April 26, 2012

“When I met Piaget my passion for understanding mathematics came together with my desire to know how the mind works and to create a theory of intelligence. Plaget fascinated me because he managed in the same breath to say something both about the nature of mathematics and issues fun­damental to philosophy and at the same time discuss how children think about math­ematics. This is amazing, and it ‘s an aspect of Piaget that is totally unappreciated by his American followers. They see him as purely a psychologist, not as a philosopher and epistemologist [one who studies knowl­edge]. They don’t know anything about fun­damental mathematical issues and don’t think they are important.”

Papert, S. (1985). Interview. Omni Magazine. October 1985. pp. 98-104, 160.

For years I had a terrible 53rd generation photocopy of this article. So, when I recently found a copy of the October 1985 issue of Omni Magazine for sale on eBay, I snapped it up and scanned it for academic purposes. That’s right, there was a major feature-length interview of Seymour Papert in a magazine owned by Bob Guccione!

Read the complete interview (PDF)

 

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