Home – Home – Jornals – "Philosophy of Education" 2026 number 3

Introduction. The article is devoted to substantiating the concept of the mathematical picture of the world as a structure of understanding formed in the educational process. The relevance of the study is associated with the gap between the formal acquisition of mathematical procedures and the meaningful understanding of mathematical content, when a student is able to perform algorithms but does not perceive mathematical objects as a system of relations, dependencies, and regularities. Methodological foundations. The study is based on the analysis of scientific literature and the comparison of approaches to the problem of understanding in mathematics education. Special attention is paid to clarifying the concept of the mathematical picture of the world as a way of describing the structure of the subject’s experience. The theoretical basis of the study is formed by ideas from phenomenology, philosophy of education, philosophy of mind, and cultural-historical theory. To describe the transition from formal assimilation of mathematical content to its meaningful understanding, the notions of the structure of experience, the structure of understanding, worldview, meaningfulness, and experience are employed. Discussion. It is shown that existing approaches to the analysis of understanding mathematics describe particular aspects of the acquisition of concepts, procedures, and problem-solving methods, but do not fully explain how mathematical content becomes included in the structure of the subject’s experience and becomes meaningful. The article proposes an interpretation of the mathematical picture of the world as a structure of distinctions, relations, and interpretations. It is argued that understanding mathematics can be represented as a transition from an everyday way of organizing experience to a mathematical one. Perezhivanie is considered as a condition that initiates the transformation of the structure of understanding and the transition from the external acquisition of content to its internal meaningfulness. Conclusion. It is argued that understanding mathematical content is connected not only with the acquisition of knowledge and methods of action, but also with the transformation of the structure of the subject’s experience. The introduction of the concept of the mathematical picture of the world makes it possible to describe the transition from the formal performance of mathematical procedures to meaningful understanding as a process of changing the distinctions, relations, and interpretations through which the subject perceives and interprets reality.