Abstract
Prof. Kuo-shu Yang, a pioneer for advocating the indigenization movement of Chinese psychology in Taiwan, passed away on July 17, 2018. In order to provide a fair evaluation on his contribution to the field of indigenous psychology, this chapter reviews his previous debates with colleagues from the scientific community of Taiwan on the major topics of his research interest, namely, modernity and traditionality, as well as global psychology and indigenous compatibility. Several well-established international scholars were invited to make the same evaluation on the basis of K. S. Yang’s (2012) last publication entitled “Indigenous psychology, Westernized psychology, and indigenized psychology: A non-Western Psychologist’s perspective.” As one of his students and a life-long colleague of indigenization movement, I will consider the socio-cultural backgrounds for Yang to propose his academic ideas, make my evaluation from the perspective of Western philosophy of science, and incorporate the international scholars’ comments on Yang’s works into the context of his long-term dialectical debate with colleagues of local academic community. This chapter will be concluded with a case to illustrate the epistemological strategy for my cultural system approach in contrast to Yang’s insistence on the inductive approach of empirical research so as to indicate a possible outlet for the future development of indigenous psychology.
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Hwang, KK. (2020). Philosophical Reflection on Prof. K.S. Yang’s Vision of Global Psychology and Indigenous Compatibility. In: Sundararajan, L., Hwang, KK., Yeh, KH. (eds) Global Psychology from Indigenous Perspectives. Palgrave Studies in Indigenous Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35125-0_4
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