Abstract
As one of the three panellists on the topic of proof within the Western and the Eastern cultural traditions, the author focuses on the ‘algorithmic’ and ‘dialectic’ aspects of doing mathematics with some illustrative examples taken from both the Western and Eastern worlds. The author argues that both mathematical traditions incorporate and use both aspects in constructing proofs.
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Notes
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The Confucianist School and the Legalist School were two streams of thought in ancient China, which would be too vast a subject to be explained, even in brief, here. If suffices to point out that the Legalist School maintained that good government was based on law and authority instead of on special ability and high virtue of the ruler who set an exemplar to influence the people. In particular, the story of shields and halberds was employed to stress that the two legendary leaders, Yao and Shun, whom the Confucianist School extolled as sage-kings, could not be both held in high regard.
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Acknowledgement
I wish to thank Gila Hanna, John Holt and Sarah-Jane Patterson for the careful editing of my contribution.
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Siu, M.K. (2012). Proof in the Western and Eastern Traditions: Implications for Mathematics Education. In: Hanna, G., de Villiers, M. (eds) Proof and Proving in Mathematics Education. New ICMI Study Series, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2129-6_19
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