Mathematical modelling. A philosophy of science perspective

Abstract

Since research on mathematical modelling in the classroom is rather not directly related to philosophical findings on models in sciences, this chapter links the (analytical) philosophy of science and mathematics education research. In the following, the question of what influence the philosophy of science might have on the discourse about modelling in mathematics education research will be explored. To this end, ontological and epistemological questions about the status of mathematics in its relation to reality will be considered. In particular, this chapter questions the separation between mathematics and reality or the “rest of the world”, which is often found in mathematics education research on modelling, against the background of the syntactic and the semantic view of models and theories. It is argued that the syntactic view more accurately captures the connection between mathematics and reality by distinguishing between theoretical and observational terms of a theory. Moreover, the distinction provides a tool to analyse students’ utterances more precisely.