提供证据——库仑扭秤和法国启蒙理性文化

Providing Evidence: C.A. Coulomb's “Balance électrique” and the Culture of French Enlightened Rationality

当代物理学把库仑定律作为自然科学的基石之一。18世纪80年代,作为工程师和自然哲学家的库仑用他的扭秤进行了一系列实验,为一条自然科学定律提供了经验证据。其后,历史学家和物理学家们重复了这个实验,但发现几乎不可能得到可靠的实验结果作为证据来证明这条平方反比律。为什么在18世纪晚期的法国,这个实验可以作为证据?在对该事件证据语境的进一步历史考察中可以发现,在证据概念和有能力提供证据的人之间,存在着某种重要的历史关联。在为需证明的事实提供必要的证据语境方面,库仑在其实验中用到的扭秤装置扮演了尤其重要的角色,因为这个实验工具起到了一种传导宏观的法国启蒙理性文化的作用。

This paper investigates the evidential context of a natural law. Physics today considers Coulomb's law as one of the building blocks of their science. In the 1780 s the engineer and natural philosopher Charles A. Coulomb had performed experiments with his 'balance electrique' claiming that he had provided empirical evidence for a natural law. Historians and physicists have reworked the experiment and shown that it would be impossible to achieve reliable results that would provide evidence for this inverse square law. Hence the question arises why in the late 18 th century France this experiment became considered as proof ? Further historical investigation into the evidential context of this fact reveals that there existed an important historical connection between the concept of evidence and that of the persons capable of giving evidence. In particular Coulomb's torsion balance employed in his experiment played an important role in establishing the necessary evidential context for this fact because the instrument acted like a mediating technology in the much broader French enlightened culture of rationality.