A STUDY OF THE WORK MATEMÁTICA LÚDICA (EX LUDIS RERUM MATHEMATICARUM) BY LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI (1404 – 1472) IN THE LIGHT OF THE THEORY OF OBJECTIFICATION
History of Mathematics; Matemática Lúdica; Theory of Objectification; Mathematics teacher training.
The present paper presents partial results of an investigation involving the work Matemática Lúdica (Ex ludis Rerum Mathematicarum), probably written in 1450 by the Italian polymath Leon Battista Alberti at the request of Prince Meliaduse d'Este of the Court of Ferrara in Italy. Based on this historical document, we seek, through the history of mathematics, to find ways to help mathematics teachers understand the historical, social, and cultural nature of mathematics, and to encourage new reflections about mathematical knowledge. As our research is within the scope of mathematics education with a focus on teacher education, we chose to adopt, from the study of the historical document, the Objectivation Theory (OT) as a theoretical and methodological reference. TO is an educational theory of the sociocultural current, with a strong semiotic approach, which focuses on the problems of teaching and learning mathematics and, to this end, is inspired by Friedrich Hegel's dialectics, the dialectical-materialistic philosophy of Karl Marx and Evald Ilienkov, the historical-cultural psychological school of Lev Vygotsky and his collaborators, and Paulo Freire's conception of education. In this theory, mathematics education is not seen as the search for efficient pedagogical methods to transmit mathematical knowledge to students. TO conceives mathematics education as a social, cultural, political, and historical practice that aims at the "creation" of ethical subjects, capable of reflecting critically and mathematically about the problems of their community and the world.