The articulation of symbol and mediation in mathematics education ¹

In this paper we include topics which we consider are relevant building blocks to design a theory of mathematics education. In doing so, we introduce a pretheory consisting of a set of interdisciplinary ideas which lead to an understanding of what occurs in the "central nervous system" - our metaphor for the classroom and eventually in more global settings. In particular we highlight the crucial role of representations, symbols viewed from an evolutionary perspective and mathematics as symbolic technology in which representations are embedded and executable.