The cognitive significance of the body has become one of the major topics in current psychology. However, it is our contention that claims about the embodied nature of thinking must come to terms with the problem of the relationship between the body as a locus for the constitution of students' subjective mathematical meanings and the historical cultural system of mathematical meanings conveyed by school instruction. Referring to episodes from a Grade 9 mathematics lesson, we here sketch a theoretical account of the aforementioned relationship that emphasizes the social and cultural nature of thinking and the cognitive role played by body, signs, and artifacts. (Contains 3 figures.) [For complete proceedings, see ED496851.]