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科学知识可能有社会史吗?许多人认为没有。当某种陈述或信念被认为是科学知识时,人们通常是说该陈述或信念与事实或“事情的实际情况”(how thingsreally are)相“符合”(correspond)。科学知识是“真理”知识,而真理只有一个,真理知识不会因人因时而有所改变。“如果真理有多种面孔,那么其中没有一个值得信任和尊敬”。科学史或许有社会史,但那是科学的“外部史”——科学体制化的历史,与科学知识的内在发展逻辑无涉。随着科学社会研究中的建构主义(constructivism)的兴起,上述科学史观受到了根本动摇。20世纪70年代以来,以史蒂文·夏平(Steven Shapin)为代表的新一代科学史家,通过大量的历史个案研究,试图揭示历史上的科学的“多重实在”(multiple realities),把科学知识的真理性建构与当时当地的社会秩序建构直接联系起来。他们的工作成为新的科学编史学或建构主义科学编史学的主要基础。本文主要以夏平的工作为例,对这种科学编史学的建构主义纲领、它的思想与研究风格等做简要评述。
Can scientific knowledge have a social history? Many people think that there is no. When a statement or belief is considered scientific knowledge, it is often said that the statement or belief is “fact” or “correspond” with the facts or “things”. Scientific knowledge is “truth ” knowledge, and there is only one truth, truth knowledge will not be changed from time to time. “If the truth has many faces, then none of them deserve trust and respect.” The history of science may have a history of society, but that is the history of the “external history” of science - the institutionalization of science that has nothing to do with the inherent developmental logic of scientific knowledge. With the rise of constructivism in the study of scientific society, the above-mentioned view of the history of science has been fundamentally shaken. Since the 1970s, a new generation of science historians represented by Steven Shapin tried to reveal the “multiple realities” of history in science through a large amount of historical case studies, The establishment of the truth of scientific knowledge is directly linked with the construction of local social order at the time. Their work became the main foundation of a new science historiography or constructivist science historiography. This paper mainly takes Xia Ping's work as an example to make a brief comment on the constructivism program of this scientific historiography, its thinking and research style.