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Irving H. Anellis, Joong Fang (1923–2010), Philosophia Mathematica, Volume 18, Issue 2, June 2010, Pages 137–143, https://doi.org/10.1093/philmat/nkq008
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Joong Fang, the founder and first editor of Philosophia Mathematica, died at his home in James Store, Virginia, U.S.A., on 16 February 2010.
Fang was editor of the first and second series of Philosophia Mathematica, from 1964 to 1992. He was the author of over 30 books and over 30 papers, distributed over philosophy and mathematics, many at the intersection of the two fields. In writing about the history of mathematics and philosophy of mathematics, he created, along the way, the new field of sociology of mathematics. His book Sociology of Mathematics and Mathematicians: A Prolegomenon [1975], co-authored with sociologist of religion Kaoru Peter Takayama, is the founding document of the new field. The overarching conclusion of the Sociology of Mathematics and Mathematicians is that it was the continuous questioning search for truth, most thoroughly exemplified by Plato’s dialogues, that typified the Athenian way of thinking that enabled the development of exact science. Behind the questioning was an effort to begin with definitions that would be precise, accurate, and apodictically secure. The ‘logico-analytic’ approach, underwritten per definitionem and adopted by Hellenic and Hellenistic mathematicians, stood in strong contrast with the ‘historico-analogical’ approach underwritten per analogiam that served as the basis of oriental thought, as found most readily in the Analects of Confucius (Kung Fu-chi, referred to by Fang as ‘Concius’ in order to separate out any explicit religious tone from the philosophical).
