The rapid rise of science, technology, and society (STS) studies in East Asia during the past two decades can be characterized by a series of remarkable events. STS studies are beginning to diversify and take on forms within academia both permanent and official; the number of researchers is growing at high speed; several associations and societies have been established. These communities communicate regularly, and since 2002 they have taken turns holding the annual East Asian STS-Network Conference. Moreover, Taiwan's National Science Council founded this very journal in 2007.
When we trace the trajectory of STS studies in Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and China, we find that philosophy of science has played an important role in the success of this new discipline. In Korea the program for history and philosophy of science at Seoul National University trained many of the country's leading STS scholars. In Japan the University of Tokyo established its Department of History and Philosophy of Science as early as 1951—though the word society was avoided until the 1980s. During the 1970s Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions influenced and even dominated the third stage of Japanese STS, in large part due to the work of Shigeru Nakayama 中山茂, who had studied with Kuhn (Nakajima 2007). In Taiwan several philosophers of science engaged in promoting the development and growth of STS studies. In China almost all the discipline's researchers come from philosophy of science and technology—what was long known as the “dialectics of nature.” Anyone who is interested in the development of East Asian STS studies should begin by looking at its relation to philosophy of science.
