Scholarly studies of mathematics and the sciences, carried out by philos­ ophers and historians in Taiwan in recent years, have two main goals: first, positive and critical participation in the logical analysis of scientific theories and scientific explanation; and second, conceptual clarification joined with faithful historical investigation of the sciences of traditional and modem China. In this book, Professors Cheng-hung Lin and Daiwie Fu have gathered fine representative essays from both endeavors. Their two introductory discussions guide the reader in three ways. First, we have insightful remarks concerning the development of science studies in Taiwan during the past three decades. Then we see the place of such studies, particularly those in the logic and methodology of science, in the philosophy of science as that discipline has evolved in the West in recent years. Finally we have an account of the changes that have occurred among philosophers and historians of Chinese science as they have turned away from an assump­ tion of Western definitions of scientific achievement, a tum that is common to Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese and Western scholars.

Inhalt

Editorial Preface; R. Cohen. Introduction; Cheng-Hung Lin, Daiwie Fu. Part I: Philosophy of Science. 1. On the Analytic and the Synthetic; Shih-Chao liu. 2. Solutions to the Paradoxes of Confirmation, Goodman's Paradox, and Two New Theories of Confirmation; Chao-Tien Lin. 3. Hempel on Inductive Shortcoming in Craigian Method; Cheng-Hung Lin. 4. Confirmation Logic and Its Applications; Chao-Tien Lin. 5. Popper's Logical Analysis of Basic Statement; Cheng-Huan Lin. 6. Translation, Interpretation and Incommensurability; Wan-Chuang Fang. 7. The Evolution of Science: Theoretic Recombination as a Selection Process; Fu Chang. 8. Eliminative Materialism and Connectionism; Yu-Houng Houng. Part II: Conceptual History of Science. 1. Problem Domain, Taxonomy, and Comparativity in Histories of Science; Daiwie Fu. 2. From One Gnomon to Two Gnomons; a Methodological Study of the Method of Double Difference; Ko-Wei Lih. 3. Chinese Mathematics at the Turn of the 19th Century: Jiao Xun, Wang Lai, and Li Rui; Wann-Sheng Horng. 4. Bao Qi-Shou and his Polyhedral Hun Yuan Tu; Ko-Wei Lih. 5. The Development of Geology in Republican China, 1912-1937; Tsui-Hua Yang. 6. Local Contexts, Strategies and Sinicization -- a Case Study of the Sinicization Formulation in Social Sciences of Taiwan (1970s-80s); Daiwie Fu.