Essentially, conceptual embodiment is based on human perception and reflection. It
is a way of interacting with the physical world and perceiving the properties of
objects and, through thought experiments, to see the essence of these properties and
begin to verbalise them and organize them into coherent structures such as Euclidean
geometry. Proceptual symbolism arises first from our actions on objects (such as
counting, combining, taking away etc) that are symbolized as concepts (such as
number) and developed into symbolic structures of calculation and symbolic
manipulation through various stages of arithmetic, algebra, symbolic calculus, and so
on. Here symbols such as 4+3, x2 + 2x +1, ! sin x dx all dually represent processes
to be carried out (addition, evaluation, integration, etc) and the related concepts that
are constructed (sum, expression, integral, etc). Such symbols also may be
represented in different ways, for instance 4+3 is the same as 3+4 or even ‘1 less than
4+4’ which is ‘1 less than 8’ which is 7. This flexible use of symbols to represent
different processes for giving the same underlying concept is called a procept.
These two worlds of (conceptual) embodiment and (proceptual) symbolism
develop in parallel throughout school mathematics and provide a long-term framework
for the development of mathematical ideas throughout school and on to university,
where the
Figure 1. The three mental worlds of (conceptual) embodiment,
(proceptual) symbolism and (axiomatic) formalism
focus changes to the formal world of set-theoretic definition and formal proof.
In figure 1 we see an outline of the huge complication of school mathematics. On the left
is the development of conceptual embodiment from practical mathematics of physical
shapes to the platonic methods of Euclidean geometry. In parallel, there is a development
of symbolic mathematics through arithmetic, algebra, and so on, with the two
blending as embodiment is symbolized or symbolism is embodied.
The long-term development begins with the child’s perceptions and actions on the
physical world. In figure 1 the child is playing with a collection of objects: a circle, a
triangle, a square, and a rectangle. The child has two distinct options, one to focus on his
or her perception of each object, seeing and feeling their separate properties, the other is
through action on the objects, say by counting them: one, two, three, four.
The focus on perception, with vision assisted by touch and other senses to play with the
objects to discover their properties, leads to a growing sense of space and shape,
developing through the use of physical tools—ruler, compass, drawing pins, thread—
to enable the child to explore geometric ideas in two and three dimensions, and on to the
mental construction of a perfect platonic world of Euclidean geometry. The focus on
the essential qualities of points having location but no size, straight lines having no
width but arbitrary extensions and on to figures made up using these qualities leads
the human mind to construct mental entities with these essential properties. Platonism is
a natural long-term construction of the enquiring human mind.
Meanwhile, the focus on action, through counting, leads eventually to the concept of
number and the properties of arithmetic that benefit from blending embodiment and
symbolism, for example, ‘seeing’ that 2 x 3= 3 ! 2 by visualizing 2 rows of 3 objects
being the same as 3 columns of 2 objects. Long-term there is a development of
successive number systems, fractions, rationals, decimals, infinite decimals, real
numbers, complex numbers. (What seems to the experienced mathematician as a
steady extension of number systems is, for the growing child, a succession of changes of
meaning which need to be addressed in teaching. We return to this later.)
The symbolic world develops through whole number arithmetic, fractions, decimals,
algebra, functions, symbolic calculus, and so on, which are given an embodied
meaning through the number-line, Cartesian coordinates, graphs, visual calculus,
with aspects of the embodied world such as trigonometry being realized in symbolic
form. In the latter stages of secondary schooling, the learner will meet more
sophisticated concepts, such as symbolic matrix algebra and the introduction of the
limit concept, again represented in both embodied and symbolic form.
The fundamental change to the formal mathematics of Hilbert leads to an axiomatic
formalism based on set-theoretic definitions and formal proof, including axiomatic
geometry, axiomatic algebra, analysis, topology, etc.
Cognitive development works in different ways in embodiment, symbolism and
formalism (Figure 2). In the embodied world, the child is relating and operating with