Abrahamson, D. (2021). Enactivist how? Rethinking metaphorizing as imaginary constraints projected on sensorimotor interaction dynamics.

Constructivist Foundations, 16(3), 275-278.

ABSTRACT: Welcoming their scholarly focus on metaphorizing, I critique Díaz- Rojas, Soto-Andrade and Videla-Reyes’s selection of the hypothetical constructs “conceptual metaphor” and “enactive metaphor” as guiding the epistemological positioning, educational design, and analytic interpretation of interactive mathematics education purporting to operationalize enactivist theory of cognition – both these constructs, I argue, are incompatible with enactivism. Instead, I draw on ecological dynamics to promote a view of metaphors as projected constraints on action, and I explain how mathematical concepts can be grounded in perceptual reorganization of motor coordination. I end with a note on how metaphors may take us astray and why that, too, is worthwhile.

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