Scholars' recreation of two traditions of mathematical commentaries in late eighteenth-century China (Q2359605)

The purpose of this article is a detailed commented English translation of the three following quasi-trivial arithmetical problems, namely: (1) given that the rate of the precession of fixed stars is equal to a given number of seconds per years, in how many years will they respectively move eastwards one (Chinese) degree, \textit{du}, (2) one `palace' (or the 12th part of a celestial revolution), (3) one complete celestial revolution. In each case, the author provides a minute analysis of the way conversion of units, divisions and numerous other simple arithmetical procedures are tackled and justified or not. Then, the author concludes that they reveal two distinct traditions of mathematical practice called by him, very vaguely, a ``Confucian tradition'' and a ``mathematical tradition'', namely a ``tradition'' following certain aspects of commentaries of the \textit{Jiuzhang suanshu} (Nine chapters). Beyond this interesting but limited and partial topic, the author rightly explains that these questions insert themselves in the wider context of various academic problems, ``notably the problem of the mathematical datation of ancient Chinese texts'' tackled by ``evidential'' Chinese scholars of the Qianlong (1736--1795) and Jiaqing era (1796--1820) such as Jiang Sheng (1721--1799), Qian Daxin (1728--1804), Li Rui (1768--1817), Sun Xingyan (1753--1818) and others. Despite these welcomed but well-known explanations, however, the article contains some imprecisions due to broad generalizations or characterizations of Chinese domains of knowledge the nature of which is taken for granted without explanations. For instance, the author uses the notion of ``culture'' in such a way that this notion hardly concerns more than the already mentioned scholar Li Rui. Likewise, Chinese astronomy is restrictively called ``astral science'' as though it were an exclusively irrational domain having nothing to do at all with astronomy as generally understood by historians of Chinese science, namely a domain of knowledge also having extremely developed observational and mathematical aspects.