Ian Hacking, the distinguished Canadian philosopher of science, visited Taiwan in November 2007 and stayed for 19 days, at the invitation of Professor Yuann Jeu-Jenq at National Taiwan University. During his visit, Professor Hacking delivered a series of four lectures: "On the Historical Roots of Scientific Reason", "Where do Mathematical Objects come from?", "The Laboratory Style of Thinking and Doing", and "Realism and Anti-realism". The first two were keynote speeches given at the Fourth International Conference on Experiences and Truth, which was held at Department of Philosophy in NTU. The third lecture was delivered at the Hacking Workshop organized by STM, and the last one was addressed to Department of Philosophy at Soochow University.

In Canadian Journal of Sociology 2004, Steve Fuller had reviewed Hacking's Historical Ontology (2002), and he wrote: 「Hacking is unique as a synthesist of the best of recent Anglo-American and French thought, which is probably the most natural role for a Canadian to occupy in the global intellectual conversation.」 Surely I agree that Professor Hacking is a great synthesist and more, but I don't understand why it would take a canadian to achieve that. For me, Hacking is a unique philosopher originated from the world of analytic philosophy and mathematics, who can excel both in analytic philosophy and French thought in the age of Cold War, and he is also someone who can serve as a much needed bridge between historistic philosophy of science and social constuctivistism in the age of Science War.

It is my pleasure and also pressure, to present my short and premature review of Professor Hacking's book Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Science of Memory. (Hacking, 1995). As a long-term admirer of Professor Hacking, I found it difficult for me to jump out of Professor Hacking's frame to analyze the issues regarding memory, history, and truth as presented in his book. In my angst to find out a good enough question to address in reviewing the book, I encountered a 40-year-old patient Lin, who was brought to me by her family. The patient insisted that the woman M, who lived with her for thirty more years and claimed to be her mother, was actually not her mother. The other family members said the patient was absolutely deluded. The patient said the truth came to her all of a sudden with strong emotions during her cult meditation. To her, it was like all pieces of puzzle finally were put together in her mind.

It is always difficult to review something which is broad in concept and rich in contents. Historical Ontology is certainly one of these. Therefore, what I am going to do in this review is both selective and deductive. I first select what according to me the most essential parts of the book, then deduce some ideas which appear to be in sequence to the parts I select. They of course do not form a systematic structure, but a very limited reflection on a book which is characterized by a collection of papers manifesting nonetheless an essential part of Hacking's philosophy.

1. Hacking's entity realism

I. Introduction

The main concern of our paper is this: Will the account of science fostered by Professor Hacking's recent explanatory model of the development of various 「styles of scientific thinking」 (SSTs) be acceptable to social constructivists and scientific realists (the two extremes in the debate of science)? Or, will the account be preferred by only one side? More specifically, will the account of science fostered by Hacking's new approach be more like an internal explanation of the development of science, an external explanation, or a hybrid explanation?

By 「external」 explanation,」 we mean the explanation uses social, psychological, and other non-evidential factors to explain the stable development of science. An 「internal」 explanation, however, applies evidence-based factors. Social constructivists prefer the former explanation; scientific realists favor the latter one.