Revista de Educação Pública
On-line version ISSN 2238-2097
Abstract
CLIMACO, Humberto and OTTE, Michael. Bernard Bolzano: conceptualism and intuition in mathematical education. R. Educ. Públ. [online]. 2010, vol.19, n.39, pp.165-180. ISSN 2238-2097.
Abstract Bolzano is known among historians of mathematics as “the father of arithmetization of mathematics” but his pedagogical and didactical efforts are little appreciated among educators of mathematics. Formal calculation and the intuitive approach are not so different as it might appear (and have jointly dominated mathematical thinking up to the 19th century), such that the real alternative to such limitations seems to be a thoroughly conceptual approach to mathematics. Such were Bolzano’s beliefs and the present paper tries explain that and make Bolzano’s approach fertile to mathematics education and to mathematical epistemology
Keywords : Bernard Bolzano; Intuition; Explanation; Conceptual Thinking; Mathematical Education.