Studies on Pascal's Mathematics in Japan: An Example of the Integration of the Arts and Sciences

Abstract

This paper examines the collaboration of mathematicians and humanists, like philosophers and researchers of French literature, in Japan in discussing Blaise Pascal's mathematical thought from approximately 1940. The mathematicians who realized the difference between mathematics and historical studies of mathematics, and their collaboration with humanists resulted in the fruitful accumulation of their works. As a result, Kokiti Hara, a Japanese scholar of French literature, successfully published internationally influential papers on Pascal's mathematics from 1961 on, before the establishment of the research field of the history of mathematics in Japan in approximately 1970. This process provides an example of how we can integrate the arts and sciences.