“如何认识科学”(十六):科学知识与社会建构--大卫·凯里对史蒂文·夏平的访谈

How to Think about Science( XVI) : Scientific Knowledge and Social Construction

史蒂文·夏平认为,有一个独立于我们思想的世界;但当我们开始描绘这个世界和谈论这个世界时,我们是在谈论文化的实在。科学在所有的方式下都是社会性的;这绝对没有破坏其真理的断言,真理同样以自然的、社会的方式存在。在《利维坦和空气泵》中,通过重现波义耳和霍布斯之间关于科学知识可靠性的争论,作者挑战了科学革命作为一个简单和大一统事件的标准形象,展现了科学知识社会建构的维度。在《真理社会史》中,夏平继续为撼动被认为是标准的科学观念作出努力,挑战"科学是建立在普遍怀疑的基础之上的"观点,认为科学不是依赖于系统的怀疑而是依赖于系统的信任。在现代社会中,科学已变得非常重要,它被权力机构和制造财富所包围,这是科学获得巨大成功并获得不断增加的影响力的标志;但这也导致人们相信其中有某些危险。因此,我们有必要理解:科学知识是什么类型的知识,与科学判断有关的是一种什么样的确定性,在公共事务中科学能够起到和扮演什么样的作用。

Steven Shapin thinks that there is a world independent of our thoughts. But when we start to represent and talk about the world, we're talking about cultural entities in fact. In any way, science is social, which is no negation of its character of the truth. The truth also is existed in the way of nature and social. In Leviathan and the Air Pump, by recreating the controversy about the reliability of scientific knowledge proposed by Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle, the writer challenges to the standard image of the Scientific Revolution as a simple and monolithic event. Shapin continues his efforts to change the concept that the science is standard in A Social History of Truth. One of the challenges is to the idea that science stands on a foundation of universal doubts. He thinks that science is based on the trust of the system, while not the doubt. In modern society, science has become very important. It has been enfolded by power and wealth, which is a sign of the great success and increasing influence of science. But this also leads people to believe that there is a risk about it. Because of this, we have to understand that scientific knowledge belongs to which kind of knowledge, which kind of certainty about scientific judge is, and which role science can play in public affairs.