Author R. Scott-Hodgetts

At successive meetings of the British Society for Research in Learning Mathematics in 1988/89, we initiated discussion about the nature of ‘radical constructivism’ as a theory of knowledge and its possible implications first for the working mathematician, and then for mathematics education. We proposed that the radical statement of constructivism does not deny the existence of the real world, but makes it similar to an undecidable statement. Recognising that attitudes to the nature of mathematics affect working mathematicians, including teachers, we summarise the discussion here, quote from some interviews, and propose that this position potentially empowers one to engage mathematically with the world around.