Vrinda Dalm iya & Xinyan Jiang, Co-Editors Spring 2002 Volum e 01, Num ber 2 APA NEWSLETTER ON The Status of Asian/Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies WORDS FROM EDITORS Vrinda Dalmiya and Xinyan Jiang To a large extent this issue of our Newsle tte r is about breaking ste reotypes and boundarie s. We would like to unde rscore tha t Asia ns ha ve w orke d on m uch m ore tha n Asia n o r com para tive philosophy––on logic , e th ics, e piste m ology, m e taphysics, phenom enology, philosophy of language , postcolonial and fem inist theory; and that Asian philosophy, in turn, can be deeply m e taphysical, epistem ological, e thical, phenom enological or post-colonial. Without pre tensions of exhaustiveness, what we attem pt to present he re is a sam ple of this wide philosophical spectrum . The issue consists of three parts. One part focuses on the con tribu tions o f som e ph ilosophe rs w ho ha ppe n to be "Asians" and "Asian Am e ricans" while anothe r introduce s s o m e o f th e re c e n t b o o ks w ritte n b y th e m . Bu t th e philosophers whose works are featured he re have ve ry little in com m on. The y m ight not e ve n w ant to se lf-ide ntify as "Asians" at a ll. A se lf-re flective m om ent on the fragm ented and am biguous configurations of an Asian identity thus seem s to be in orde r. We begin with David Kim 's rum inations on the invisibility of Asian Am ericans in philosophy which brings in ye t anothe r laye r of signification to the concept as a m arke r for identity. We since re ly thank all our contributors. The Committee on the Status of Asian & Asian-American Philosphers and Philosophies Chair: Xinyan Jiang (2002) Me mbe rs : Douglas Allan (2004) Yoko Arisaka (2002 Vrinda Dalm iya (2002) Yong Huang (2004) Craig Ke i Ihara (2003) David Haekwon Kim (2003) (Term s expire June 30 of the year in parentheses) PART I: ON IDENTITY As ia n Am erica n Philo s o p hers : Ab s ence, Politics, and Identity David Haekwon Kim This essay considers som e aspects of Asian Am erican identity through a critical re flection of why the re are virtually no Asian Am e ricans in philosophy. So I addre ss a m atte r of som e im portance to the APA, nam ely the historical absence of Asian Am erican philosophers, and show how som e of the factors involved are precise ly the sort that configures contem porary Asian Am erican identity. Absence I would wager that m ost philosophers of Asian descent in the APA are Asian inte rnational scholars visiting or re siding in the U.S.1 Their growing presence in Am erican universities is hardly surprising given the present vita lity of trans-Pacific tie s, and the ir participation is so m uch to the good on a num ber of d iffe re n t fro n ts , in c lu d in g e th n ic , n a tio n a l, ra c ia l, a n d philosophical dive rsity. It is a m yste ry, however, that the APA has so few Asian Am erican philosophe rs, those who se lfidentify as such in virtue of be ing "hom egrown", having roots in, say, Phillie , Chicago, L.A., Frisco, or NY, instead of, say, Tokyo, Be ijing, Bom bay, Manila , Saigon, or Seoul.2 Though I cannot ye t be ce rta in, m y sense is that the re are fewer than 20 such philosophers affilia ted with the APA. If this e stim ate is ro u gh ly c o rre c t, th e n As ia n Am e ric a n s c o n s titu te a pe rcentage of the m em bership bare ly m ore than ze ro. Som e philosophy departm ents are large r! So in spite of the fact that Asian Am ericans com prise a sm all proportion of the ove rall popula tion, the re has got to be som e explanation of the ir virtua l non-ex istence in the p rofe ssion . Th is a bse nce is dram atically m ore conspicuous in light of two furthe r points. First, conside r the subse t of the ove rall populace that is m ost im m e d ia te ly re le va n t fo r th e d e ve lopm e n t o f th e philosophical profession, nam ely college students. In m any state and e lite universities, Asian Am ericans have a num erical presence that far exceeds the ir representation in the gene ral p o p u la c e . In so m e Ca lifo rn ia s ta te sc h o o ls , th e y e ve n approach or exceed 50% of the student body, which is why a school like UCI (i.e . U. of California , Irvine ) has been dubbed the "Unive rsity of Chinese Im m igrants" and UCLA (i.e . U. of California , Los Ange les) the "Unive rsity of Caucasians Lost am ong Asians.3 - APA New sletter, Spring 2002, Volum e 01, Num ber 2 - - 26 - A SIAN/A SIAN A M ERICAN Se cond, othe r the ore tica lly abstract d iscipline s in the hum anitie s have atta ined a critical m ass of Asian Am erican schola rs suffic ie nt for critica l re fle c tion on the colle c tive experience of Asian Am ericans. In the fie ld of Asian Am erican Studies, which se rves as a m ee ting ground for such scholars, som e of the m ost outstanding the ore tica l w ork has be e n produced by lite rary critics.4 So Asian Am ericans do have a pre se nce in cu ltu re -m a king/a sse ssing, the ore tica lly rich disciplines – just not in philosophy. Consequently, a substantia l recruitm ent base has been supplied by the large Asian Am erican presence in universities, and ne ighboring d isc ipline s have a lre ady be e n re la tive ly successful in recruitm ent and re tention. And so I ask again: Why are the re a lm ost no Asian Am ericans in philosophy? I think this question is not only fa ir; it is im portant since the re a re n o w o n ly a h a n d fu l m o re Asia n Am e ric a n s in o u r profession than the re were som e 150 years ago when Asian Am erican caree rs were m ore or le ss confined to sugar cane farm ing and railroad construction. Politics I think the prevailing explanation of the absence com bines som e facts about dem ographics and som e conjectures about culture : The few Asian Am ericans that m ight ente r philosophy end up pursuing m ore lucrative jobs pushed on them by the ir im m igrant parents (e .g. law and m edicine ) or jobs that do not re q u ire c o m p le te En glish flu e n c y ( e .g. b u s in e s s a n d enginee ring). Now, I don't re ject these conside rations. Many students, I'm sure , have longed to pursue a m ajor and even graduate work in philosophy but fe lt com pe lled in the end to choose a m ore "practical" caree r path. I question, however, the sufficiency of the explanation as it is applied to Asian Am erican students as a collective . Specifically, it suffe rs from being wholly apolitical. Nothing in it recognizes the distinctive se t of racialized conditions faced by Asians in the U.S. It re lie s on a conception of im m igrant com m unitie s m eant to apply equally we ll to, say, Irish or Ita lians of an earlie r point in U.S. history. Ce rta in ly, Irish and Ita lian Am e ricans of pre vious gene rations did expe rience a great deal of discrim ination. Unlike Chinese and Filipino im m igrant com m unities, however, they were eventually re lieved of it by be ing absorbed into the racial class of white pe rsons, and in som e local contexts, this inclusion was of a piece with the exclusion of Asians.5 Moreover, only Asians were subjected for m any decades to explicitly racialized im m igration blockades (e .g. the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882), which were not entire ly rem oved until as la te as 1965. This m eans that Asian Am erica did not m erely expand in virtue of recent im m igration6; it did because its m em bers were prom oted , and only recently, from the lower rungs of a hum an or citizen hie rarchy. Finally, in regards to em igration site s, Norway was not invaded and brought under "benevolent assim ilation", nor a tom ic bom bs dropped on a racialized Venice and Rom e , nor napalm showered on the racialized outskirts of Dublin.7 Noting the se d isparitie s is suffic ie nt, I th ink, to invite conside ration of explicitly political factors in the absence of Asian Am ericans in the APA.8 It would be utte rly rem arkable if powerful racializing forces perm eated virtually every aspect of Asian Am erican participation in the body politic except the academ y. One of the prim ary ideologies that unde rgirds the division in im m igra tion history and pe rsists to th is day is orientalism . Crude ly, this is the idea that Asians are le ss than fully hum an or le ss than fully acceptable m em bers of the national com m unity in virtue of possessing ce rtain of a cluste r o f tra its : be ing a lie n , in sc ru ta b le , ina ssim ila b le , e xo tic , em asculated or hype r-fem inine , se rvile , and so on – and all these , we m ight add, in that "oriental sort of way". Som e aspects of this ideology m ay sound antiquated – e specially re fe rences to "Orientals", "hindoos", and "Asiatic hordes" – but it has m aintained an active presence in the U.S.9 Witness, for exam ple , the racialized characte r of the DNC's cam paign finance scandal, the incarce ration of Wen Ho Lee , and the e ruption of anti-Asian sentim ent in the wake of the U.S. spy plane incide nt on Hainan Island .10 In fac t, a 2001 surve y, conducted prior to the spy plane incident, on Am erican views of Asian Am e ricans ge ne ra lly and Chine se Am e ricans in pa rticu la r re ve a ls tha t 68% of re sponde n ts sta te d som e m easure of dislike toward Chinese Am ericans, and of that 68%, 25% had "ve ry negative" attitudes towards them . And 24% of re spondents disapproved of m arriage with an Asian Am erican, a pe rcentage surpassed only by African Am ericans (at 34%). Interestingly, the survey also reveals that respondents w h o o p p o s e m in o rity le a d e rs h ip w e re th e m o s t "uncom fortable" with the idea of an Asian Am erican, ove r any othe r m inority group representative , as President of the U.S., a CEO of a Fortune 500 com pany, and a supe rvisor a t work.11 Identity The se conside ra tions sugge st tha t in spite of the pe culiar valuing of the "Asian inte llect" or "Asian work e thic" in recent decades, the re are othe r significant realm s of evaluation in w h ic h As ia n Am e ric a n s c o n tin u e to u n d e rgo id e n tity d e roga tion . For e xa m ple , Asia n Am e rica n stud e n ts a nd professors m ight be viewed as lacking the sort of nuanced social sensitivity crucial for rich and hum ane analyses of hum an nature and socie ty; as lacking the social graces or gene rosity of spirit that facilita te s easy rapport and intim ate friendships; as lacking the inte llectual push or vivacity to exce l beyond an ord ina ry com pe te nce or m e re sm artne ss; a s lacking the dia le ctica l te nacity (e .g. "stickin' to your guns") to be an e n ga gin g in te rloc u to r; a s la c kin g th e c h a rism a to le a d e ffective ly in the classroom , and so on and so forth. Now, the re is a pe rfectly gene ric sense in which pe rsons of any grou p m igh t b e d e e m e d la c kin g in c o lle gia lity, loya lty, inte llectual character, teaching ability, leadership, and the like. My point, however, is that in virtue of orientalism , pe rceptions of Asian and Asian Am erican students and philosophers m ay be m ore easily distorted in these ways and that such distortions will be norm alized and, hence , le ss easily de tected. The se struc ture s of de roga tion – and aga in the y a re continuous with anti-Asian processes working at large – are com pounded by an array of secondary phenom ena. First, m any white Am ericans lack conceptual articulacy about Asia, Asian Am e ricans, and anti-Asian racism and racia liza tion processes. Far be tte r known, com parative ly speaking, are the conditions faced by black Am ericans. So if such an individual also happens to be racist, then the problem of ignorance is ram ifie d: he doe s not know tha t he doe s not know what Asian Am ericans are like . Second, m any Asian Am ericans, in contrast, do have an articulate grasp of m uch that I have described above . As a re sult, it is often not so m uch Confucianist re se rve or shyness that explains a student's be ing quie t, but he r be ing wary of a - The Status of Asian/Asian Am erican Philosophers and Philosophies - - 27 - AS IA N/ AS IA N AM ER IC AN profe ssor o r a TA tha t e vide nce s ra c ism , insists upon a Euroce ntric curriculum , or, w hat is not exactly the sam e , reveals a ce rta in clue le ssness about anti-Asian racism and Eurocentrism .12 It is worth noting he re that these first two points reveal a racially bifurcated access to knowledge and m eta-knowledge about Asian Am ericans. Phenom enologically, this epistem ic diffe rence m ay seem like a w all of w hite incom prehension , w h ich , w e m ust be ca re fu l to no te , is no t the sa m e a s confronting white anim osity. The anim osity, however, is always a live possibility when the w all is challenged, for one is not then be ing a "nice Asian." Third, there is a lack of Asian Am erican m entors that m ight he lp gu ide Asian Am e rican stude nts a long the pa th of a philosophy care e r. And of course th is is a se lf-re plica ting phenom enon since the absence of Asian Am erican m entors m ay he lp to ensure the absence of Asian Am erican graduate stude nts and, he nce , he lp m ainta in the abse nce of Asian Am erican m entors. Fourth, philosophical thought that re flects Asian and Asian Am erican concerns is routinely ignored in the profession. Asian philosophy is re legated to a secondary sta tus, and is typically taught in re ligion departm ents.13 And philosophy of the Asian Am e rican e xpe rie nce (w e m igh t ca ll it "Asian Am e rican ph ilo sophy") is virtua lly non -e xis te n t a nd w ill like ly be m arginalized in the way that African Am erican philosophy currently is. Toge ther, these form a face t of what som e African Am erican philosophe rs have been calling the "conceptual whiteness of philosophy."14 In light of these secondary phenom ena, Asian Am ericans in te re ste d in philosophy w ill pote ntia lly conte nd w ith , in addition to the agent racism described earlie r, a wall of white incom prehension, a lack of Asian Am erican m entors, and the de rogation of philosophical thought that re sonate s with the ir identity. I think we can now see , if it wasn't a lready obvious, th a t fa c to rs b e yon d th e e xige n c ie s o f im m igra tion a n d language acquisition m ust be conside red in explaining the absence of "hom egrown" Asian philosophers. We m ust be a tte n tive to p o litic a l id e n tity ge n e ra te d b y o rie n ta lis t ide ntifica tion practice s and to the se condary phe nom e na described. I conclude with one last consideration in this ve in. Earlie r, I noted that Asians and Asian Am ericans can be devalued in spite of the accolades given to the "Asian inte llect" and "Asian work e thic". This valuing of Asian Am erican academ ic and econom ic success often issues from the idea that Asians are a "m ode l m inority", be tte r not only than othe r non-white s but, in som e re spects, white s as we ll. In Asian Am erican Studies, this idea is called the "m ode l m inority m yth" and has been rightly denounced on a num ber of grounds. Pe rhaps the m ost insidious feature of this m yth is its political function: it placates As ia n Am e ric a n s , p re ve n ts th e ir so lid a rity w ith o th e r nonwhite s, and norm alizes an enduring racial hie rarchy. This m yth has been enorm ously influentia l. For Asian Am ericans gene rally, the re is a real tem ptation to be placated, to finally join white s a t the ir location in the racia l hie rarchy, even if racism m ay prevent its com ple te success. For Asian Am ericans (and Asians) who want to be a part of the profession, one way to de flect som e racism and to no longe r be bothe red by the w a ll o f incom pre he nsion , the la ck o f m e n to rs , a nd the derogated philosophies is sim ply to succum b. This tem ptation, then, is a lso a dynam ic of Asian Am erican identity.15 Endnotes 1. Of course , m any a re "1.5 ge ne ra tion" im m igrants w ho be gan the ir education in the U.S. in high school or college . 2. The APA has a lways collapsed this distinction, lum ping toge the r Asians and Asian Am e ricans in a ll of its de m ographic ana lyse s. Through the advocacy of a Chine se Am e rican philosophe r, Gary Mar (a t SUNY, Stony Brook), the APA has re ce ntly expande d the scope of its Com m ittee on Asians to include issues of Asian Am erican conce rn – he nce the ne w title "Com m itte e on Asian and Asian Am erican Philosophe rs and Philosophie s". 3. Thanks go to Michae l Om i for passing the se acronym s a long during his presentation at the Asian Am erican Philosophy and Critical Race Theory pane l a t the 76th Pacific Division Mee ting of the APA (March 29, 2001). The re is som e re se a rch tha t sugge sts tha t such a la rge Asian Am erican pre sence in these and othe r unive rsitie s has re sulted in subtle racia l exclusion in adm issions processes. See Dana Takagi, The Retreat from Race (New Brunswick: Rutge rs Unive rsity Press, 1992). The idea seem s to be that a lthough Asian pre sence is good, you can't have too m any of them . Also, I have focused on m ainland unive rsitie s since it is obvious that unive rsitie s in Hawaii are Asian and Pacific Islande r dom inant. In fact, the ove rwhe lm ing pre sence of these Pacific "Othe rs" m ay be an im portant reason why Hawaii is o fte n m a rke d o ff from the re st o f the U.S. in the Am e rica n im agina tion. Though, in te re stingly, it can be e asily re c la im e d in patriotic rem em brances of Pearl Harbor. 4. Se e , for e xam ple , Lisa Lowe 's Im m igrant Acts (Durham : Duke Unive rsity Pre ss, 1996) and David Pa lum bo-Lui's Asian/Am erican (Stanford: Stanford Unive rsity Pre ss, 1999). 5. See Alexande r Saxton, The Indispensable Enem y: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movem ent in California (Be rke le y, CA: Unive rsity of Ca lifo rn ia Pre s s , 1971) ; Su c h e n g Ch a n , e d ., En try De n ie d (Philade lphia : Te m ple Unive rsity Pre ss, 1992); and Noe l Ignatie v, How the Irish Becam e W hite (New York: Routledge Pre ss, 1995). 6. Actually, the Asian Am erican com m unity seem s to be bifurcated in te rm s of im m igration. A large subse t of the com m unity consists of 3rd, 4th, and even 5th gene ration Asian Am ericans, but a large r subse t is com prised by post-1965 im m igrants. 7. For a short exce llent history of Asian Am erica , see Gary Okihiro, Margins and Mainstream s (Seattle : Unive rsity of Washington Press, 1994) . 8. The re are m any othe r disparitie s. Although som e Germ an and Ita lian Am e ricans w e re in te rroga te d by law e nforce m e nt during WWII, only Japanese Am ericans (som e 110,000) were he rded en m asse into concentra tion cam ps. Less we ll known is that the U.S. use d its influe nce in La tin Am e rica to e xtrad ite m any Japane se Latin Am ericans and place them as we ll in concentra tion cam ps. Canada a lso had its ve rsion of this fede ral policy. The incarce ration of "ne farious Japs", then, was a phenom enon of the entire Am ericas. In addition, unlike European im m igrants, m any Asian im m igrants le ft countrie s that were explicitly or sem i-colonized by the U.S. For exam ple , a large proportion of post-1965 im m igration issued from the Philippines, Korea, and Vie tnam . The U.S. stands unique am ong im pe ria l We ste rn pow e rs in having exclusive ly Pacific and La tin Am erican colonie s or sem i-colonie s. This is a fecund fact that has not been fully acknowledged even in critical race theory. 9. Th e c la ss ic te xt on o rie n ta lism is o f c ou rse Ed w a rd Sa id 's Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978), but for an application of som e of his gene ral ideas to the specifically Asian Am erican context, see Robe rt Lee 's Orientals (Philade lphia: Tem ple Unive rsity Pre ss, 1999) a n d He n ry Yu 's Th in k in g Orie n ta ls ( Ne w Yo rk: Oxfo rd Unive rsity Pre ss, 2001). 10. Cle a rly, a fte r Se pte m be r 11, South Asian Am e ricans have in addition been targe ted by anti-Arabic and anti-Muslim pre judice . 11. The se sta tistics a re take n from , Am erican Attitudes Tow ard Chinese Am ericans and Asian Am ericans: A Com m ittee of 100 Survey. The ir website is www.com m itte e 100.org. 12. On the im portance and com plexity of trust in race re la tions, I h a ve le a rn e d a gre a t d e a l fro m La u re n c e Th o m a s ' "Mo ra l - APA New sletter, Spring 2002, Volum e 01, Num ber 2 - - 28 - A SIAN/A SIAN A M ERICAN De fe re n c e ", re p rin te d in Cyn th ia W ille tt , e d ., Th e o riz in g Multiculturalism (Malde n: Blackwe ll Pre ss, 1998). 13. Fo r a n e xc e lle n t c ritiq u e o f th e m a rgin a liza tio n o f As ia n philosophy (and Asian wom en in philosophy), see Yoko Arisaka's "Asian Wom en: Invisibility, Locations, and Claim s to Philosophy" in Na o m i Za c k, e d ., W o m e n o f Co lo r a n d Ph ilo so ph y ( Ma ld e n : Blackw e ll Pre ss, 2000). 14. For m ore on this notion, se e Charle s Mills, Blackness Visible ( Ithaca : Corne ll Unive rsity Pre ss: 1999) , e sp . h is chapte r "NonCarte sian Sum s". 15. I would like to thank Yoko Arisaka and Rowena Tom aneng, for critical discussion of this short e ssay, and the editors, Xinyan Jiang and Vrinda Dalm iya, for facilita ting this expansion of the dia logue on Asians, Asian Am ericans, and philosophy. Finally, I would like to tha nk Linda Ma rtín Alcoff fo r p rovid ing the in itia l im pe tus a nd subsequent recom m endations for m y re flections on this topic. PART II: ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS Hao Wang and Mathem atical Logic Charles Parsons Hao Wang is known for his contributions to m athem atical logic, com pute r science , and philosophy. He was a native of China and cam e from the re to the Unite d Sta te s in 1946. Except for a five -year inte rval in England, he rem ained in the US for the re m ainde r of his life . Afte r the ope ning up of re lations be tween the US and the People 's Republic of China, however, he renewed his own re lations with China and visited the re a lre ady in 1972, and a num be r of tim e s the re a fte r. Although he becam e a US citizen in 1967, Wang would have resisted characte rization as an Asian-Am erican. I be lieve he thought of h im se lf a s sim ply Chine se , a m e m be r of the Chinese diaspora that has existed for centurie s. Wang was born in Jinan, Shandong, China, May 20, 1921. He obtained a B. Sc. in m athem atics and an M. A. in philosophy in wartim e China.1 In 1946 he cam e to Harvard to study logic and philosophy. He rece ived his Ph.D. in 1948 and was a Junior Fe llow of the Socie ty of Fe llows at Harvard until 1951. From then until 1961 he taught philosophy at Harvard and then Oxford. He re turned to Harvard in 1961 as Gordon McKay Professor of Mathem atical Logic and Applied Mathem atics. But in 1966 he went to the Rockefe lle r Unive rsity as a visiting professor; the next year he becam e professor, e stablishing a research group in logic. He m ade Rockefe lle r an active center, especially of research in se t theory. After the group was broken up by the Rocke fe lle r adm inistra tion in 1976, only Wang rem ained, even beyond his re tirem ent in 1991. He died in New York May 13, 1995. Wang was a philosopher from early on and published his first philosophical e ssay be fore he le ft China. However, the prim ary fie ld of his early work was logic, and his publications through the early 1960s are large ly in m athem atical logic. He published a large num ber of papers, m ost of which up to 1960 are included in A Survey of Mathem atical Logic (1962). One significant contribution arose from W. V. Quine 's a ttem pt in his book Mathem atical Logic2 to add classes to the se ts of his well-known system New Foundations (NF). The axiom Quine proposed was shown inconsistent by J. Barkley Rosser in 1942. Wang analyzed the situation thoroughly and devised the axiom tha t be st e xpre sse d the in te nde d ide a , w hich w a s the n incorpora te d into the re vise d e dition of the book.3 Wang gave a m ode l-theore tic proof that if NF is consistent then his revision is a lso consistent. Pe rhaps encouraged by the year (1950-51) that he spent in Zürich under the auspices of Paul Bernays, Wang worked throughout the 1950s on questions of the re la tive strength of axiom system s, particularly se t theorie s. He was a pionee r in the post-w ar re se arch re viving He rm ann We yl's ide a tha t m a the m a tic s m igh t be d e ve lope d in a w a y tha t a vo id s im predicative se t existence assum ptions. He also contributed to the e ffort of logicians of the tim e to analyze predicative de finability. Wang gained practical expe rience with com pute rs early on, and som e of the pape rs he published around 1960 are significant work on the borde r be tween logic and com pute r science , long be fore "logic in com pute r science" becam e a fie ld w ith hundre ds of publica tions e ve ry ye ar. The be st known of these pape rs reports program s that proved all the theorem s of propositional and predicate logic in Principia Mathem atica in a few m inutes. By using the kind of logical analysis pionee red by Herbrand and Gentzen, he was able to im prove substantia lly on the previous work of Newell, Shaw, and Sim on. Possibly his m ost significant result in m athem atical logic was the proof, obtained with A. S. Kahr and E. F. Moore in 1961, that the gene ral decision problem for first-orde r logic can be reduced to that for the class of quantificational form ulas of the form "For a ll x, som e y, and all z, M(x, y, z)", where M contains no quantifie rs, so that sa tisfiability of form ulas in that class is undecidable . Wang's prolific writing in logic included expository and historical work, which is to be found in A Survey and in som e of his philosophical writings, e specially From Mathem atics to Philosophy (hereafte r FMP). But he wrote only one expository book on logic, Popular Lectures on Mathem atical Logic, based on lectures given in China. Wang's e a rly philosophica l w ritings a re short c ritica l pieces, varied in content.4 Longer pieces in the 1950s stay close to logic and the foundations of m athem atics but express a point of view owing m uch to the European work be fore the second world war. Probably his first really distinctive extended philosophical essay is "Process and existence in m athem atics" (1961). This e ssay clearly re flects reading of Wittgenste in's Re m a rk s on the Founda tions o f Ma the m a tics , a lthough W ittge n ste in 's n a m e is n o t m e n tio n e d . Th e n o tio n o f pe rspicuous proof, the que stion w he the r a m athe m atica l sta tem ent changes its m eaning when a proof of it is found, the question whe the r contradictions in a form alization are a se rious m atte r for m athem atical practice and applications, and a Wittgenste inian line of criticism of logicist reductions of sta tem ents about num bers are a ll to be found in Wang's essay. But it could only have been written by a logician fam iliar with com pute rs. Com pute rs and Wittgenste in enable Wang to present issues about logic in a m ore concre te way than is typical in logical lite rature then or la te r. This e ssay also exhibits a style characte ristic of Wang's philosophical writing, which is to present a ce rtain am ount of the re levant logic and m athem atics, to look at the issues from