals with the development of thinking under different cultural conditions, focusing on the evolution of mathematical thinking in the history of science and education. Starting from Piaget's genetic epistemology, it provides a conceptual framework for describing and explaining the development of cognition by reflective abstractions from systems of actions.

Reckonings

Reckonings
Author: Stephen Chrisomalis
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2020-12-15
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 026236087X

Insights from the history of numerical notation suggest that how humans write numbers is an active choice involving cognitive and social factors. Over the past 5,000 years, more than 100 methods of numerical notation--distinct ways of writing numbers--have been developed and used by specific communities. Most of these are barely known today; where they are known, they are often derided as cognitively cumbersome and outdated. In Reckonings, Stephen Chrisomalis considers how humans past and present use numerals, reinterpreting historical and archaeological representations of numerical notation and exploring the implications of why we write numbers with figures rather than words.

Visual Thinking in Mathematics

Visual Thinking in Mathematics
Author: Marcus Giaquinto
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2007-07-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019153661X

Visual thinking - visual imagination or perception of diagrams and symbol arrays, and mental operations on them - is omnipresent in mathematics. Is this visual thinking merely a psychological aid, facilitating grasp of what is gathered by other means? Or does it also have epistemological functions, as a means of discovery, understanding, and even proof? By examining the many kinds of visual representation in mathematics and the diverse ways in which they are used, Marcus Giaquinto argues that visual thinking in mathematics is rarely just a superfluous aid; it usually has epistemological value, often as a means of discovery. Drawing from philosophical work on the nature of concepts and from empirical studies of visual perception, mental imagery, and numerical cognition, Giaquinto explores a major source of our grasp of mathematics, using examples from basic geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and real analysis. He shows how we can discern abstract general truths by means of specific images, how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, and how visual means can help us grasp abstract structures. Visual Thinking in Mathematics reopens the investigation of earlier thinkers from Plato to Kant into the nature and epistemology of an individual's basic mathematical beliefs and abilities, in the new light shed by the maturing cognitive sciences. Clear and concise throughout, it will appeal to scholars and students of philosophy, mathematics, and psychology, as well as anyone with an interest in mathematical thinking.