Abstraction and Representation

The book deals with the development of thinking under different cultural conditions, focusing on the evolution of mathematical thinking in the history of science and education. History of science is concerned with the acquisition, accumulation and structuring of knowledge. It is therefore intimately linked to psychological and epistemological questions. This dimension of the history of science, however, has been widely neglected by historians of science. The book compensates for this neglect by combining the study of cognition, education and historical development of thinking. Starting from Piaget's genetic epistemology, it provides a conceptual framework for describing and explaining the development of cognition by reflective abstractions from systems of actions. Cognitive psychology is confronted with philosophical and pedagogical traditions, and applied to various topics in the history of thinking, in particular to the development of the number concept in children and in early history (pre-literate cultures and early civilizations).