‘Syndrome differentiation' based on syndrome elements is an important achievement in the study of differentiation in contemporary Chinese medicine.It clearly puts the use of syndrome elements should be taken as the essence and core of syndrome differentiation to grasp complex and diverse syndromes and syndrome types,which provides a new method for TCM syndrome differentiation to hold simplicity and control complexity.At the same time,the syndrome differentiation also reflects a rich thinking method.From the perspective of philosophy of science...