The stakes of movement: A dynamic approach to mathematical thinking

Abstract

Standard approaches to thinking in the mathematics curriculum depict it as the result of some stable constructions in the mind of the person, constructions that are the results of individual efforts in the mind of subjects or of collective efforts that are then appropriated by and into the mind of individuals. Such work does not appreciate what Vygotsky actually said about thought: that it is one part of a self-moving flow that relates to another part, speaking, without that one can be reduced to the other or the whole. Grounded in the works of Châtelet, Badiou and others, we exhibit the movement of thinking in a case study of graphing. In our account, there is a primacy of the Saying and drawing over their traces, the Said and the graph.