“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!
