UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES – CEBU

College of Social Sciences

Master of Education Program
S.Y. 2019 – 2020

Arela Jane D. Tumulak M.Ed Mathematics February 29, 2020 EDSC 221 (1:00 PM – 5:00 PM)

REACTION PAPER FOR THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY

Rejecting Platonism: Recovering Humanity in Mathematics Education
Frederick Peck
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA
Philosophy is the queen of all sciences. The underlying foundations of Mathematics lies also in philosophy. This is why taking
philosophy class is one of the basic courses when taking any tertiary course as it explains the nature and phenomena of a certain field or
science. However, philosophy in Mathematics was not properly presented during those times. It was not comprehensively presented but
rather it was taken as something one should learn in time. It is maybe one of the reasons why Mathematics teachers do not have an in-
depth understanding of the nature of mathematics. The article has made me realized about the substantial purpose of philosophy in
Mathematics. When one has fully grasped the fundamentals of Mathematics, it would greatly help in developing fully and holistically
developed Math educators.
Now in the article, it stated a dominant philosophy in Mathematics which he named Platonic-formalist as it is forming an axis
of the Platonic ideals and formalist philosophy. The article started in a question, that is “Is mathematics invented or discovered?”. In
which I have immediately answered that mathematics is discovered. I believe that Mathematics exists even before humans arrived. As
what as it has stated in Platonic philosophy, mathematics just sits out there and waiting to be discovered. In which, in the advancement
of society, humans have coincidentally encountered Mathematics in the midst. Like the Platonic ideals, Mathematics exists
independently with time and space.
It is quite difficult for me to accept the arguments made by the author since he was questioning the preexisting and majorly
accepted notions on philosophy in Mathematics. The arguments of the author regarding the philosophy of Mathematics is
unconventional. Mathematics is a hidden gem in the universe in which humans have meant to discover and make sense of it. Through
making sense of these notions, life on Earth and universe is less complex and easier to comprehend. It explains the activities made by
humans and not the other way around as what the author tries to argue. Numbers have pre-existed before time until humans made it
general and symbolic. The concepts, theories, definitions, and formulas used today by the society is a result of the constant unearthing
of humans of the foundations of the universe.
There was one movie entitled “The Man Who Knew Infinity” which tells the story of the self-taught Indian mathematician
named, Ramanujan. Ramanujan worked hard to meet his daily needs and his family through working on menial jobs. While working on
this menial jobs, his heads noticed his abilities in Math and gave him the accounting tasks. He failed out in college but he was determined
to pursue his passion in Math so he contacted a professor in Trinity College who invited him to go there and study. He willingly accepted
the offer and left his wife and mother. Ramanujan worked hard to finish his writings while being in Cambridge. He experienced racism,
war and later on, he found out that he has tuberculosis. The professor who helped him to enter the college also helped him publishing
on a major journal and gave him a high honor in the school. He went back home to see his wife and mother and died. Ramanujan is an
example that Mathematics is meant to be discovered. He was just working on menial jobs but how could he write his writings excellently
and accurately. Maybe he had Math book he have read on but the writings he has written still had no significant applications in life by
the time of his writing. It was only years later that his writings were made into use in real-life.
However, as the article goes on and how the author wrote his arguments, it made curious on how can he argue that Mathematics
is not discovered. This is a great storm breaker for the believers of “Mathematics is discovered”. The idea that Mathematics is a result
of continuous human activity is contradictory to the predefined and pre-presented ideas. I can agree that there are notions in Mathematics
which were proven and accepted through a standardized protocol which follows some conditions. These conditions were created by
humans in order to have an objective standard for new notions in Math. This is where I turn out to be agreeing with the author regarding
his idea that Mathematics is a product of human activities. It was humans who discovered and made notions in Math into sensible terms
and it was also humans who accepted them. Before a new notion is accepted, humans convene and agree upon if the presented new
notion will be able to satisfy and validate the preexisting notions in Mathematics. It is quite a thought that everything we know about
Math was established by people. They have chosen the truths for us and we just accepted and used them willingly. Nevertheless, each
concept has undergone tedious process before they were declared as valid. However, thinking that a number line can also be number
wheel has astounded me. This could mean that the truth of one does not falsify the other. Both can exist true at the same time which
contradicts the idea of Platonic-formalism. Just like language is dynamic and changing, mathematics has also a tendency to change since
it is a result of social interaction and this human activity is unsteady. Through human activities, people have discovered and met new
concepts which may or may not be related Math. It is true that Math is encountered first through human activities and its highly advancing
society. When the human race does not still have the symbols for numbers, each place in the world follows their own symbolic form. It
was only years after that the current numbers are the agreed upon symbolic forms. The article has also highlighted the immense influence
of the Western math has affected our Mathematics today.
This article tells us that through the Platonic-formalist philosophy, it has limited the ideas of the teachers on their instructions.
The class is focused in lecture and other same teaching technique since teachers see rules as already laid out and could not be easily
manipulated or innovated. On the other hand, the author’s argument tells us that there are many ways to approach the teaching-learning
process of Math. Through his results, the author suggests math educators to perceive math as a result of human activity. In this way,
math education is seen as active, cultural, historical, critical and social. The goal of the article is simple. It is to encourage people,
especially our students to see math not as a formal and rigid subject but a subject that is seen as something that should be actively
experienced in our daily lives as a human and society.