ZDM Mathematics Education (2014) 46:1061–1072
DOI 10.1007/s11858-014-0584-0
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Mathematics and power: an alliance in the foundations
of mathematics and its teaching
David Kollosche
Accepted: 25 April 2014 / Published online: 15 May 2014
 FIZ Karlsruhe 2014
Abstract Following a genealogic approach, this paper
discusses how logic and calculation are linked to episte-
mology, spirituality and politics; how mathematics educa-
tion can be understood as an institution for a mathematical
enculturation; and how, therefore, mathematics education
necessarily (re)produces techniques of power which privi-
lege some children while disadvantaging others. This
approach criticises other critical studies on social dimen-
sions of mathematics education which argue that the social
dimensions are to be found in the application or teaching of
mathematics alone. Instead, mathematics itself has, since
its very beginning, been a knowledge which allows power,
represents a specific world view and serves the interests of
certain groups in society.
Keywords Logic
Calculation
Foucault

Socio-linguistics
1 Introduction
Research in mathematics education has shown that
achievement in the subject of mathematics depends on the
socio-economic background of the students (Zevenbergen
2000). Many approaches towards this phenomenon build
on the work of the socio-linguist Basil Bernstein who
investigated socio-economical influences on the usage of
language. Bernstein (1965/1971) concluded that the
working class and the middle class differ in the code of
language normally used. While the restricted code, the use
of which Bernstein associates with the working class,
D. Kollosche (&)
Universität Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: david.kollosche@uni-potsdam.de
builds on shared experiences and can be fully understood
only by a group of inaugurated people, the elaborated code,
associated with the middle class, uses universal modes of
order and explicitness. As an example, imagine a child
pointing at a cat and consider the different ways the child’s
mother might react: while the mother following a restricted
code might tell her child about the cat she had when she
was younger, about its look and character, the mother
following an elaborated code might remind the child of the
lions and tigers they saw in the zoo, how they are cats as
well, although big cats. So, while one code of communi-
cation emphasises personal experience, the other code
works with universal orders of knowledge. Bernstein points
out that no code is superior, as every code has a domain in
which it is most effective. However, it can be argued that
communication in school largely follows an elaborated
code, as teachers have an educated background, as students
and teachers do not usually share common non-school
experiences, and as schooling does not focus on the indi-
vidual experiences of its students but on the implementa-
tion of universal knowledge.
Cooper and Dunne (2000) showed that students’ success
in so-called real-world problems in mathematics education
depends on their socio-linguistic background. It proves to
be decisive whether or not the student is able to reduce the
real-world situation to mathematics. While students using a
restricted code of communication tend to take the real-
world situation too literally and are therefore hindered from
producing an answer which is legitimate in the mathe-
matics classroom, students following an elaborated code
tend to find it easier to neglect the richness of the described
situation, to reduce it to mathematics and to provide
acceptable answers. Wyndhamn and Säljö (1997), having
conducted a similar analysis, observed that these differ-
ences are not based on cognitive deficiencies of restricted
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speakers but on their different linguistic interpretations of
real-world problems.
Consequently, it can be argued that mathematisation fits
to the linguistic interest of elaborated communicators. This
hypothesis contradicts the popular opinion that mathemat-
ics in itself is egalitarian, value-free and un-ideological—
an opinion often criticised (e.g. by Bishop 2001). Even the
socio-critical researcher Ole Skovsmose (2011) regards
‘mathematics education as being undetermined’ and
‘without essence’, capable of serving ‘a grand variety of
social, political, and economic functions and interests’ (p.
2).
In contrast to that, I argue that even ‘pure’ mathematics
is not value-free and ‘without essence’, but is a body of
knowledge and techniques which has served the interests of
power from its very beginnings. To substantiate this claim,
I will develop a Foucaultian perspective on power,
knowledge and subjectivity which will serve as the theo-
retical background for an analysis of social dimensions of
logic and calculation in Western society—two aspects
(among others) taken as distinctive of Western
mathematics.
2 Foucault on society
The French philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault
dedicated his career to the understanding of the interaction
of power, knowledge and subjectivity in various fields of
society. As Foucault rejected basic convictions of modern
age philosophy, such as the belief that research necessarily
benefits society and can reveal any un-ideological ‘truth’,
he is often labelled a ‘post-modernist’. Instead of using
static terms that compose a logical order, he coined flexible
and ever-changing concepts that mutually affect each
other. For example, Foucault (1978/1991) argues against
the thought that power is a good that a person or a group
could possess. Instead, he seeks to understand power as the
control of technologies with which people’s actions,
thinking and feelings can be influenced. Depending on the
target of these technologies, Foucault (2011) differentiates
the government of the self from the government of others.
While the first form of government comprises technologies
with which the individual can control and influence its own
actions, thinking and feelings, the latter form of govern-
ment comprises technologies that allow the control of
others. Threatening a bus driver with dismissal if he does
not wear his driver’s uniform is an example of a technology
for the government of others, whereas steering a bus
requires certain technologies for the government of the self.
In Discipline and Punish (1977) Foucault focuses on a
special kind of technology which he calls disciplinary
technologies, that is, technologies for the government of
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D. Kollosche
others which themselves build on technologies for the
government of the self. For example, our bus driver might
be asked to be punctual, but the employer will not prescribe
any means of achieving this punctuality. Consequently, the
bus driver has to develop technologies for the government
of the self to ensure his punctuality. Foucault regards the
development and implementations of technologies for the
government of the self as an asceticism, in the course of
which the individual does not only learn to satisfy the
external requirements but constitutes his or her very own
existence in accordance with the external requirements.
Thus, the bus driver will not only be punctual at work, but
punctuality will become a part of his personality, and he
will be more likely to be punctual in his private life. Fur-
thermore, he might demand punctuality from others, as the
unpunctuality of others is a permanent temptation sub-
verting the efforts made to achieve his existence as a
punctual being.
Foucault concludes that the speciality of disciplinary
technologies is that they do not only work on, but
through the individual: the asceticism produces an indi-
vidual which has internalised the demands that originally
were not his or hers. In Foucault’s eyes, these disci-
plinary technologies show how power is not located in
certain individuals and groups and executed down from
the top, but woven through and executed by every
branch of society. The spread of these disciplinary
technologies allows the development of the modern state
and the government through institutions such as barracks,
factories, hospitals, asylums and schools.
Foucault’s gaze allows tracing power in the mechanisms
of the mathematics classroom, in the ways mathematics is
presented and worked with, in the mathematically suc-
cessful as well as in those failing. A Foucaultian approach
towards mathematics and its teaching might narrow down
to the following questions: What kind of asceticism is
required to precede mathematical thinking and what kind
of existence does it foster? What do the individual and
society lose and what do they gain by this asceticism? And
what technologies for the government of the self and of
others does mathematics allow?
In order to find answers to these questions, the fol-
lowing two sections will sketch genealogies of logic and
calculation. Genealogy is a method introduced by
Nietzsche and Foucault (1984), aiming at finding social
dimensions of phenomena that over time have become
familiar and natural. By looking at its genesis, genealogy
shows how a phenomenon had to fight for its place in
the world, which alternatives it competed with and
whose interests it served. Thus, power relationships
which by now have been settled come back to light and
allow for a discussion of social dimensions of the
phenomena.
Mathematics and power: an alliance in the foundations of mathematics and its teaching
3 The genesis and sociology of logic
Logic has been closely linked to mathematics since the
very beginning of philosophy. Although logic is a rich term
with many connotations, this paper will only discuss four
laws of thought which Scholasticism (e.g. Schopenhauer
1903, §33) has identified in the work of Aristotle. This
reduction does not mean to underestimate the many
divergent approaches towards the rules of thought and
argumentation which have been brought forward. How-
ever, these four laws of thought serve as a good example
for a genealogical analysis of logic
• as they constitute the basis of Aristotle’s logic,
especially for his influential analysis of syllogisms,
• as Aristotle incorporates earlier contributions to logic
and elaborates them in a systematic way,
• as, in spite of the many alternatives it competed against,
Aristotelian logic attracted most attention in Ancient
and later philosophy,
• as Euclid’s Elements, the first systematic compilation of
mathematical concepts, theorems and proofs, and the
reference for mathematics for two millennia, are
strongly influenced by Aristotelian logic (Wußing
2008, p. 191), and
• as these laws can be identified in the mathematics
classroom.
The four laws of thought are:
1. Law of identity. Everything stays the same, nothing
changes. The principle of identity can be read as the
rule to speak and think in a way in which everything
stays the same. The principle of identity provides our
speech and thought with concepts that are reliable in
the sense that they do not change their nature with the
speaker, the location or time. Already at the beginning
of the 6th century BC, Anaximander of Miletus,
probably a student of Thales, had argued for the
existence of something ‘infinite’ which is ‘indestruc-
tible’, ‘deathless’ and ‘imperishable’ (Aristotle, trans.
1930, 203b). Half a century later, Parmenides (trans.
2009) seized the idea, described it with similar
adjectives and called it truth.
2. Law of excluded middle. Everything is or is not; there
is no other way. The law of excluded middle restricts
our judgement to two categories, e.g. true and false,
and leaves no other option.
3. Law of excluded contradiction. Nothing is and is not at
once. The law of excluded contradiction demands a
decision between the categories. Together with the law
of excluded middle, it forces the statements of speech
and thought into an antagonism introduced by Parme-
nides: the antagonism of being and not being, of true
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and false, leaving no room for a state in between or
beyond the extremes.
4. Law of sufficient reason. Everything but one thing has
a reason and is defined by it. Distancing himself from
mythological thought, Anaximander claimed that
everything but one thing has a reason which is its
destiny (trans. 2007, p. 35). Therefore, he is often
considered the founder of scientific thought. The law
of sufficient reason is a method to decide over true or
false and provides a scheme with which to order ideas.
Elsewhere I have argued that the genesis of Aristotelian
logic shows a dialectics of power in a spiritual, in an
epistemological and in a political dimension (Kollosche
2013). After an elaboration of these dialectical dimensions,
I will discuss their relationships to power.
3.1 Logic and religion
Before the birth of philosophy and science, only myth
offered explanations of the world and its most alarming
phenomena: the fatal threat of age and disaster. Hesiod’s
Theogony and Homer’s epics describe the mythical world
of gods who personify death, hunger, storms, floods,
earthquakes, droughts and epidemics. These gods and the
phenomena they personify were understandable as they
were imagined as human-like creatures, who knew friends
and foes, intrigues and murder. The strongest influence on
the nature of gods was assumed to be their descent: it is
regarded as an unalterable trait, as a fate that cannot be
escaped. The myth allows for a comprehensive orientation
in the world; it is an early philosophy of nature. However,
this orientation was threatened as democracy developed.
The open discussions on the market place did not only
address politics but also philosophy, ethics and religion.
The development of trade in the Mediterranean imported
foreign beliefs, qualifying the convictions of the Ancient
Greeks. Wars destroyed political systems that had built on
the mythical cosmology. Thus, traditional convictions were
called into question, leading to a confusion of world views
(Vernant 1962/1982, p. 52). The ongoing collapse of reli-
gious beliefs as well as political and economical changes
led to an interest in a new and possibly safer set of
convictions.
However, Anaximander’s disengagement from myth is
only half-hearted. It is true that his world view goes
without supernatural beings. But, one the one hand, An-
aximander sticks to the idea of the fateful power of descent
as he claims that everything has a reason which is its
destiny. On the other hand, Anaximander still believes in
an ever-reliable existence, which he himself considers
‘divine’ (Anaximander, trans. 2007, p. 37). Parmenides, in
turn, presents his logic as a divine revelation. Calling the
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idea of the everlasting truth, he founds essentialist phi-
losophy, which imagines a world of imperishable truths
and dominates a large part of Antique and later philosophy
(Vernant 1962/1982, pp. 131f). In the reading of the Ger-
man philosopher Klaus Heinrich (1981/1987), the four
laws of thought that had developed with Anaximander and
Parmenides are an abstract derivative of the mythical
religion—a world view that preserves the ideas of descent
and the imperishable but avoids the debated existence of
the mythical gods. The spirituality of the laws of thoughts
consists of the belief in the imperishable which opposes the
threat of passing away and of the conviction that every-
thing is connected and determined by ancestry. The law of
identity is the imperative to belief in the imperishable. The
laws of excluded middle and excluded contradiction create
the need for a decision between being and not being,
between true and false. It is the mixtures and alternatives of
being and not being, becoming and passing away, that are
excluded. Therefore, Heinrich recognises early logic as a
doctrine of salvation: ‘‘‘Do not be afraid’’, for there is an
existence which is not affected by fate and death’ (1981/
1987, pp. 45f; my translation). Learning to think logically
proves to be an ascetic erection of technologies for the
government of the self which is directed against the dan-
gers of chaos and decay.
3.2 Logic and epistemology
Apart from the promise of salvation, the presented example
of logic offers a paradigm to order and explain the phe-
nomena of our world. Its rules are easy and familiar; they
provide a socially accepted ‘machinery of thought’—a
technology for the government of the self—which allows
thinking to approach complex fields on well-concerted
ways. This potent form of thinking is the answer to the
confusion caused by the collapse of traditional religious,
moral and political beliefs and it is the impetus of philos-
ophy. An illustration of the latter is Plato’s Socrates who,
in the dialogue with Theaetetus, stated that ‘suffering from
confusion shows that you are a philosopher, since confu-
sion is the only beginning of philosophy’ (Plato, trans.
1921, pp. 155f; incorporating the translation of Heinrich
1981/1987, p. 31). Radford (2008) points out that Plato-
nism can be understood as a reaction to social unsteadiness,
aiming at the restoration of stable social conditions (pp.
454–457).
The price for the extended range of thought is the lim-
itation of the thinkable. It is a main point in the Dialectic of
Enlightenment by Horkheimer and Adorno (1944/1997)
that logical thinking loses sight of everything that does not
fit into the antagonism of being and not being. Spinoza’s
logical ethics and the Tractatus of the young Wittgenstein,
who wanted to trace language back to logic, show the
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D. Kollosche
limits of logical thought. Historical and cultural alterna-
tives prove that logic in the form of the four laws presented
is not the only form of fruitful thinking. Homer’s epics
present meaning in analogies instead of logically ordered,
in colourful images that connect the phenomena and
emphasise commonalities. Even during the boom of early
logic, Greek philosophy knew critical schools such as the
one of Heraclitus, who confronts the belief in the imper-
ishable and true with the idea that everything is in flux and
nothing persists, that ‘one cannot step twice into the same
river’ (trans. 1979, p. 53). Even today, many indigenous
cultures understand and approach the world in a way which
is based on the ideas of flux and mixtures instead of on the
stasis of the unalterable and separated (Little Bear 2002).
3.3 Logic and politics
Aristotelian logic also has a political dimension; it is a tool
for public speech, a tool for convincing and discrediting.
Ancient Greek city states were usually governed by a
democratically organised military aristocracy. Politics was
performed on the market place, where orators had to win
majorities for their political campaigns. Politically power-
ful were those who performed best in convincing the
people and discrediting the opponents (Vernant 1962/1982,
pp. 46–68).
With his work, Aristotle wants to show ‘what we must
look for when refuting and establishing propositions’
(trans. 2006, §1). The question for truth and its origin, the
rejection of the indefinite and unsteady, the exposure of
inconsistencies, the installation of antagonistic options and
the demand to decide are technologies for the government
of others provided by philosophy. The teaching of these
technologies to the politically ambitious military aristoc-
racy provided an income for many philosophers and partly
explains their interest in logic.
3.4 Dialectics of logic
The genealogical analysis of the example of Aristotelian
logic shows its dialectical nature and allows for a com-
parison of the benefits and constraints it brings. At an
epistemological level, it has been pointed out that the laws
of thought expand the range of thinking while narrowing
down its focus. At a political level, early logic constitutes a
tool of power which allows a less violent form of gov-
ernment but is restricted to a few. Apart from that, the
dialectics of logic become visible on a religious level: the
belief in an imperishable truth might appease people who
fear changes, especially the passing away. The emotion-
ality with which Anaximander’s infinite and Parmenides’
truth is defended against any variation indicates a defence
of this pacification. Parmenides presents his logic explicitly
Mathematics and power: an alliance in the foundations of mathematics and its teaching
as the salvation from an insane form of thinking—a form
which ‘changes ways’, which ‘considers being and not
being the same and yet not the same’ and which believes in
‘becoming and passing away’. Parmenides’ poem com-
pares to a religious conversion using defamation and dic-
tation: those who think differently are said to be ‘double-
headed’, ‘helpless’, ‘erratic’, ‘drifting’, ‘deaf’ and ‘blind’,
‘lost in confused wonder’ and ‘unable to make decisions’
(Parmenides, trans. 2009, pp. 17–23; my translation). The
reader is told what to think and consider: to avoid the
dissidents and follow logic. This moralisation of thinking
with logical thinking as the good form and ‘double-headed’
thinking as the degenerate form, this opposition of reason
and insanity serves as the background for a disciplinary
technology whose message runs: Think logically! Con-
fronted with this demand, the individual can learn to think
logically or accept his or her exclusion from the group of
the ‘educated’.
The Frankfurt School points out that the belief in the
unalterable only appeases some people while it frightens
others. A world whose essence is invariant is a world that
people cannot contribute to, that cannot be affected and
must be endured. For Parmenides, humans are not the
measure of all things (as Protagoras claimed to point out
that everything is characterised by how we perceive and
use it) but things are by themselves, beyond any human
impact (Heinrich 1981/1987, pp. 32–42). Consequently, the
dead truths can only be approached in a quest for unveiling
their timeless mysteries. The dying Socrates believed in
that when he told Phaedo that ‘the philosopher desires
death’ which is the ultimate ‘separation of soul and body’
and frees the philosopher ‘from the dominion of bodily
pleasures and of the senses, which are always perturbing
his mental vision’ and hindering him ‘to behold the light of
truth’ (Plato, trans. 1892, pp. 64–65).
There is a touch of irony in the fact that logic cannot
justify its basic laws in argumentation but has to build on
myth and demand obedience. After his postulate of the law
of excluded contradiction, that is, that ‘it is impossible for
anyone to suppose that the same thing is and is not’, even
Aristotle scolds: ‘Some, indeed, demand to have the law
proved, but this is because they lack education; for it shows
lack of education not to know of what we should require
proof, and of what we should not’ (trans. 1933, p. 1006).
Logic and mathematics have been enormously influen-
tial for philosophy and science as we know it today. In the
age of Enlightenment, when science fought for its meaning
and place in society, logic and the empirical method were
the points of orientation and left a formative imprint on
modern thought. René Descartes was convinced of ‘the
great superiority in certitude of Arithmetic and Geometry
to other sciences’ and argued that ‘in our search for the
direct road towards truth we should busy ourselves with no
1065
object about which we cannot attain a certitude equal to
that of the demonstrations of Arithmetic and Geometry’
(Descartes 1684/1990, pp. 224f).
Mathematics is considered a prototype of science as it
can be more logical than any other science: its objects can
be alienated from our world as far as necessary to fit the
logical form and the validation of its assertions does not
need any experiments but relies on logical argumentation
alone. Mathematics ensures identity by strict definitions of
its objects, builds on antagonisms such as true and false and
believes in the determination by reasons as demonstrated in
the method of deduction. Even the foundational crisis of
mathematics, which was connected to the critique on the
idea of an unalterable truth, was silenced by David Hilbert
(1922) by installing mathematics as the science of pure
logical structures and negating all connections between
mathematics and the world we live in.
3.5 Logic, school mathematics and society
Logic as a technology of power enters school through
school mathematics. School mathematics does not only
import logic through its logically ordered contents, at least
in Germany its curricula (KMK 2003, 2012) also choose
those contents which show the power of logic while
excluding contents that could threaten its status. For
example, they exclude non-Euclidean geometry, paradoxes
of set theory or alternative logics, whereas they add cal-
culus and probability theory to the Euclidean core—con-
tents which demonstrate how even the infinite and chance
can be mastered by logic.
I argue that school mathematics tends to follow the law
of identity in allowing only one true and right answer,
excluding any variation, individual interpretation and
ambiguity. While further studies would be needed to
warrant this claim empirically, examples of a common
school book for the 7th grade of German high school
(Brückner 2008) might illustrate the thesis. In the book, we
find an overwhelming dominance of tasks that allow for
only one true and right answer and tasks that ask for the
‘truth content’ of statements or for a decision between ‘true
or false’. The fact that the authors provided a task in which
an algorithm ‘was applied wrongly’ with the emphatic title
‘Caution, mistake! Watch out!’ indicates how uncommon it
is that the mathematics school book provides something
else than ‘the truth’. This taboo of the alterability of
mathematics enables students to believe that school
mathematics is about true and right answers and that, in
general, every task that can be formulated mathematically
has a distinct solution. Anything that could lead students to
a different belief is excluded from this mathematics text-
book. Keitel (1979) points out that such a presentation of
mathematics prepares students to believe that mathematics
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is generally able to provide unique and unquestionable
answers for any question. This turns mathematics into a
tool of power with the help of which the public can be
convinced of originally questionable decisions.
The same school book presents the following text
without any further explanation, but with a sketch showing
a circle and a line of each type (p. 142; my translation):
Lines and circles can have different locational
relations.
Secant: a line that cuts a curve (g1)
Tangent: a line that touches a curve (g2)
Passant: a line that avoids a curve—the passing line
(g3)
Somebody not knowing these terms could rightly ask:
Can a tangent be a passant as it does not intersect but
passes the circle undamaged? Can a secant be a tangent,
that is, can you cut without touching? Only the reader
familiar with the idea of classification could know that it is
forbidden to place a line in more than one or in none of the
three categories and that the definition quoted above is
‘meant like that’. Expecting the excluded middle and the
excluded contradiction in the contents of mathematics is an
unspoken prerequisite for its understanding. Thus, mathe-
matics education does not only cultivate an unreflected and
politically problematic idea of truth which gives power to
those able to use mathematics; it also provides this power
unequally. Those who understand the latent order of
mathematics gain the possibility to perform well and
become confident in the use of mathematics while those
who do not understand its latent order are excluded from its
power. As Bernstein-based research in mathematics edu-
cation has shown (Gellert and Jablonka 2007), not talking
about the architecture of mathematics leaves a large part of
the students without any chance of understanding and
keeps the circle of mathematicians as exclusive as possible.
Considering the dialectical nature of logic, two ideal-
types of students in the mathematics classroom can be
constructed. Ideal-types, as discussed by the sociologist
Max Weber (1949), are theoretical constructs which
emphasise and subsume certain characteristics of a phe-
nomenon in order to create an object of study where
empirical data is missing. Here, one ideal-type is the stu-
dent who considers the idea of an unalterable truth com-
forting, who understands and uses the logical organisation
of thinking and arguing and who is able to argue more
convincingly than others. This type has the possibilities to
be successful in the mathematics classroom and might be
reassured by his success. The other ideal-type is the student
who is disturbed by the inapproachability of the unalter-
able, who is not able or not willing to think and argue
logically and who cannot defend his or her own interests in
debates which accept logical arguments only. This type
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D. Kollosche
lacks the possibilities to be successful in the mathematics
classroom. In the consequence of repeating failure, this
type can preserve its dignity only by abandoning mathe-
matics, leaving the power of mathematics to others.
This mechanism—a disciplinary technology in the
Foucaultian sense—would separate a logically emanci-
pated elite from its docile subjects. It would determine how
mathematics is perceived and how people react to it. In
consequence of this mechanism, mathematics can be
understood as an instrument of power which is trusted by
the majority of people and whose rationale is no longer
questioned.
3.6 Logic and power
The genealogy of the four principles of Aristotelian logic
shows that logic has from its very beginning served the
interests of power. Indeed, it can be argued that logic was a
reaction to the problems of the ruling class. The need for
new convictions, more potent rules of thought and tech-
niques for public debate arose from developments in trade,
war and democracy that were primarily supported by the
ruling class, for it was not the peasants or slaves that
imported alternative beliefs, reformed political systems or
publicly discussed issues of religion and ethics. In an
epistemological dimension, logic allows sense-making in
the upcoming philosophy. However, it was only the ruling
class which was wealthy enough to pursue a leisure activity
such as philosophy. In a political dimension, it shows that
logic was a technology for public speech. As it had to be
learned in expensive philosophical schools, this technology
was not equally distributed, but was in the hand of the
wealthy ruling class. Eventually, it can be argued that only
the ruling class profited from logic directly. Apparently,
other parts of society hardly had any contact with logic,
and if they did, it was directed against them, rejecting what
they believed, how they made sense of the world and how
they wanted to participate in political processes.
Considering the actuality of the dialectics of logic, it has
to be taken into consideration that these laws of logic are
widely consolidated and accepted in the contemporary
Western society whereas in ancient Greek they had to be
defended against alternatives. Yet, it can hardly be claimed
that the example of Aristotelian logic does not affect our
age: on the one hand, the Aristotelian principles of logic
are still underlying contemporary logic; on the other hand,
the fear of passing away, decision making in democracy
and the organisation and validation of knowledge are still
challenging our culture. Therefore, it is not surprising if the
abovementioned logical techniques for government can be
found in research, politics and other public debates of our
time. Especially mathematics, as the best example for
logical reasoning and depending on it like no other science,
Mathematics and power: an alliance in the foundations of mathematics and its teaching
imports both the dialects of logic and its social implica-
tions. Incorporating logic, mathematics represents a form
of thinking and speaking which provides powerful tech-
niques for the government of others.
4 The genesis and sociology of calculation
Solving calculation tasks, that is, tasks which can be solved
following prescribed rules for the manipulation of terms of
numbers and variables, is a common student activity in
mathematics classes. Skovsmose (2005) estimates that
every student has to solve about 10,000 calculation tasks
during the school career and asks for the social conse-
quences of these activities (pp. 11f):
If we look back again at the 10,000 commandments,
what do they look like? Certainly, not like any of
those tasks with which applied mathematics occupies
itself, tasks in which creativity is needed to construct
a model of a selected piece of reality. Nor do they
look like anything a working mathematician is doing.
However, they might have some similarities with
those routine tasks, which are found everywhere in
production and administration.
Skovsmose’s thoughts indicate a link between calcula-
tive and routine practices in production and administration,
which can be understood as another social dimension of
mathematics. In order to gain a sociological access to
calculation, I conduct an analysis from the perspective of
Weber (1921/1947), who discusses routine practices in
bureaucratic administration.
4.1 The joint development of bureaucracy
and calculation
Contemporary theories of bureaucracy are still based on the
work of Weber, who is considered one of the founders of
sociology. Weber described an ideal-type of bureaucracy
which is well summarised by Robert K. Merton (1949,
p. 151):
A formal, rationally organized social structure
involves clearly defined patterns of activity […]. In
such an organization there is integrated a series of
offices, of hierarchized statuses, in which inhere a
number of obligations and privileges closely defined
by limited and specific rules. Each of these offices
contains an area of imputed competence and
responsibility. Authority, the power of control which
derives from an acknowledged status, inheres in the
office and not in the particular person who performs
the official role. Official action ordinarily occurs
1067
within the framework of pre-existing rules of the
organization. The system of prescribed relations
between the various offices involves a considerable
degree of formality and clearly defined social dis-
tance between the occupants of these positions.
Although Weber considers the rise of bureaucracy a
modern phenomenon and contrasts it with patrimonial
forms of administration, which were typical for pre-modern
monarchies, he acknowledges that some of its social and
economic preconditions (such as the economic need for an
effective, professional and centralised administration or the
development of monetary economy) existed before, leading
to historical forms of administrations with bureaucratic
traits. He explicitly mentions the New Kingdom of Egypt,
the late Roman Principate and the absolute monarchies of
early modern Europe (Weber 1972, pp. 556, 560).
It is striking that our records of the development of
calculation date back to the very same places and eras. In
Sybille Krämer’s history of formalisation (1988), which
builds on and extends the work of Jacob Klein (1992), the
outstanding contributors to that development are the
Egyptians at the beginning of the New Kingdom, Dio-
phantus at the time of the late Roman Principate and Vieta
when monarchy began its change towards absolutism. In
spite of their enormous contributions to philosophy, the
(decentrally administered) ancient Greeks considered cal-
culation unworthy of a scientific discussion. It took only
200 years and the emergence of strict philosophical logic
to have many contributions of Pythagoras, a mathematician
interested in calculation and said to be influenced by the
Orient, excluded from the corpus of mathematics, most
notably from Euclid’s Elements (Krämer 1988, pp. 30–31).
Egyptians documented their extensive mathematical
techniques in a collection of application tasks and solu-
tions. The Egyptian ‘aha-calculus’ is the earliest record of
the use of variables; it documents the transfer of algorithms
from numbers to signs. Different from our use today, the
Egyptian variable could only stand for a specific, yet
unknown, number. It could be used in expressions such as
4 ? h = 15, but not in expressions which describe rela-
tions of values such as a ? b = b ? a. The variable was
always connected to a certain number, its placeholder; and
initially this was the only reason to treat it as a number
(Krämer 1988, pp. 25–26). Greek algebra separated values
from their contexts of application and linked them to
geometry. While expressions such as a ? b = b ? a could
now be interpreted as an apposition of line segments, the
use of algebra and variables was constrained by the
necessity of its geometrical interpretation (Krämer 1988,
pp. 32–33). Five centuries after Euclid, Diophantus
emerged as the enfant terrible of classical mathematics: he
added lengths and areas, introduced symbols for operations
123
1068
and facilitated a formal notation for terms and equations.
Nevertheless, he still considered variables the mere
placeholder of a fixed number. Thus, he was unable to
present universal algorithms and had to document his
techniques in examples of tasks and solutions (Krämer
1988, pp. 36–39). This did not change until Vieta devel-
oped his algebra. Vieta was the first to consider variables as
autonomous entities, independent from any numbers they
might represent and defined only by their rules of
calculation:
Algebra is no longer calculation with unknown
numbers. Instead, it can be conceived as a calculation
with characters, i.e. with ‘undetermined’ symbols
which can represent all possible numbers that—
substituted into a given equation—form a right
expression […] This is how the mathematical formula
came into the world. (Krämer 1988, p. 61; my
translation)
4.2 A bureaucratic style of thought
The joint development of calculation and bureaucracy
merely indicates a connection between both. The further
analysis will identify a common style of thought that cal-
culation and bureaucracy share. The genealogical analysis
lays its focus on historical events of change and conflict. In
our case, we spot the biggest changes around 1,600, when
Vieta’s algebra becomes influential and the rise of
bureaucracy allows absolutism to develop. In his Order of
Things (1966/1970), Foucault identifies a strong change in
the episteme, that is, the way people perceive and make
sense of the world, in the years around 1,600. Until the end
of the Renaissance, thought is dominated by the principle
of resemblance—a relationship considered to be unbreak-
able. Signs are ‘thought to have been placed upon things so
that men might be able to uncover their secrets, their nature
or their virtues’ (p. 59). Signs resemble the represented,
literature resembles truth, variables resemble numbers and
money is made of valuable materials. In contrast to that,
signs gain their independence in the seventeenth century.
Suddenly, they are considered arbitrary constructs and
require legitimisation. Consequently, science begins to
discuss the criteria for the significance of symbols, leading
to the appreciation of calculation and the evolution of
formal logic. From then on, symbols are interrelated by
their logical order and their measure (pp. 71–76).
In his history of Algebra, Klein (1936/1992) argues that
while ‘in Greek science, concepts are formed in continual
dependence on ‘‘natural’’, prescientific experience, from
which the scientific concept is ‘‘abstracted’’’, in modern
science ‘nothing but the internal connection of all the
concepts, their mutual relatedness, their subordination to
123
D. Kollosche
the total edifice of science, determines for each of them a
univocal sense’. He recognises that ‘the nature of the
modification which the mathematical science of the six-
teenth and seventeenth century brings about […] is exem-
plary for the total design of human knowledge in later
times’ (pp. 120f). From that perspective, modern calcula-
tion is not only an example of the new episteme, since it
uses autonomous symbols; it is also a condition of the
possibility of the modern episteme, for it constitutes a
method to interrelate autonomous symbols. Accordingly,
Klein points out that the new form of calculation is not a
mere ‘device’ of science but predefines the form, for
example the possibilities and restrictions, of scientific
understanding (pp. 3–4).
The modern episteme is a prerequisite of bureaucracy,
too, for it builds on the dissolution of resemblance and the
installation of symbolic practices. Bureaucracy has the
purpose to provide predictable and equitable, that is, non-
arbitrary, forms of administration. For that reason,
administrative acts are bound by ‘a consistent system of
abstract rules which have normally been intentionally
established’ (Weber 1921/1947, p. 330) instead of resem-
bling any natural, traditional or divine law. Within this
system of rules, officials act in a ‘spirit of formalistic
impersonality’, ‘without hatred or passion’, ‘without
affection or enthusiasm’; ‘everyone in the same empirical
situation’ has to be treated equally and the official is not
allowed any ‘personal considerations’ (p. 340). According
to this, obligations, administrative means and authority are
linked to positions, which are abstract symbols within the
system of rules and do not resemble any natural person;
positions are only ‘held’ by persons (p. 330). Bureaucracy
follows the principle of impersonality by negating the
individuality of the official and the client, their hope, fear,
anger, gratitude, concern and doubt.
Calculation embodies a similar style of thought. Firstly,
calculation is used for non-arbitrary, that is, ‘objective’,
predictions. The German berechenbar means calculable as
well as predictable. Secondly, calculation works along a
system of abstract rules that are culturally established and
that the individual has to conform to. Thirdly, this system
of rules demands ‘formalistic impersonality’, as calculation
operates by its rules alone. This formalism disregards any
‘personal considerations’ of the calculating individual just
as it disregards those of the official. On top of this, the
variables of each calculation also have to be manipulated
‘impersonally’, that is, without any regard for what they
might stand for. Every situation is only perceived in the
boundaries of the pre-defined cases, that is, cases that rules
(for calculation or administration) exist for. It is this sep-
aration of sign and represented, of case and individual, of
variable and number in the modern episteme that allows
both bureaucracy and calculation as we know it today.
Mathematics and power: an alliance in the foundations of mathematics and its teaching
Calculation is not a mere tool of bureaucratic administra-
tion, but is in itself a technique for the ‘de-humanised’
(Weber 1972, p. 563) processing of situations. Therefore,
calculation is not an ‘undetermined’ technique that can
‘serve a grand variety of social, political, and economic
functions and interests’ (Skovsmose 2011, p. 2); it is a
technique which resembles a style of thought that is
bureaucratic.
4.3 Calculation and bureaucracy in the classroom
Merton (1949) acknowledges that bureaucracy has to exert
‘a constant pressure upon the official to be methodical,
prudent, disciplined’. It must attain ‘an unusual degree of
conformity with prescribed patterns of action’ in order to
fulfil its purpose (p. 154). Accordingly, Weber (1972)
states that the bureaucratic style of thought requires
‘specialised training’ (p. 552). Therefore, embodying a
bureaucratic style of thought may be considered an ascetic
act of the individual. Bureaucratic administration utilises a
disciplinary technology in exerting the ‘constant pressure
upon the official to be methodical, prudent, disciplined’; it
drives the official to become a bureaucratic being.
Weber (1972) explains the growth of general education
in modern times with the need for preparatory training and
selection (p. 577). Mathematics education in particular has
historically developed alongside the cultivation of
bureaucracy, incorporating calculation which has been
shown to share a common style of thought. Solving cal-
culation tasks is a prescribed activity with abstract sym-
bols, following prescribed rules. Compared to any other
tasks used in school, only calculation tasks cannot be
solved without a bureaucratic style of thought: there is
usually no other accepted solution to a calculation task than
the development or application of a rule-bound and
impersonal algorithm, for any other solution would subvert
its status as a task of calculation. The experience of these
ever-repeating challenges causes the student to adapt. On
the one hand, she may be able and willing to cultivate a
bureaucratic style of thought. This would allow the student
to perform well (at least as long as mathematics education
incorporates calculation to a large extent) and experience
herself as a successful learner. On the other hand, the
student may be either unable or unwilling to cultivate a
bureaucratic style of thought. This would leave her with
ever-repeating failure in calculation tasks. In the case of
such a trauma, the only adaptation securing the student’s
dignity is to escape from the humiliating situations. As a
physical escape is not tolerated, it has to be performed
mentally: the student ‘learns’ that mathematics is ‘nothing
for her’.
Paul Dowling (1998) describes mechanisms of mathe-
matics education which he calls ‘myths’. He is especially
1069
interested in so-called real-world problems, in which
problems formulated in situations of the real world are
interpreted and solved by calculation. The myth of refer-
ence is a mechanism which makes students think that
calculation is a universal tool capable of solving any real-
world problem. Dowling states and exemplifies that many
‘real-world problems’ build on situations which would not
be solved mathematically in everyday life (pp. 4–7). In
addition to that, the mathematics classroom does not usu-
ally present any real-world problems that cannot be solved
mathematically. Therefore, school mathematics provides
experiences which foster the belief that mathematics can be
reasonably applied to solve any problem of the real world.
Taking into consideration that most of these real-world
problems are based on or result in calculation, we see that
real-world problems function as a mechanism to install
calculation as an omnipotent means of perceiving and
handling our world.
Dowling’s myth of participation refers to a mechanism
which fosters the belief that students will need mathematics
to succeed in their everyday life outside school (1998,
pp. 7–11). Real-world problems are often student-oriented,
that is, they build on situations that are close to the expe-
riences of students, although the mathematics involved
would usually not be used to solve such problems in the
real world. Their latent message is: Look at these examples
from your everyday life and see how calculation is needed
to manage them! That is how school mathematics provides
experiences which foster the belief that the students need
mathematics, and especially calculation, to cope with their
everyday life outside school.
Both mechanisms bear the possibility of intensifying the
experiences students have with calculation tasks. On the
one hand, those succeeding in calculation may be happy to
master the seemingly omnipotent and even privately rele-
vant, de-humanised, rule-bound approach towards our
world. On the other hand, those failing in calculation may
explain their failure with their own incompetence rather
than with insufficiencies of the calculation method as the
latter is believed to be omnipotent. Nevertheless, they may
believe that calculation is important for their life outside
school. In the end, they might come to think that they lack
the ability to handle the mathematics necessary for a ful-
filled life and feel compelled to lay their trust in mathe-
matical experts. In the consequence of this mechanism, a
function (although not an intended goal) of school mathe-
matics would be not only to separate an elite from the
unable and unwilling, but also to make the latter appreciate
their subordination.
As bureaucracy and calculation share a common style of
thought, performance in calculation indicates whether or
not students are suited for administrative positions: whe-
ther or not they can reduce situations to cases and
123
1070
mathematical models, and whether or not they can handle
these cases and models according to imposed rules disre-
garding their personal thoughts and feelings; whether or
not they can separate from themselves an administrative or
calculative processor of rules. But school mathematics also
educates in the sense that it produces situations in which
students cultivate their relationships towards calculation.
Whether or not, or rather how far, this experience affects
the student’s relationship towards bureaucracy is hard to
tell. It seems at least natural that the estrangement from
calculation to some extent coheres with an estrangement
from any practices sharing a similar style of thought,
especially from bureaucratic ones. Therefore, school
mathematics can be considered an institution which
(alongside other functions) identifies and trains a calcula-
tory-bureaucratic elite and teaches the rest to subordinate to
the calculatory-bureaucratic administration of our society.
4.4 Calculation and power
Calculation and bureaucracy—just as logic—prove to be a
technology of government which serves the interests of
power. Weber (1972) points out that the bureaucratic form
stands against a patrimonial form of administration—a
form that is based on personal relationship, descent and
wealth. Bureaucracy is installed to administer a state on the
basis of equality and predictability (pp. 567–576). As a
technology of government, it is directed against the arbi-
trariness of the patrimonial office and serves the interests of
those groups of societies who are legally underprivileged,
such as the bourgeoisie in early modernity.
Besides this political dimension, bureaucratic adminis-
tration also has an economic function. Weber (1972)
describes bureaucracy as the most economically effective
form of administration (pp. 561–566). Therefore, bureau-
cracy is an economical factor for those who have economic
interests. These might be nobles and politicians ruling a
state as well as players of big business. The availability and
application of a bureaucratic administration allows maxi-
mising profits and constitutes an economic resource.
Calculation serves the maintenance of bureaucracy in a
twofold sense. Firstly, it serves as an environment for the
ascetics of a person as it demands the understanding of and
obedience to rules and the ignoring of his or her individ-
uality. However, these ascetics are mental prerequisites for
bureaucratic administration as well. Consequently, calcu-
lation in school can be regarded as a preparation for
bureaucratic practices in later life. Secondly, calculation
serves as a technology within the bureaucratic adminis-
tration itself—a technology which, due to its mental kin-
ship, is able to meet the requirements of the bureaucratic
administration. Eventually, it can be argued that calculation
in school prepares the use of bureaucracy both mentally
123
D. Kollosche
and technically, and that this use serves the interests of
those in charge of political and economic power.
5 Conclusion
Beyond all issues of application and teaching, mathematics
proves to be political. Two characteristic aspects of
mathematics have been analysed, and it has been shown
how both logic and calculation serve as technologies for
the government of others. These technologies empower
those groups of society that have control over them, that is,
those who are able and willing to think and speak logically
and act bureaucratically. Consequently, it is not surprising
that mathematics tends to serve as a role model in all these
dimensions, that it is said to be saner to believe in than in
gods, to be an outstanding example of good reason, to train
the mind to find the ‘right’ arguments and to be non-arbi-
trary and objective. However, others who lack control over
these technologies are subject to them and excluded from
their power.
In modernity, the compulsory school has developed
alongside the establishment of modern institutions such as
research and bureaucratic administration. Social changes
led to new forms of gaining knowledge and administration,
and people had to be prepared to accept and integrate into
these institutions. As has been pointed out, mathematics
classes can be regarded as one of the central institutions in
which people are introduced into these new forms of
existence. Success in mathematics classes depends on the
mastery of logical and bureaucratic thought.
In spite of that, it is unsure to what extent this mastery
can be acquired in the mathematics classroom. Bernstein-
based research in mathematics education shows that the
socio-lingual background of students influences their pos-
sibilities of succeeding in mathematics classes. Although
until now we lack any research linking the socio-lingual
background to the mastery of logic and calculation, it may
already be assumed that students whose social environment
has integrated logical and bureaucratic norms into their
codes of communication have easier access to the activities
of mathematics classes. Then, mathematics classes may be
considered not only as an institution for the logical and
bureaucratic qualification of students, but also as an insti-
tution which allows a selection among these students on the
basis of their mastery of logic and calculation. As far as
this mastery is influenced by their socio-linguistic back-
ground and as far as school does not provide equal
opportunities for a logical and bureaucratic qualification,
this mechanism would lead to the production of a techno-
cratically educated class.
In Foucaultian terms, it is true that mathematics pro-
vides a set of empowering technologies for the government
Mathematics and power: an alliance in the foundations of mathematics and its teaching
of others, but not all students have the same access to these
technologies. As has been discussed already, the ascetics of
the individual can point into two ideal–typical directions.
On the one hand, the student might be successful in
mathematics, figure out its mechanisms and use it in his or
her own interest; on the other hand, compulsory mathe-
matics education might provide the student with a long-
lasting and ever-returning experience of failure and dis-
ability, as the student might not be able or willing to think
mathematically. It has been pointed out that the inability or
unwillingness to think mathematically is not necessarily an
intellectual deficiency, but can be understood as the effect
of a different and yet valid world view. However, the
constant experience of failure and disability produced in
the mathematics classroom might result in a mental
avoidance of mathematics—a form of ascetics that does not
please the mathematics educator but helps those who want
to exert power through mathematics. It is through these
characteristics which are inseparably linked to mathematics
and its education and show in the mathematics classroom
that—independent of any pedagogical good will—mathe-
matics and its education necessarily plays an important role
in the (re)production of contemporary techniques of power.
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