Publication 5724

This opening chapter provides an introduction to the book. It also introduces a theme that integrates many of the contributions from the remaining chapters: we adopt Kant’s perspective for merging rationalist and empiricist philosophies on the construction of knowledge. In particular, we focus attention on ways that biologically based abilities and experience in the world (coordinations of sensorimotor activity) each contribute to the construction of number. Additional themes arise within the content chapters and the commentaries on them.

Key words: embodied cognition, epistemology, numerical development, radical constructivism, sensorimotor activity.